Design
O2’s Xda II Mini has been one of the most popular phones here at CNET.com.au, so we were especially keen to get our hands on its successor, the O2 Xda Atom. At first, visually speaking, it’s hard to obviously tell the two apart, save for the obvious switch from a silver style scheme to an all-black one. The Atom is marginally smaller than the Xda II Mini at 102 x 58 x 18.5mm versus the Mini’s 108 x 58 x 18.1mm, but that’s more of a paper measurement — we’d challenge anyone picking up both phones to intuitively feel the size difference without putting them side to side.

Physical features are pretty much as per O2’s standard take on smartphones, which means that you’ve got a small five way selector at the base of the phone, surrounded by call accept and decline buttons and dedicated buttons for the program Start function and the integrated O2 Media Plus application. The small stylus slots neatly into the top right of the phone, which also houses a MiniSD memory card slot and the phone’s power button. The rear of the phone houses the Atom’s 2-megapixel CMOS camera, as well as a strobe flash. The Atom’s display is a 2.7″ TFT LCD touchscreen with a top resolution of 240 x 320 pixels.

Features
If you can’t connect to something with the Xda Atom, you’re really not trying. For a start, it’s a tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (GSM900/1800/1900) phone. Moving beyond simple mobile telephony, it’s also Bluetooth capable and Wi-Fi capable, albeit only to 802.11b speeds. For the true relics amongst us, it’s even IrDA compatible, although we’re not sure anyone’s using infrared to send anything via mobile in this day and age. There’s an obvious battery hit to take into consideration for each and every one of these technology inclusions, they’re still good to have as individual connection options.

On the PDA side, the Atom runs on the Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 platform, which offers the usual suite of office compatibility tied into a PC running the ActiveSync application. Beyond spreadsheets and documents, the Atom also ships with O2’s MediaPlus application, which gives an integrated approach to viewing multimedia content with a very distinct Windows Media Center-type feel; it’ll play back music and video, display pictures and run the phone’s inbuilt FM radio application from a simple tappable interface.

Performance
O2 warned us that the unit they were sending us for evaluation was a pre-production sample — and we could hardly miss the splash screen that warned us of this fact every time we powered the phone up. This puts us in a tricky position to accurately gauge the Atom’s true performance, as it’s hard to say that any particular issue might not be solved via a future ROM upgrade. Still, many of our observations of the Atom’s performance had less to do with issues that might be resolved with ROM changes, and more to do with the phone itself.

As with the Xda Mini, the biggest hit against the Atom is also the unit’s biggest area of appeal, in that it’s a very small smartphone, and you won’t feel like you’re holding a brick up against your ear every time you make a call. The downside of miniturisation in this case is that everything else — interfaces, screen sizes and virtual keyboards — is smaller too, making it a more challenging PDA than its fuller-sized cousins. It’s less of an issue for jotting small notes, but if you need to send a long e-mailed response to a business query in a hurry, you may find yourself struggling.

The MediaPlus application is a smooth bit of software design — or, if you’re the conspiracy theory type, a neat bit of interface thievery — but you’ll either have to load files in via ActiveSync or via MiniSD card. The MiniSD card inclusion is a touch disappointing, as there’s plenty of SD users out there, but many fewer with MiniSD cards outside of the mobile world.

O2 rates the Xda Atom as having a battery life of 150 hours standby and 5.5 hours talktime, although that’s almost certainly a figure achieved with Bluetooth silenced and Wi-Fi switched off. In our testing we found the battery lasted around four days of moderate usage, although how much that was affected by the pre-production ROM in our test unit is impossible to say — we did experience a few crashes in that time that could have preserved or even drained additional power.

The Xda II Mini was certainly a hit amongst CNET.com.au’s audience as it dominated the early months of the year when it came to choosing our top mobiles, and given that the Atom is essentially just a feature set upgrade and a coat of black paint on the same basic design, we see no reason why the Atom won’t fare as well. If you’re after a small smartphone, the Atom is a solid, albeit not exactly inexpensive choice.

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Nokia today introduced the new Nokia 6110 Navigator, a navigation-enabled mobile phone designed for the mass market. The Nokia 6110 Navigator brings together GPS (Global Positioning System) and AGPS (Assisted Global Positioning System) functionality with always-on mobile connectivity.

