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Features and Buttons

On top of the iPAQ you will notice a standard 3.5 mm Stereo for your ear buds or cassette adapter and in the middle is the IR port. Towards your right you will see the stylus, which is released by a button. I find this is a nice feature to keep your stylus in place so it does not accidentally fly out. When the button for the stylus is pushed, it “ejects” the stylus so you can easily pull it out.

On the face of the iPAQ you will notice several buttons, LEDs, and sensors on the top. On the top left, you will see the Microphone and next to that is the Ambient Light Sensor. I think this is a very nice innovative feature. If you set your backlight on automatic your backlight will basically adjust itself accordingly to your light environment. For example if you’re outside and it’s sunny the backlight will turn itself off. If it’s dim outside the backlight will adjust accordingly to med or low and if you’re in complete darkness it will go to super brightness. It’s a nice feature but for my personal taste I don’t like to use it, I pretty much charge the iPAQ every chance I get so I like the super brightness setting for my backlight plus I it looks so much better like that. Next we have the LED, which flashes yellow when you’re charging or when an alarm goes off. The LED is a steady yellow when it is fully charged. Beside the LED button is the On/Off button. If you hold onto the button the backlight turns on or if the backlight is on you can turn it off to save power.

Near the bottom of the iPAQ you will see four buttons, which by default is mapped to the Calendar, Contacts, Qmenu and QStart. The Qmenu is like a quick start button where you can get access to system setting such as clock, file explorer, and power. The menu is also customizable and you can set which utility you would like to appear or not on the menu. The Qstart is the main area where all your applications sit and are sorted by a drop down menu. For example, you have a category for games, utilities, or applications. The largest button on the iPAQ is probably also the most complicated button. It is basically a 5-way joypad button, which can be pressed and used as a select feature. Another innovative feature is that the speaker is housed right behind the joypad. When you play your voice recordings or MP3s this is where the sound is projected. The volume from the speaker is the loudest I’ve heard from any palm sized PDAs. Although this would probably not be my choice of how I listen to my music, I am quite impressed with the quality it does provide. When I did try the iPAQ with a pair of nice quality headphones, I wouldn’t mind ditching my MP3 player and use my iPAQ for my music needs.

On the left side of the iPAQ is the voice recorder button. It is very conveniently placed and is accessed with the touch of your thumb if you’re right handed. You just hold on to the button and the recording is started. The quality is very good and you can also play around with the recording quality and tweak it if you wish.

On the bottom left, is the AC adapter and next to it is the on/off switch to hard reset the iPAQ. Don’t worry the on/off switch is protected by a slide door and can be accessed with your stylus. When you first receive your iPAQ you must switch it on so you can start charging the battery. In the middle is the communication port where you connect to the cradle or sync cable. Also, behind the communication port is the expansion pack connector, which is unfortunately exposed if you do not use the sleeve to protect it. On the bottom right is the reset button, which can be accessed with the stylus. This just does a soft reset and no data is lost.

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