Details are very slim but as it launched its first smartphone in India, HP also revealed that it plans to offer another half dozen by the end of the year. Unfortunately, no details on these devices are available yet. What we need is a roadmap like the one from HTC?
For now, HP India has launched the quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE candybar HP iPAQ 512 Voice Messenger smartphone which packs a 200MHz TI OMAP processor, Windows Mobile 6 Standard, 64MB RAM and 128MB ROM, a 2.0-inch 176×220 display, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, support for VoIP and push-email, Bluetooth 1.2, and a microSD slot. It will sell for Rs14,000 (about US$350) and will target professionals.
Windows Mobile-based smartphones have a very small marketshare (about 1 percent) in India. It will be a big challenge for HP and other Windows Mobile manufacturers to overcome the customer familiarity that Symbian and other OS devices have in this market.