The Nokia 6110 Navigator features full personal navigation experience with integrated maps, routing and navigation available with the click of the phone’s one-touch Navigator key. With the Nokia 6110 Navigator, consumers can view their current location on the map, search for destinations, find specific routes, or locate services such as restaurants, hotels or shops that are nearby. Featuring full turn-by-turn 3D navigation, the Nokia 6110 Navigator suggests the best route to follow to reach a location by car or on foot.

The Nokia 6110 Navigator comes with a local map pre-installed on the memory card ready for immediate navigation. Additional maps and content – such as traffic information, weather services and travel guides – can be purchased online. Additional maps can be transferred to the phone by using the Nokia Map Manager application included.

The maps also show thousands of points of interest, such as restaurants, hotels, shops or other services nearby the location, including phone numbers and web addresses for calling and browsing directly with the phone. And, because the map’s information is located in the mobile phone, it can be shared with family or friends with the touch of a button.

Moreover, the Nokia 6110 Navigator enables fast access to online information with HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) up to 3.6 Mbps. Emails can be handled in real-time by push email, which also supports attachments as well as features a Message reader function to read aloud emails.

The Nokia 6110 Navigator is an ideal tool for 3G multimedia, enabling real time video sharing and video calls, as well as a 2.0-megapixel camera with a dedicated capture key, panorama mode, and integrated flash. Video clips can be enjoyed with full screen view, and maps and images are clear and crisp to see on the large and bright 2.2-inch QVGA screen, offering up to 16 million colors. For extra protection, the camera lens is covered by a protection slide, keeping the images crystal clear.

The Nokia 6110 Navigator is Nokia’s first dedicated smartphone aimed specifically towards the navigation market. Based on S60 smartphone software on Symbian OS, the Nokia 6110 Navigator enables access to a wide range of S60 applications such as Mobile Search or S60 games for additional entertainment and productivity. Key features of the Nokia 6110 Navigator include:

- Fully integrated GPS Navigation with one touch Navigator key
- Local map pre-installed on the memory card for immediate navigation
- HSDPA for fast web browsing and downloading
- WCDMA 2100 HSDPA, GSM / EDGE 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
- 2.0-megapixel camera with integrated flash, 4x digital zoom and panorama mode
- Real-time video sharing and video calling
- 40 MB free internal memory
- Support of microSD memory card up to 2 GB

The Nokia 6110 Navigator phone offers a talk-time of up to 3.5 hours (GSM) and 2.5 hours (WCDMA), and a standby time of up to 11 days (GSM and WCDMA). The Nokia 6110 Navigator is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2007 with an estimated retail price of 450 euros before subsidies or taxes.

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Motorola has been selling Linux-based devices for quite some time since the company’s first announcement to adopt the platform in February 2003. Unlike handhelds which run on Symbian or Windows Mobile, the open-source approach for Linux takes advantage of community-based development for the system.

Unveiled at the ITU Telecom World in December 2006, the ROKR E6 is not like the musically talented ROKR E1 and E2 that came before it. It is more a smart phone with multimedia capabilities, targeted at young professionals.

Design
The all-black chassis of the Motorola ROKR E6 reminds us of the classic RAZR lineup with laser-etched controls, except that it’s in an oversized candy-bar form factor. The E6 uses touchscreen input, so users who prefer a hardware keypad to thumb away are better off with the slider ROKR Z6.

Unlike most touchscreen phones with their LCDs slightly below the surface of the unit, creating a sort of rim around it, the ROKR E6 is completely flat. Instead, the panel is under a transparent plastic layer that makes you feel like you’re tapping on a layer of air. You never really “touch” the screen’s surface in actual use.

At 123g, the E6 is not the lightest phone around, nor is it the thinnest (14.5mm), but the build quality is excellent.

Features
Like we mentioned earlier, the ROKR E6 is not like the iTunes-savvy siblings that came before it. In fact, placing the E6 in the ROKR category is a misnomer since the smart phone is nothing like the E1 and E2, both in terms of design and features.

There are some things which we really like on this ROKR, such as a 3.5mm audio jack, a Secure Digital card slot for up to 2GB of flash media, a Hold button to prevent accidental presses and a mini-USB port.

As a multimedia player, the installed RealPlayer is capable of playing most popular formats including AAC, AAC+, DRM, MIDI, MP3, RA, WAV and WMA. The E6 also supports Bluetooth stereo so you can use your wireless stereo headset. One thing we didn’t take too well to was the poorly located music playback controls on the left edge of the phone. Because of the flushed surface, it is hard to feel for the buttons, much less know what each represents.

