I just bought my 3715 a week ago. I've been doing weeks of research b4 buying it. The specs isn't the most sophisticated tech available at present, but in my opinion, it satisfy much of my need. I have hp4700 too. This is a damned powerful pocket pc. However, after using it for some time, I realised that I don't need a powerful pda but a more compact (in term of size) and feature-full one.

If you are not fancy of a pda-phone, 3715 is a good choice, as far as I am concern, because it has "everything" and is good enough for any pocket-pc softwares available currently.

I have WisbarAdvance2 with Juni's SWDeluxe skin suite, spb pocket plus, resco Today plugin, pocket breeze, Marsware WeatherPanel, calligrapher8, trancreative remote keyboard and pocketcontroller Pro all ran on startup and there is just a mere 5 to 10 seconds of lag behind my 4700. Starting my PocketInformant is also very smooth. Regular maintenance with software such as Pocket HackMaster and SKTool may help you to maintain it's system efficiency.

3715 has a relatively huge 96MB of formatable-usable ROM. You can install all your vital programs here and preserve the 56MB of RAM for program memory and Internet cache. In this way, your system will run more efficiently.

I have also many softwares such as dictionaries, readers and skyscape-medical programs installed on my pretec 133x 1Gigas SD card. Running the programs from card is just as fast as running them directly from internal RAM or ROM. I'll say you need a fast SD card for fast performance. At least, 3715 does not show the limit.

Playing music files with 3715 with its pre-installed ipaq mobile media and earphones (come with it in the box) is excellent!!!! (Quality-wise and good experienxe with the cool software). Simply turn it into a mp3 player anytime. It works well with my Jabra and gg03 bluetooth headset too!!

For me, size does matter. 3715 feels very nice on my palm. It fits my pocket well. Portability is one pro of 3715. Carrying my 4700 gives me a feel of carrying a small laptop. You won't like it for a pda.

The screen size is 3.5" with 320 x 480 resolution and NO VGA (QVGA is not VGA emkay!). Nevertheless, the screen is very bright; antialiased fonts are smooth enough for reading though not as good as VGA screen (Non-cleartype text on VGA is even better than cleartype text on non-VGA screen). If you are looking for something looks like a notebook display, go for VGA models and expect for a larger screen, more bulky unit and a few more bucks to spend. VGA does not impress me much in this way.

The only thing I don't like bout its screen is the "yellow tint" visible on a white background. You'll never get pure white display on 3715.

It's camera snap pictures well under daylight and "serve no function at night". LOL. coz it does not have a flash or illuminator. Unless you have a torch with you or expect All-Blacks. Don't ask me bout the picture quality. 1.2MP is 1.2MP. Remember, you r buying a pda, not a camera. Go google and enter "ipaq 3715 sample pictures" to see some samples lor. Viewing images and video on the screen is cool.

What I meant by "everything" earlier on includes it's good (but not top) system performance, average screen, WiFi + Bluetooth (must have!), compact design, internal memory, 1.2MP camera, affordable (or rather value for money), bundle softwares like nevo home control and mobile media (for ur info, 3715 is designed as a mobile media companion, it's 4-way joystick looks much like a black ipod's one.

Other than phone function and WindowsMobile 5, what else you wanna ask for? Believe me, you can't go wrong with it, at least for the next 1 - 2 years to come.
I'm not sure whether it's upgradable to WM5 or not, I hope it can. I like the single-hand navigation ability of WM5.

The models that I have excluded b4 making my final decision for 3715 are:

- AximX50v (Very powerful, with 3D capability, longer than 3715 and has no camera. As far as I am concern 50v is much more value for money. We must also understand that different PDA suits different people better in certain ways. As I was looking for a compact and an all-in-one pocket pc, 3715 gave me more ticks.

- Palm LifeDrive (too bulky) and Tungsten T5. At first, thinking of Palm because of availability medical softwares. Medical softwares were so limited for PPC few years back. This is no longer true. I have plenty of skyscape programs now running on both my 4700 and 3715.

- ipaq 2750 - this is good if not better than 3715. Again size does matter lor. If you r desperate for a Windows Mobile 5 OS, this is a good option. LowYat stores are offering Free upgrade to WM5 and a compact-flash camera.

- Some other pda also lar. Have not really look into smartphones coz I'm not fancy of it (and for the price, I rather buy a seperate phone). Those that I like are ipaq ipaq6500, O2 XDA IIs, Palm treo 650. Hey guys, are you aware that Palm is has came out with a WindowsMobile-based Treo? Does this signify the begining of the end-era of Palmsource? Palm OS6 is yet released, I still hope to see it in the market!!


I went to LowYatt yesterday, the rm1588 promo (standard package + 1Gig SD + extra case + screen protector + "so called 1-yr software service") is still there.


I got mine for only RM1150 with screen protector, also from lowyat. I bought my own 1 Gig SD card (Pretec 133x) for RM210 and Silicone case for RM68.
1150 + 210 + 68 = RM1428.. more worthy lor. The SD card is high speed one. Wanted to find 150x one but couldn't find.


By the way, I'm pure Malaysian Chinese. Takuma is my nick on some websites, hoshiro another nick. Haha, many more actually. Muthu lar, Ah Kau lar, auntieannie lar, LOL... But this is the first time I join lowyat.net forum. I didn't know bout this forum b4. My first impression is that this forum is great. I wonder why I have not found this earlier.

BYE BYE!!!

This post has been edited by takuma.hoshiro: Oct 12 2005, 03:58 AM

Just found out that for PDA, you don't need a fast SD card. The maximum you can run is only 20x - 30x, so it is not necessary to have a highspeed card. A standard speed card will do. Sorry for wrong info.

Sorry for didn't reply. Did not notice that.

I bought it 2 month ago. That price is considered damn expensive now. Yes, u can get it at +/-RM1100. My colleague said he got one set last week for RM1100 standard package + 1GB SDCard from "Freshgear" (Don't go to the shop, go to it's sub-booth at level 3 just outside Sri Komputer, ask a chinese guy called Ah Wing).

I don't know how true is this coz I long time didn't go Low Yatt oredi. RM1100 is extremely cheap for a PDA that comes with BT, camera, wifi and 1GB SD, and which is still popular.

Some said the price will increase in weeks to come because the stock is getting lesser.

So, grab now if u like it.

Good luck.