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Even though the overall PDA market is declining—slowly succumbing to smartphones and cellular-wireless handhelds—a few vendors like Hewlett-Packard still manage to ship ever greater numbers of units by packing them with useful technology.

Take HP's new iPAQ hx2755 for example. The two features that set this PDA apart are its 256 MB of memory (128 MB each of RAM and ROM, with about 192 MB available after subtracting for the Windows Mobile 2003 operating system and included applications) and a built-in biometric fingerprint scanner.

The rest of the hx2755's specifications are commensurate with a high-end Windows Mobile Pocket PCs. It has a top-shelf 624 MHz Intel PXA270 CPU, integrated Wi-Fi (802.11b) and Bluetooth, and slots for both Secure Digital and CompactFlash peripheral and memory expansion cards. While the display is only a standard 3.5-inch type with a QVGA (320 x 200 pixel) resolution, it is as bright and vibrant as any I've seen.


                           Top View with Expansion Slots

Included with the hx2755 is the extremely useful and customizable TodayPanel Lite utility, which makes it convenient to view and adjust various device configuration settings like battery, memory, storage, and brightness, along with often-used application, such as mail, appointments, tasks, etc.


                                    Front View

You would expect a PDA with an integrated fingerprint scanner to be necessarily larger than the typical device, but in this case you'd be wrong. At 5.8 ounces and dimensions of 4.71 x 3.01 x .65 inches, it's not the most svelte Pocket PC available, but the hx2755's bulk and heft are considerably less than, say, it's more expensive hx4700 sibling. (Keeping the screen size at 3.5 inches helps in this regard.)


;                                             Side View

Power for the hx2755 comes from a removable 1440 mAh Lithium-ion cell. And while a higher-capacity battery (double, to be exact) is available, the hx2755's included docking cradle will only accommodate the unit itself.

I used the device heavily for an almost an entire day without the need to recharge it.

The hx2755 includes a protective smoked plastic cover (see top image) that is in my opinion a less obtrusive design than the one found on the larger hx4700, since the former opens up vertically Star Trek communicator-style and doesn't need to be held open with a finger while the device is in use.

My one complaint is that you need to get in the habit of removing the stylus before opening the cover, since doing so blocks access to it. The hx2755's 2.55mm audio jack is also located on the top of the unit, which isn't the most convenient spot for it given the cover's orientation.


;                                              Bottom Connector

Biometrics
The hx4755 biometric scanner isn't the kind you may have seen in the movies—where you press your finger to a dark square pad. (After all, this is a small device, and real estate is at a premium.)

Instead, the hx2755's fingerprint reader is a small horizontal slit recessed in the front and center of the unit. Rather than simply placing your finger on it, you must swipe it in a downward motion across the scanner.

To use fingerprint authentication on the hx2755, you must "enroll" two specific fingers—one from each hand. HP recommends using the index fingers, (presumably because they're the most comfortable). Any finger can be enrolled, but the system recommends against using the pinkie (for reasons that are unclear).

Finger enrollment involves training the hx2755 to recognize your unique fingerprints. The training process also gives you the opportunity to practice the swiping movement and involves swiping your finger about two dozen times before it's finished.

Swiping speed is of some importance, because doing it too quickly can result in a false mismatch or the failure to record an image. The recommended pace is one to two seconds, which is about the same speed as unhurriedly swiping your ATM card at the checkout counter.

I found the fingerprint scanner to be quite reliable, and the only times it registered an error were when I deliberately swiped in a hasty fashion.


;                                    Scanner Between Mic & Speaker

So can unauthorized or faux fingers fool the hx2755's fingerprint reader? It certainly doesn't seem so.

Scans of my enrolled finger printed on high-resolution inkjet and laser printers didn't pass muster, which wasn't surprising since printouts don't accurately reproduce the whorls that give fingerprints their uniqueness. Similarly, about a half-dozen people I gave the unit to failed to gain access to the hx2755 after offering up their digits.

(I can't say whether the hx2755 would yield to a disembodied finger—that goes a bit beyond the call of duty—but if that's a concern you'd best seek professional security protection ASAP.)

More Security
In addition to fingerprint recognition, access to the hx2755 can be controlled via a PIN or a standard or strong password (the latter requires at least eight alphanumeric and mixed case characters). If you're really concerned about security and don't mind a bit of extra hassle, you can configure the hx2755 to require a combination of both a PIN or password and the fingerprint recognition before granting access to the device.

You can't circumvent the hx2755's security measures by performing either a soft or hard reset of the device. In fact, HP makes it clear that if you forget your PIN or password (or somehow lose both enrolled fingers) the only way to access the hx2755 is to restore it to factory settings, which necessarily wipes out all data stored in RAM and ROM.

Because of this, when specifying a PIN or password for the device you're also required to set up a backup security question and answer. (You can choose to have security automatically disabled after a hard reset, but doing so seriously undermines the point of security, since any data stored in ROM survives this process.)

The hx2755's various security features don't simply lock the device, but also encrypt the data as well. Four encryption algorithms are provided, the most secure (and slowest) of which is AES.

On a relatively pristine unit the process of decrypting the data took only a few seconds. Given the high capacity of the hx2755, however, once the unit is filled with all manner of data the process can become quite lengthy, particularly when using the slower and more secure algorithms.

By default, the hx2755 will encrypt the contents of the My Documents folder, along with the information in the various Outlook modules (contacts, calendar, tasks, mail, and notes). Since not all information is equally sensitive, you can exclude any of those items from being encrypted.

To keep the encryption/decryption process from becoming needlessly protracted, the unit will not encrypt media files like audio or video or any user-defined folders unless specified. You don't necessarily need to wait for the hx2755 to finish decrypting data to start working with it, but the functions or the unit are limited until the process completes.

The hx2755 can also encrypt the contents of installed memory cards, and disable security without having an encrypted card inserted; you can use a previously defined passphase to decrypt that data. It's also worth mentioning that if you ever disable security, all the fingerprint data is lost so you'll have to repeat the training process if you re-enable it.

Conclusion
With its $550 price tag, the HP iPAQ is certainly in the top pricing echelon of Windows Mobiles PDAs. Depending on the vendor, that amount of money could buy a device with a larger screen, graphics co-processor, an integrated digital camera, or other bells and whistles.

But if security of your device and its data are what's paramount, the hx2755 gives you that in spades and is worthy of your consideration.


;                               Box Contents