Features (cont.)
Over at the back of the E6 is a 2-megapixel camera. Again, this is a mixed bag. We’re right-handed users, so by having the shutter button on the left edge when the phone is held horizontally means we have to consciously remind ourselves that the shutter is on the left and not on the right like most digital cameras. Just beside the camera lens is a handy slider to switch between landscape and macro shooting modes. The phone’s internal memory is only a measly 8MB. Fortunately, like we mentioned earlier, the E6 has an SD card slot that supports up to 2GB of flash media.

That’s not the only trick up this ROKR’s camera sleeve. It’s also a Webcam when connected to a PC via USB (you’ll need to install the drivers) and a business card reader. During tests, the camera had to be switched to macro mode and we found the card reader function worked best on white-based namecards with good lighting. Oddly enough, it took preference to Chinese characters over English letters on the cards we tested and didn’t recognize Japanese lettering.

Unfortunately, the ROKR E6 doesn’t match up with other smart phones in the market. Unlike Office Mobile or Quick Office on Windows Mobile and the Symbian Series 60 operating systems, the E6 doesn’t come with any built-in document editing applications. What it has instead is the Piscel Viewer which allows the user to read only Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe PDF files.

Performance
We tested the triband (900/1800/1900MHz) Motorola ROKR E6 in Singapore with a MobileOne SIM card. Overall, call quality was decent and the onboard speakers worked as expected and were sufficiently loud. The only issue we had was with the lack of a hardware keypad, which was quite inconvenient at times.

Image quality from the 2-megapixel camera was decent, though it’s nothing fantastic. The macro and landscape switch came in handy but the lack of autofocus and built-in flash light limited our shooting in certain environments.

Motorola rates the ROKR E6 with a talktime of up to 7 hours and a maximum standby time of 9.7 days. In actual use, we managed to use the phone for approximately three days before the 1,000mAh battery ran out of juice.

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Even aside from the ever popular BlackBerry, which for many people is the defining device in this category, the Windows Mobile Smartphone is a pretty crowded market so Motorola’s Q9 has a lot to contend with.

As I write this review the phone has gone on sale in Italy and is fully expected that it will appear in the UK pretty soon. At the moment though, we don’t have confirmation of pricing or any information about which operators might take it on.

It is more than likely it will find a home here though, as it has some enticing specifications. It runs Windows Mobile 6 and is Quad-band with HSDPA at up to 3.6Mbps. You won’t find a UK operator offering more than 1.8Mbps at the moment, but there’s nothing like a bit of future-proofing, is there? It has 96MB of RAM and 256MB of internal storage memory and a microSD card slot is on the upper left edge of the casing. A 2-megapixel camera with flash caters for shooting photos and video, the latter at 30 frames a second. Very annoyingly given that little list, there is Bluetooth but no Wi-Fi.

This is a pretty big smartphone. It weighs 134g, which considering you can get Smartphones weighing around the hundred gram mark is a bit heavy. In the accompanying paperwork, the Q9 Motorola only divulged the thickness of this device, all 11.8mm of it. My trusty ruler came up with a height measurement of 117mm and width of 67mm.

Compare all these dimensions to those of the recently reviewed Samsung SGH-i600 and the Samsung wins on almost every count.

Of course it isn’t just about size. A keyboarded Windows Mobile Smartphone has to be usable and in this instance a lot of that usability is about the keyboard itself. I found the SGH-i600’s keyboard pretty good to use at a fair speed. The Q9’s is about the same in terms of usability, though the keyboard design is very different.

In this case the key are large and arranged so that they touch each other rather than being separated. They have a rubbery texture, are very clearly marked and give a little click when they are pressed.

On the bottom row are several shortcut keys. These variously open the Calendar, Contacts and music library, activate the camera, and run the voice control software. The voice control button also activates the speakerphone when you are on a call. Add to these the shortcut buttons for the Windows Mobile messaging software and for the web browser, both of which sit immediately beneath the screen, and you can see that even though this Smartphone does not have a touchscreen it isn’t too difficult to use it one-handed.

