HP iPAQ K3 Obsidian lives it up in the wild, sneaks in a stylus for the nostalgic types
By Paul Miller 
posted Jul 24th 2009 10:10AM
posted Jul 24th 2009 10:10AM
[Via SlashGear]
posted Jul 24th 2009 10:10AM
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link FAIL!!
It was a perfectly fair criticism of an incredibly mediocre product...
...with a stylus no less!
Ugh... now criticizing this comment system is another story entirely. The above post was meant for Wonderkid.
For a second I thought this is a KIRF post.
"That's why it's a little disappointing to see HP's upcoming iPAQ K3 Obsidian handset for AT&T show up with a stylus on board, despite the initial leaked documents we saw that clearly stated otherwise."
Why is it disappointing that it has it? It's not like they're forcing you to use it. A stylus allows buttons to be smaller so you can fit more on a tiny screen, and just prevents fat-fingering in general. The WM 6.5 interface is a nice hybrid of finger-friendliness and stylus-oriented design. You can use your fingers for quick, basic stuff, but if you want to seriously use it for a bit, you whip out the stylus.
My thoughts too. If you want my opinion, as a designer and gadget freek who has been following all this stuff since the 1970s, Engadget does not deserve the hits it receives and it is trashy writing like this article that may well persuade me to give it up and follow more specialist blogs that are better designed, better written and can appreciate good design. While sometimes funny (depending on the writer at the time), being US based, Engadget seems to be more about making attention grabbing comments/headlines than thinking about what it says. Many brilliantly designed and innovative products are criticized while overhyped mediocre products receive too much 'airtime' such as the massive number of 'me too' netbooks and gaming laptops that pad out the articles.
As it happens, the Obsidian, like the Nokia E7X series, is one of the most practical and useful form factors out there - the stylus and touch screen bring back the versatility of the brilliant early P9XX series from Sony Ericsson. Their various user interface options (keyboard, touch screen, hand writing recognition, scroll wheel etc) meant various people's needs were catered for. While I'm no Windows fan, it is this sort of innovation (that HP are renowned for) that should be praised.
It is lack of versatility that is keeping me from buying an iPhone. The thing is useless with gloves, has no radio, there isn't even a self timer or shutter release button on the camera. Etc. All said, any publicity is good publicity. Sad, but true.
Likely, they were hoping that WM 6.5 wouldn't NEED stylus use, as everything could possibly be finger-optimized. The inclusion of a stylus shows that HP R&D clearly saw the need for a stylus or else wouldn't have included.
Are you brain damaged? Winmo fails bcs the guys in redmont still think small buttons on the screen is awesome..the game is not about how many thing you can squeeze on your screen its about userfriendlyness and stylus never ever is something nearly usfull like a bigger button which u can press with ur thumb ..
Damn, Wonderkid, that's some pretty harsh (and undeserved) criticism. Are you saying the TUAW, AnandTech, Tom's Hardware, Laptop Mag, and the countless other sites that don't cover a broad spectrum, but give their opinions don't deserve the traffic they receive? This is how the article would look if Paul Miller kept it objective.
"iPAQ K3 Obsidian for ATT:
WM 6.5
2.43 resistive QVGA (OLED)
Scroll Wheel
Read - (READ: Doesn't not work)"
Is that more to your liking?
One of my most used apps on my phone is the Japanese-English dictionary and half the time I'm using it it's to lookup Kanji and there is no way any finger-only touchscreen can handle the detail to do Kanji recognition.
From my perspective taking away the stylus or the ability to use a stylus is a huge drawback. It seems ever since the iPhone came out reviewers and industry insiders are always clamoring for less ability to have detailed input.
So I totally agree with Kamokazi, some of us like added capabilities and more features. If you don't like them nobody is forcing you to use them. Don't ruin it for those of us who demand higher capabilities from our devices.
Agreed - The right tool for the right job. You shouldn't need the stylus for casual use. The interface should be finger friendly. But as long as thats true inclusion of the stylus is not indicative of failure. Its nice to be able to jot down something, draw a little diagram, or accurately select text. My finger is not sharp enough for any of those things.
