I’ve had it said to me on more than one occasion that Windows Mobile phones are all the same. Sure they look different; some have hardware keyboards and some plain numeric, but there’s nothing radical under the hood. It’s still dour old Microsoft powering the show, with even the latest version of its mobile operating system beginning to show its age now that Apple has shown its hand and Google has begun to muscle in.

There’s no denying that Microsoft desperately needs to revamp its mobile operating system, but the effect of this isn’t all bad. Its inertia has forced handset manufacturers to take the lead and as a result we’ve seen a constant stream of hardware innovations over the past two years or so: GPS, HSDPA, touch-sensitive and high-resolution screens are commonplace now, and bundled software extras are also an area where manufacturers seek to stand out.

With i-mate’s latest business email companion – the Ultimate 8150 – the innovation is somewhat more unusual. On the outside it looks pretty standard stuff – but on the right side is an unusual socket that hints at something slightly different. This smartphone can be hooked up to an external monitor. The ability comes courtesy of nVidia’s GoForce 5500 graphics chip, which allows output of resolutions up to 1024 x 768 and it works rather splendidly. Using a special cable supplied in the box, which also carries audio, you simply hook the 8150 up to a spare D-SUB socket on your monitor and then switch between external and built in screens as you would on a full blown notebook. Cunningly, once you switch to the external output the touch screen on the 8150 turns into a touchpad and you use it to control a cursor on screen in much the same way as you would on a notebook.

The target audience of such a feature is, of course, the mobile presenter – it offers the opportunity to travel light and yet still be able to display basic slideshows. But contractors could also find a use for it. While you’re out on-site, with the addition of a Bluetooth fold away keyboard, it turns any spare monitor into a mini workstation. In fact, just to prove a point, I wrote the entirety of this review on the 8150 hooked up in just this way.

XGA output is certainly an interesting, potentially useful feature, and there aren’t any other smartphones I can think of that can offer such functionality. But unfortunately the 8150 can’t back this innovation up elsewhere. To start with, it’s a pretty chunky phone, even by Windows Mobile standards. The screen isn’t that big at 2.6in, but with a half centimetre surround, the phone is larger than it needs to be. It’s equipped with a standard, mechanical numeric keypad below it, but it’s absolutely huge – again, bigger than necessary – with super-wide number keys stretching across the full width of the phone’s chassis.

The styling won’t be to everyone’s tastes – it looks more like a military accessory than a modern consumer techno fashion accessory, with its matt-black plastic stealth finish, blue LEDs and bombproof build quality – and a real ugly duckling when compared with the Glofiish phones I reviewed recently.

And the usability doesn’t impress that much either. I’d like to say that those massive buttons on the numeric keypad made the phone easier to use than those on a standard-sized handset, but I can’t. They’re stiff, not particularly responsive to press and trying to use them to tap out short text messages and email is a nightmare because you can’t seem to hit two in quick succession and get the 8150 to reliably recognise both key presses. The way the numbers are printed on the keys doesn’t help here – the left column of buttons has the numerals printed right next to the boundary with the central column and in dark conditions this makes it all too easy to press the wrong key.

That said, there are some saving graces, and you can’t deny that the Ultimate 8150 lives up to its name. It packs in plenty of power, for instance, with an XScale PXA 270 520MHz processor inside and a good helping of RAM (128MB) and ROM (256MB). Data connections are fast too, with HSDPA, 3G and GPRS with EDGE to ensure lightning quick downloads and browsing. Plus you get an FM tuner, Wi-Fi, a two megapixel camera with light and portrait mirror, plus a front-facing VGA camera. The only thing missing is a GPS receiver.

And, apart from that horrid keypad, some of the other controls are quite nicely thought out. The mini joystick embedded in the numeric keypad, for instance, works well for navigating around the Windows Mobile 6 interface, as does the jog wheel on the left edge. The addition of a button on the side dedicated to launching the Wireless Manager is a nice touch too.

I also like the fact that the 8150 can be charged up very quickly. Put it in ‘fast charge’ mode and it’s replenished in a couple of hours or so. Unfortunately, the battery life itself brings it all back down to earth with a resounding bump. The seemingly capacious 1,530mAh was rarely good enough for a day or so of occasional use. In the three weeks I used the phone I never managed to extract more than two days from it, and this was without Bluetooth or the Wi-Fi adaptor switched on.

Verdict

The i-mate Ultimate 8150 certainly crams in plenty of features – it’s fast all round and jammed full of the latest smartphone goodies. Plus there’s that rather unusual extra of being able to output to an external monitor or projector.

But features aren’t everything when it comes to phones, and the size, design, and battery life of this one are not up to scratch. If you desperately want the display output it’s pretty much unique. If you don’t, the TyTN II still rivals it for features but in a smaller, much more usable package, whereas those from Glofiish are vastly more stylish.

Review Video:

I spent the last three weeks with an i-mate Smartflip Windows Mobile Smartphone. I am saying this because I am not usually the person to carry a Smartphone, rather having a Pocket PC Phone Edition with me. But the i-mate Smartflip is quite a looker, and functional.