Motorola has gone all RAZR with the buttons beneath the screen. They sit on a flat area and are separated by ridges and as each one occupies a relatively large space they are not difficult to use. This is a good thing, because as well as web browsing and message creation you use these buttons to start and end calls, get to the Windows Mobile Today screen, go back, and use the softmenus. Right in the centre of these is a relatively small navigation button.

On the right edge Motorola has put two scroll buttons. Between them is a select button, beneath them a back button. They do for moving through e-mails, web pages, documents and the like and if you hold the select button down you can use the scrollers to control the device volume.

The screen too is vital to usability and here we have a wide format 2.5 inch 320 x 240 pixel display. It would benefit from being a little larger, but in fairness it is in keeping with other devices and is sharp and bright enough.

On the software front, Windows Live Messenger is here as a bona fide part of Windows Mobile 6. There is always the possibility it won’t make it into versions of the device that operators include in their ranges, though. For example, Riyad found that Orange had taken it out of the Windows Mobile 6 SPV E650 he reviewed a while back.

Elsewhere, Motorola has made some interesting software choices. Pocket Internet Explorer is gone, and in its place is the very good Opera web browser. Among its features is the ability to open more than one web page at a time in different windows, something that Microsoft really should have implemented in Pocket Internet Explorer with Windows Mobile 6, but failed to do.

Motorola has also chosen to eschew Mobile Office, the Word Mobile, Excel Mobile and PowerPoint Mobile suite that is newly available to Windows Mobile Smartphone users with Windows Mobile 6. Instead you get DocumentsToGo, a suite that lets you create Word documents, edit Excel, read PowerPoint and PDF files and managed Zipped archives.

There is a voice control utility that works fairly well in quiet conditions, and Motorola has included McAfee Virus Scan too. Not that there are any Windows Mobile viruses out there at the moment, but I guess Motorola thinks it is worth playing safe.

My review sample wasn’t a fully boxed retail version, but everything was ticketyboo with it except for the fact that the battery wouldn’t fully charge. I got it about 80 percent full, and from that managed four and a half hours of music with the screen forced on. I reckon a battery that can charge fully should manage at least five hours.

One more point of pure irritation is that the mini USB power connector isn’t your standard mini USB power connector. Oh no, it is smaller. This means you can’t carry one universal charger several devices.

Verdict

The Q9 is a bit on the large side for my taste, and while its keyboard is very good the screen is a bit small. Aside from the fact that it is hampered by the lack of Wi-Fi it does its job well.

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Fresh news from Engadget’s tipster about the latest Sidekick Motorola and T-Mobile handset. The phone that was previously labeled Zante is now almost officially going to be named the Motorola Q700. The phone is scheduled to be released in the second week of september.

The phone looks pretty bulky in the sketches and reportedly measures 118mm x 62mm x 17.5mm. The phone comes with a pretty decent 2.4 inch QVGA display. Other features include, Usb charging, 1.3 megapixel camera (disappointing to say the least), MicroSD card slot and a Danger 4.0 Operating system.

Features & Specifications

Brand: Motorola Q700 HIPTOP SLIDE MSN – SMS Gaming Phone!
Model: Q700/Hiptop Slide
Colour: Purple & Black
RRP: $679
Internal Memory: 128MB
External Memory: Micro SD Card Slot
Network: GSM
Camera: 1.3mp
Dimensions: 118 x 62 x 17.5mm
Display: 320 x 240
Band: Quad
Status: Any network. Unblocked.
Other Features: Dual navigation, QWERTY Keyboard, Access to Facebook, Myspace, Google MSN Messenger, Email and Browser

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Full Review
The Motorola Ming is one of those cell phones we couldn’t wait to get our hands on, and once we got to use it, we knew why. It’s just that fun and cool to use. Although this is an unlocked cell phone and some of its menus are in a foreign language, we didn’t have much of a translation problem – it’s that intuitive. In short, the Motorola Ming is a real head-turner with a ton of features that are easy to execute and fun to use.

Call Quality

Calls and speakerphone: We found calls to be loud and clear on the Motorola Ming. We rarely needed to use the side volume keys to adjust the sound. Using the speakerphone didn’t degrade call quality, and we particularly like that two people can talk simultaneously when the speakerphone is activated. Since the cell phone’s flip is actually made of plastic, the earpiece doesn’t heat up when you talk on the phone for long periods of time.

