13. Battery Life

We tested battery life on a variety of measures, with activated and deactivated Bluetooth and WLAN modules.

In this area the iPAQ hx4700 shows its true strengths. A charged battery keeps the little PC going for almost five and a half hours. Compared with the iPAQ rx3715, that's no great shakes. But the rx3715 has a standard QVGA resolution display, and a Samsung processor clocked at only 400 MHz. If you cast a glance at the performance data of the competitors using VGA displays - Dell's AximX50v and Asus Mypal A730w - the hx4700's battery life is outstanding in its class.

If five and a half hours are not enough, you can always double that at the company's expense (and a few grams more for you to schlep) with a high-capacity battery, for an extra US$130.

As the results show, the modules for wireless communication should only be switched on when they are really needed. Otherwise battery life dips by almost 40% in the worst case.