It starts being a very thin (98.5 x 51.4 x 15.8mm) and light (99g with battery) handset in a clamshell form factor. It fits comfortably in the hand, and the keypad is easily accessible for one handed operation. The keypad is actually very interesting, being completely flush and made of a single piece, instead of having separate buttons.

The keypad comes with the standard keys you expect to find on a mobile phone (including answer and hangup), plus soft keys for access to contextual menu options, home and back keys. On the sides you find a camera button, volume control and a voice command button, used to initiate some actions with your voice (voice training/recording is required though).

Also you will find the keypad is backlit with a very soft blue light – almost too soft, perhaps a bit more light would be good. But the T9 predictive text input helps a lot, and with the ability to add words to the built-in dictionary, it worked ok.

The internal 2.2″ LCD is nice and bright, with 240×320 pixels (QVGA) resolution. It serves as the viewfinder as well when the handset is in camera mode – used for still images or video recordings.

A secondary external 1.2″ LCD with 128×128 pixels is available and it’s one of the most interesting parts on this device. It shows a status screen including date, time, network status, signal strength, battery level and e-mail notification. It also announces incoming calls – and if you have pictures for your contacts those are shown when a call is coming. It is also used as a camera viewfinder for self-pictures, but more importantly, it’s a media display, showing information about music if you use the handset for playback of your song collection. Three keys under the external display serve as media control with reverse, forward, play/pause functions – also used as soft keys when the device is closed and you need to interact with some message on the external screen.

The problem here is that you can’t just plug any pair of headphones. You see, to save space and make this a very thin handset, the manufacturer decided to create a special USB adapter, serving as port for charging, synchronisation and sound output. The best option is to actually arm yourself with a pair of Bluetooth Stereo headsets and use these with your i-mate Smartflip.

Even though it’s not listed in the specs, this device supports the A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile), a stereo profile for use with Bluetooth headsets. But don’t go too far away from the device. In my tests you can get broken sound if you are more than 3 metres from your phone. Otherwise it works very well. Of course you can also use a Bluetooth headset with the i-mate Smartflip, just won’t be stereo.

This Smartphone is quite responsive, although I found out that I risked running out of memory pretty soon – the best option is to make sure you add any media and programs to a microSD card. Which is not bad, but it means your collection of SD and miniSD cards from your Pocket PC will have not much use here.

The i-mate Smartflip runs Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU2, which means it brings the Messaging Security and Feature Pack built-in, ready to talk to a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 with SP2 and start using the direct push e-mail for automatic synchronisation when new e-mails arrive on the server, and the security policies management.

It also means that on this configuration you will likely need to install a certificate. If your server uses a certificate issued by one of the kown root CA then you are lucky. Just copy the file and install it. But if you are like me and have a self-signed certificate, then make sure you head to the Club i-mate website and download the utility to install these certificates. Unlike the Pocket PCs, the device is locked so you can’t go installing any certificate.

To donwload this utility you need to register the device. I didn’t want to because I am returning it to Vodafone New Zealand after this review, so I tried contacting the Club i-mate on-line support. It’s a real-time chat with one of their support people. After explaining why I couldn’t register the device, the support person sent me the appropriate file and I was able to connect the device to my Exchange Server pretty much straight away. Thumbs up for their service on this!

If you are like me and live on e-mail, more than phone calls, then you are well served. The direct push functionality works well, and I had no problem receiving e-mails. The only problem here in New Zealand is the lack of EDGE networks. Vodafone currently provides GPRS, UMTS and HSDPA, and EDGE would be an upgrade to GRPS, with potentially 3x the speeds. Alas, the i-mate Smartflip works on GPRS and EDGE only, but for e-mail and text only RSS reading it worked perfectly well.

As part of the software package, on top of the standard Outlook Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, i-mate also bundles the Smartflipe with the ClearVue series of document viewers, compatible with Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel files. It also comes with eTrust Antivirus, a Task Manager to help manage the programs running on your phone, and a J2ME run-time environment (J2ME, CLDC 1.1, MIDP 2.0).

For people wanting to be always in touch, you can do so through e-mail, SMS, MMS and the MSN Messenger client for IM.

The sound quality during voice calls is very good, and it is comfortable to hold during calls, although most of the times I used my Bluetooth headset for this. And even with Bluetooth always on, the battery lasted for a couple of days. I actually didn’t have to worry much about it.

The built-in 1.3 megapixel digital camera is usable, and you can get some good shots for a mobile blog, but don’t think you will use it as a print quality still camera. Think of it as fun to use.

Overall the phone shows good construction, no problems with the system in general (no, I didn’t have to reset it anytime during these weeks) and worked reliably during my use.

Pros

• Nice easy-to-read screen
• Very cool secondary (external) display
• Looks good in black
• Push e-mail that works out-of-the box with Microsoft Exchange servers

Cons

• Small internal memory
• Non-standard sound output adapter
• All those mini-USB retractable cables are now useless