Audio quality: Playback of songs and music on the FM radio application is decent and loud through the cell phone’s speakers. Additionally, since the speaker is located on the back of the cell phone, you should turn the Ming over to listen to songs. On the plus side, we really enjoyed listening to music with the included headset; songs sounded great through them.

Ease of Use

Menu/phone book: As is the case with many Motorola cell phones, the menu’s interface is intuitive, requiring only a couple of steps to access most of the Ming’s features. This cell phone sports a touch screen, so everything you want to do is a just a tap away. The bottom of the screen serves as sort of a task bar with shortcut keys to the most recently used features; the top of the screen doesn’t change. The button in the upper left of the screen with four circles on it (the image looks a little like the bubblet game found on some Windows Mobile smart phones) provides access to the main menu. There’s also one-touch access to the phone book, creating messages, and using the phone. Once you master these buttons, understanding the rest of the icons on the cell phone becomes second nature. In the main menu, just about everything is in English except a few applications that are strictly in Chinese. That said, it’s pretty easy to figure out those apps. While you can run multiple applications at once, if you don’t close them and have too many open, there’s little you can do with the cell phone until you close a few.

Entering and saving numbers (there’s room for 4 phone numbers for each contact) is easy. Additionally, you can save birthday info, anniversary dates, a Web address, and a physical address for every contact on your cell phone and dedicate a song stored in memory as a ringtone.

Camera/video: The Motorola Ming sports a 2-megapixel camera, and it can record videos. Although the Ming lacks a flash, we doubt that having one would enhance picture quality much. About that: Picture quality isn’t the best. Most images came out pretty blurry. Video quality isn’t much better, but at least you can see what’s happening on the screen. Additionally, if you want to save a lot of photos and music, you’ll need an optional MicroSD card storage card since the cell phone has only 8MB of internal storage, which can fill up quickly depending on what else you have saved on the Ming. You can snap pictures by selecting Capture on the screen in the camera mode or pressing the button located on the side of the cell phone with a camera icon on it. There’s also a tiny mirror underneath the lens on the back of the cell phone for snapping self-portraits.

The good news is that this cell phone offers many tools for enhancing picture quality. There’s brightness, zoom, night mode, and the ability to snap in black and white mode, among others. In addition to the many settings for taking pictures already available on the camera, you can edit images with the included Photo Editor. In this application, you can crop pictures and even add writing or draw circles and lines on photos to point out specific objects in the image. If you’re not a fan of the pics you snap with the integrated camera, you can connect the Motorola Ming to a computer via the included mini-USB-to-USB cable and upload a few of your own favorite images to the cell phone.

Music: There are a couple of ways to listen to music on the Motorola Ming. First, there’s a radio application that you can use to hear local FM stations. While you will need to plug in the headset to use this feature, you can still select the radio to be played over the cell phone’s speakers. The other option for playing back music is in the RealPlayer application, entitled Media on the main menu. Once in this application, you can create playlists and play music, but there isn’t much you can do to adjust audio quality. The good news is that you probably won’t have to since playback of songs is pretty impressive. You can play AAC (Apple’s music file format), WMA (Window’s music file format), and MP3 files. If you plan on storing more than two or three songs on the cell phone, you’ll want to purchase an optional MicroSD card, since the Ming has only 8MB of internal memory, which is simply not enough for more than a few songs.

You can get music onto the phone using the USB-to-mini-USB cable, then drag and drop songs from your computer onto the cell phone. You can also store tunes from your PC on a MicroSD card, then slip it into the MicroSD slot located beneath the battery cover on the back of the Motorola cell phone.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: We were able to pair the Motorola cell phone with a Motorola H680 Bluetooth headset and an Apple iBook G4.

Design

Look and feel: In a word, the Motorola Ming just looks cool. It’s definitely one of those cell phones that everyone will want to see or ask about whenever it’s revealed in public. It’s got a charcoal-gray plastic covering that flips open to reveal the cell phone’s touch screen. The back of the cell phone is slightly rubberized (like the Pebl’s). While the Motorola Ming isn’t exactly what we would call small (on a par with the Motorola Krzr), it’s definitely compact and fits easily into a pant pocket or small purse without creating too much of a bulge. Our least favorite design aspect is the location of the voice record button; we often pressed it while on a call or when we flipped open the cell phone with one hand. As a result, we ended up recording way too many of our conversations.

