iPaq Leak Tips Hewlett-Packard's Hand

CNET catches wind of a leak on HP's U.K. web site that offered details on two yet-to-be announced iPaq hw6700-series devices--the hw6710 and the hw6715. One feature of interest is that the new devices will have a miniSD slot and obviously not support SD cards from earlier models

Gartner analyst Todd Kort said "It is certainly early in the stages for HP to make a full shift to miniSD on its PDAs but it is certainly the direction HP needs to be going because everyone is looking to keep the weight of these devices down." Kort noted, "The mobile-phone market has already started the transition to miniSD."

The new devices will also use Microsoft Windows Mobile 2005 with cell phone capabilities, but Kort predicts they will most likely be used as a data device first, which is why Gartner categorizes the iPaq family as PDAs. HP "currently ranks third in overall device shipments behind Research In Motion and Palm, according to the most recent PDA shipment report published by Gartner."

This is a good move by HP because the mobile industry needs to standardize on a memory card format if possible. It's currently too confusing for consumers with all the various formats out there, making content portability an issue. Plus my current smartphone uses a miniSD card as well...