HP unveils two new iPaq smartphones

HP added two new Windows Mobile handsets, the Data Messenger and Voice Messenger, to its enterprise messenger line of smartphones on Monday. The Data Messenger is a touchscreen slider while the Voice messenger is non-touchscreen candy bar with a Blackberry Pearl-style SureType keyboard. The two phones are business oriented and lack some of the high end features normally found on consumer-oriented phones. The touchscreen Data Messenger has a plain Jane touchscreen that is not multi-touch and does not support gestures. It also ships with an unmodified version of Windows Mobile Professional 6.1. No TouchWiz or TouchFlo-like interface for this baby. Both the Data Messenger and the Voice Messenger also have QVGA resolution screens which is fine for email and texting but not for multimedia or web browsing. HP does step out of box by dropping the traditional D-pad navigation and replacing it with an optical mouse pointer, similar to what is seen on many Samsung phones. They had to add something to the phone to give it just a smidgen of coolness.

HP did not slack on connectivity either as both phones are quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (900/1900/2100 MHz). The Data Messenger and Voice Messenger are expected to retail for €499 ($665) and €399 ($532), respectively and are expected to launch in November on Vodafone. Hit the jump for the specs on each handset.