The display is bright but not nearly as crisp as, say, the Samsung A990’s. Since the screen is slightly recessed, it doesn’t attract as much grease and fingerprints as many cell phones available today. As noted, the cell phone sports a touch screen, which is responsive to the touch of a fingernail or the included stylus. The Motorola Ming will accept an optional MicroSD card; however, figuring out where to insert the card isn’t immediately obvious since it’s hidden behind the cell phone battery.

Keypad: The touch-sensitive grey keypad sits on a bright white screen, so dialing in the dark isn’t an issue. Neither is accidentally dialing the wrong number. Additionally, when you want to compose a text message, a pop-up keyboard will appear on the screen. The good news is that the predictive text software included in the Ming is pretty accurate, so you won’t have to peck out all the letters of a particular message yourself. The bad news is that the keyboard is on the tiny side, so accuracy takes a hit if you’re trying to tap out messages with just your fingernail.

Battery Life
In the battery life department, the Motorola Ming had decent performance. We found that we could last a little over two days before needing to recharge when using the Motorola Ming regularly to make calls and send/receive text messages. Users who barely use the cell phone to make/receive calls and send/receive messages can wait about four days before needing to recharge, while heavier cell phone users will likely need to charge the Motorola Ming every other day. You can use the included mini-USB-to-USB cable to charge the cell phone when it’s connected to a computer. Nice!

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Design
Measuring 59mm wide, 117mm high and 21.8mm deep, the Mio DigiWalker A702 is a neat, if slightly chunky-looking device. On the front there’s a shroud of grey faux-metal surrounding the A702’s 2.7-inch touchscreen. Below this there’s a keypad with all the usual suspects for a Windows Mobile smartphone — call/pick up, end call, Windows key, back and number pad. Along the top of the keypad there are buttons that mirrors the functionality of the Windows Mobile’s button ribbon, which runs along the bottom of the screen. Not only are these hard buttons redundant, they’re also rather too small to be of any use.

There’s also an OK button nestled between these hard buttons which, in our time with the phone, did less work than Paris Hilton. Of marginally more use is the clickable flicker switch along the left-hand edge of the phone. It lets you scroll through lists, messages and options on the Windows Mobile Today screen, although we mainly used it for changing speaker volume.

While we’re not particularly keen on these design features, we’re saving our stash of barbs and arrows for the designers who laid out the A702’s number pad. The numbers one through nine are in their usual three-by-three grid yet the #, 0 and * are located to the side, not along the bottom. This meant that we often keyed 8 instead of 0, and if we had forced ourselves to donate a dollar every time that happened, we’d have fed the starving millions in Africa. We thought that with practice, time and effort this situation would improve, but old habits proved nearly impossible to break.

Locking and unlocking the A702 is done by quickly pressing the power button, located on the right edge. This works fine most of the time, although occasionally when our keys and the A702 co-habited a pocket, the keys unlocked the A702 and the motion of walking or sitting down brushed the screen in such a way as to switch the phone into flight mode.

Features
The A702 comes loaded with Windows Mobile 6 Professional, which includes Office Mobile. Mio also bundles in two apps to make life in Windows Mobile world slightly more pleasant: Mio Menu and Mio Settings. The former is like Palm OS’s launcher screen, while the latter groups together phone settings like voice speed dial and GPS configuration. Pity then that Mio didn’t throw in an app for displaying the phone’s MAC address.

Naturally, being a GPS phone from Mio, there’s also a copy of MioMap pre-installed. It’s basically the same software that’s used in the Mio’s C-Series dedicated in-car GPS units. Although MioMap functions in both landscape and portrait formats, the design of the A702’s windscreen mount effectively precludes this. As with other Mios we’ve tested recently the A702 guided us safely — well, except the instances where no right turns were missing from Mio’s Aussie maps — if not efficiently to our destination. Text-to-speech, which allows the GPS to read out street names in turn instructions, isn’t included with the A702.

The A702’s screen, which is bright and clear in indoor environs, is too glossy and reflective. The screen proved impossible to read when walking around town on bright sunny days and, although the reflections were both annoying and distracting, we were still able to make out the map and turn instructions when driving.

There’s no 3G capability with this phone — it’s 2.5G — so mobile Internet addicts should probably look elsewhere. Other features include a 2.5mm headphone jack, a telescoping stylus, Wi-Fi and a decent 3.2-megapixel camera with built-in flash and self-portrait mirror.

