HP's New Smart Phone Wants You to Tell It What to Do

HP has had a couple of not particularly successful attempts at the PDA/phone market with their HP iPAQ line. But they're back, and this time they appear to be listening to those of us who want a phone we can really talk to! The new HP iPAQ 500 Voice Messenger series is sleeker and smaller than previous models and adds some interesting voice integration to the smart phone design.

The key to the new phone is its voice-centric features. According to HP, the iPAQ 500 has 20 spoken commands, including the ability to reply to an email by sending a voice-recorded response. It'll also do things like let you create a voice phone task list, read SMS messages, or get to your call history with a single voice command. It'll read your email using text-to- speech capabilities, and verbally alert you about calendar appointments as well. For corporate users, the phone has built -n management features that an IT staff can program remotely.

The candy bar design also features a 1.3 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth and a VoIP client.  Targeting corporate clients initially, HP announced the phone without the support of a particular carrier.The phone should be available this spring, and while pricing has not been announced, reports say it will cost t $300 to $350.

We'll hear more about the phone in the coming weeks, but if you're a boomer like me, you can't help but think about this newest iPaq as the Mr. Ed of the phone set, a phone you can really talk to.