i will not tell you twice. wouldn’t it be nice? anyway. the hiptop is has made the rounds with quite a few of my friends, and i have tried to avoid the aggressive “show & tell” techniques that might normally accompany such a neato little gadget. people might like new toys, but most take issue with having such things shoved in their face and personal space. the response? mostly positive, mostly along the lines of “you mean it does that too?” and “so when am i going to be able to get one?” now, i have agreed to a rather substantial non-disclosure agreement, so i am not too sure of how much i can say about the device. i edited my original post substantially before i was certain that my likelihood of facing a lawsuit (or simply the termination of my beta testing) was avoided.
so i will stick to what is already out there. techtv previewed the device back in january, going into a substantial amount of detail regarding its functionality and promise. in fact, i had to read that article to learn just how much memory the little gadget has.
how much will it cost? well, a very early article in the mcpaper from last september price-points it around $200 and i have yet to see anything to refute such a guess. in fact, a cnet article from april seems to support it. the cnet article also confirms that the instant messaging application would be a handheld version of AOL’s instant messenger.
how does it work? it uses something called general packet radio service or GPRS that is capable (in theory) of wireless data transmission of 171.2 kilobits per second. you can read all about it, or at least enough to make your head go all swimmy, here. basically, it works much like any other mobile phone, but faster and more efficiently.
overall, it is a great little device, one that could be just the perfect toy with some minor adjustments and fixes. once the test is over, in another three weeks, i am guessing i will have to return the little guy to his rightful owners and then i will just have to wait with the rest of the world to see how the end product will turn out. but i can already tell you one thing…
i still want to keep it.