I want the option.
@swiss
I'm inclined to think you're the brain damaged one with your typing. Resorting to personal attacks is also a good indicator of competency and intelligence.
Microsoft fails for a lot of reasons with WinMo, but mostly due to stability and performance, not so much UI design (slow to adapt from a PDA UI to a Phone UI is the issue). WM does need more finger-friendlyness, and WM 6.5 is a step in that direction, and WM7 should be the real deal that also hopefully addresses the stability and performance concerns too.
There's a reason touch screen computers haven't really taken off...a precise pointing device works better than fingers for most thing. But with a mobile, fingers are convenient. That's why I think a hybrid design is best....finger-friendly for the basics, stylus friendly for the rest. An example is web browsing with Opera, I still prefer to use a stylus because it is easier to click on links that way, despite the finger-friendliness of the UI. (And that's a limitation of websites, not the software) And then there's the screen real-estate thing I mentioned too. The device screen is already small, wasting it with buttons should only be done where necessary.
And I'll be the first one to admit WinMo is not for everyone. That's why we have choices. Just don't knock it because your short-sightedness can't see the benefits.
HAHA.. you are kidding right? Is this guy actually defending the UI paradigm of a stylus in 2009?
Well there would be a stylus, wouldn't there? WinMo only supports resistive displays, thus there's a stylus.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Resistive displays do not require a stylus.
Resistive screens can be touched by anything (finger, stylus, eraser, etc... doesn't matter). Only capacitive screens care about what's touching them (good and bad). Both technologies have their place. The iPhone made it seem capacitive is better, but in reality it's just different. Multitouch was more of the innovation than the screen technology.
WinMo doesn't give a crap what the screen-sensing technology is...it just interprets the press locations fed to it. It can accept input from just about anything. Hell Stowawy even made a bluetooth mouse for WinMo at one time.
And like the other posters said, resistive screens work when anything is pressed against it. Capacitive screens need something grounding/conductive to work with it. A stylus can be modified to do that.
If I had a choice, I would go with resistive (well, a hybrid would be ideal). Capacitive screens are too senstiive for my liking, you can't rest your finger on the screen without setting it off, and you have to touch it with bare fingers or something designed to set it off.
A product can not succeed as long as its name reminds people of the longest war in their history.
iPAQ looks like IRAQ
haahaah, iPAQ like iRAQ and like iPhone TOO!
Idiot.
idiot LIKE Agent .25i
hahahaha
They need to get rid of that honeycomb menu crap. Even on a larger screened device you lose the amount of icons you can get on the screen.
Looks like a Motorola Q with a touchscreen.
Did they rebadge the Moto Q?
They also crapified the keyboard!
HP, stick to computers.
Dell, get in here.
Wow, not even trying to hide the BlackBerry rippoff style anymore... that's blatant.
Well, poop! I thought HPQ was supposed to be on the short list to buy Palm!
The vultures (HPQ, MSFT, AAPL) are definitely circling the (Palm) body as it bloats in the Summer heat...
It looks like a motorola body, with a blackberry keyboard, and similarities to a palm treo.
Looks like a pretty solid business phone for shops that use exchange and prefer winmo. One guy got a treo pro recently, pretty much the same thing, and is content with it.
Anything you can slap a gel skin on to help protect from drops and I'm good with. That would be the downside of smart phones....having to give them to people that destroy gadgets regularly.
Is it just my imagination, or does that scroll wheel look a lot like an optical trackpad???
This is why Windows Mobile sucks, they still use stylus as an input. Disgusting. The iPhone uses a revolutionary multi-touch interface.
...they're obviously in it 4thalulz.
Give me [a] stylus or give me death!
Seriously, there are times when a precision pointer has no better substitute.
WinMo with stylus is so ancient! Where have HP executives been?
Pen/stylus input (quite successful for over 2000 years, and still used by many intelligent people) is a badge of shame, but keyboard entry is still worthy of compliments.
Gee, do you think the digerati are a little aloof from reality of most consumers?