It ran Pocket PC 2002, ran on Sprint and cost $649. Some interesting quotes:
Many buttons!
Same size as the original iPhone, until the 5.On the left side, you'll find the standard 2.5mm headset jack, SD slot, jog dial, voice activated dialing button, a 3 position slider switch that lets you select from various ring modes (office, silent and etc) and a key guard switch. On the right side, there's a volume up/down switch that controls Pocket PC volume when not in a call, and call volume when in a call.
Oh boy, 1xRTT was high speed. Reminder: you'll need to be on a digital node to get the data. Remember analog?The G1000 has a 3.5" transflective 65,000 color display. It's not as bright as current iPAQ models, and is on par with the Dell Axim X5 . It has the most outdoor readable display I've seen on a transflective device.
Costly. Things have gotten cheaper and better value. $10 per kB is almost unbelievable. Even $10/MB would seem outrageous to me in 2014.Wireless service is provided by Sprint PCS, and the phone supports PCS Vision, Sprint's name for their high speed 1xRTT data network capable of speeds up to 144k and averaging about 60 - 70k these days in metro areas.
Features!How much will wireless services cost you? Check out the Sprint PCS web site for rates and plans. The pricing runs from $45 to $100, with PCS Vision free for the $100 2,000 anytime minute plan. For lesser plans, you'll pay $10 plus charges per k of downloaded data.
Fast! Do recall that "RAM" was a PDA term for "storage space." As opposed to microprocessor RAM, which is something else.Pocket PC Phone Edition models have good PDA-phone integration. You can dial anyone in your contacts list by tapping and holding on their name in the contact list (this will dial their work number) or by tapping a phone number while you've got a contact's record open.
In addition the Hitachi G1000 supports speed dialing and voice dialing (PCS Voice Command). You can even connect to the web by telling the unit to "call the web"!
It had Li-Ion.The Hitachi G1000 has an XScale processor running at 400 MHz and 32 megs of RAM. Performance is very good thanks to the top-of-the-line processor and all applications felt snappy. Video and MP3 playback were quite smooth. You can set the unit to run at full speed, or slow speed to conserve battery. On full speed settings, the Hitachi did as well as the very zippy iPAQ 2215 using VO Benchmark.
I do wish the G1000 had more than 32 megs of RAM, which is currently at the low end of the Pocket PC spectrum. This isn't a huge issue since you can expand the unit's memory by purchasing SD or MMC storage cards.
VGA camera! QWERTY keyboard!Under average use, you should be able to get one to two full days use per charge.
This was considered a convergence device, because it combined a phone and a PDA. Yes, it was considered a "smartphone" even back in 2003. And this wasn't the oldest of its kind.
Nice transflective display (not as common on smartphones) and a fast processor make you feel that you aren't missing out on top-of-the-line PDA features by going for a convergence device