HP iPaq Glisten (photos)

HP's back with a new smartphone for the U.S. market. Check out CNET's hands-on photo gallery of the HP iPaq Glisten.

Bonnie Cha

Dec. 15, 2009 11:25 a.m. PT

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HP iPaq Glisten

It's been well over a year since we've seen an HP smartphone for the U.S. market, but the company's back with the HP iPaq Glisten, a new messaging smartphone for AT&T. It's available now for $179.99 with a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate.

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Basic messaging smartphone

The iPaq Glisten doesn't offer a lot of bells and whistles, but will provide business users with the most-essential tools. The smartphone runs Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Edition and supports the full range of wireless options.

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On the wider side

The iPaq Glisten measures 2.48 inches wide by 4.45 inches high by 0.52 inch thick and weighs 5.29 ounces. The smartphone is on the wider side so it's a bit of a handful when on a phone call and can be a tight fit in a pants pocket.

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AMOLED touch screen

The iPaq Glisten features a 2.5-inch AMOLED touch screen, which should be one of the smartphone's highlights since AMOLED displays are brighter, sharper, and consume less power than standard LCDs. However, it has such a low resolution that you don't really see any of the benefits. In addition, the smaller screen size doesn't bode well for the touch user interface.

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Navigation controls

Aside from the touch screen, you do get a few navigation controls, including Talk and End keys, a Start menu launcher, an OK button, and a directional keypad.

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QWERTY keyboard

The HP iPaq Glisten has an easy-to-use full QWERTY keyboard. It features large, domed buttons with clear lettering and ample backlight, so we had very little problem using the keyboard.

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Right side

On the right side of the smartphone, you'll find a 3.5mm headphone jack and a Micro-USB port.

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Camera

On back, you'll find the smartphone's 3.1-megapixel camera. It offers up to 5x digital zoom, various camera settings, and video-recording capabilities, and HP includes a mobile version of its Photosmart software so you can edit photos right on your device.

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Picture quality

Picture quality could definitely be better. There's a bit of shutter lag, so even though we held the phone still after pressing the capture key, more often than not, we ended up with a blurry image.