Performance
The A702’s performance as a GPS navigator is on par with dedicated portable GPS devices, but its performance as a phone is sub-standard. Largely our issues with the phone stem from its Windows Mobile operating system — a necessary evil for running the MioMap software. For instance, alarms only function when the phone is switched on, although this makes for a wonderfully techie excuse for turning up to work late.

The A702 comes equipped with 64MB of working memory and 1GB of storage space for applications, photos, music and other files. Its 200MHz processor, however, struggles to cope with the operating system’s resource demands. Opening the mail application, required for sending or reading SMSes, takes a small eternity at times (five seconds or so in some situations). Couple that with the number of clicks, and the pauses between them, that it takes to start entering a message and you may well have forgotten what you wanted to say.

Worse, though, is Mio’s T9 predictive text implementation called MioKeyboard. MioKeyboard works like this: as you tap in a word on the number pad, a list of possible words is displayed along the bottom of the screen. When you’re done tapping in the word, you press and hold the desired word’s corresponding number in the option list. So for “hello”, you’d key in 43556 and press and hold 1. At first glance this seems like a reasonable way of doing things but the press and hold required to select a word takes a good second or so to register. And because pressing space won’t automatically select the first option, typing a simple message like “sorry, gonna be 10 mins late” is like writing War and Peace. Add in the fact that fast typers can often outpace the unit’s key recognition and you have a thoroughly frustrating texting experience.

We got around the A702’s text limitations by opting for Windows Mobile’s on-screen virtual keyboard or hand writing recognition. While these options are fine in the comfort of our lounge room or when seated at our office cubicle, they’re impractical when riding in a car or on public transport. Not to mention impossible to use whilst walking.

Overall
If you want a good GPS system with a phone and you’re definitely going to be using the GPS on a regular basis — be honest now — then the A702 is a good bet. However, its odd keypad layout, slow responses and woeful texting ability make it a poor choice as a phone.

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Viewty? I can’t work out why this phone has that name, or indeed why the name might be applied to any mobile. But then LG doesn’t bat an eyelid at using odd names for its handsets. Shine, anyone?

If you remember my review of the predecessor to this mobile, the Prada, (this time the odd name was the result of co-development of the handset), you’ll recall that I had some problems with it, but that these related more to the build than the touchscreen, which I tended to feel LG had done pretty well with.

There has been progress with the Viewty on all fronts. It is a tri-band GSM phone with EDGE and GPRS as well as 3G with HSDPA up to 3.6Mbps where the Prada lacked the 3G element. A front facing camera caters for video calling and can be used to shoot stills containing yourself. Also the build quality feels better and the main camera shoots five megapixels.

This is a fairly large phone at 103.5mm tall, 54mm wide and 14.8mm thick. At 112g it is approaching the weight and girth of a proper smartphone.

The 3.0 inch touchscreen occupies pretty much all of the front of the Viewty. It displays 262 thousand colours and 240 x 400 pixels. It can be configured with one of three themes: ‘Black’ is a simple black background theme. ‘Silver’ offers a lighter grey background with some graphics that whizz onto the home screen for no apparent reason. But ‘Fish’, aaah ‘Fish’ is delightful. On the home screen a goldfish swims against a blue background. Put a fingertip on the screen and the fish swims towards it. Yes it is silly, yes it is trite, but I like it.

Whatever theme you choose, the home screen has a set of animated arrows running along its bottom edge. Sweep a fingertip along them and a 3×3 bank of icons pops up offering tap-access to Web browser, messaging, profiles, games and apps, memo, alarms, my stuff, calendar and Bluetooth settings. Sweep again and this menu disappears. The sensitive area is wide enough that you hit it right every time, and so, crucially, this part of the touch screen element works well enough to use intuitively and regularly.

Sweeping also comes into play if you are viewing images and have zoomed in. You can pull a photo around on the screen to get to the bit you want to see.

Along the bottom of the home screen sit four icons. These take you to the messaging, contacts, dialpad and main menu of the phone. The latter is your resort if you want to access settings or any area that isn’t covered by tapping any of the icons. This bottom row of four icons and scrollable menu lists are all large and easy to tap. And I had no trouble with one-handed use. A tiny vibration when a button is tapped makes all the difference too.

That said, there are some tiny icons that are difficult but not impossible to hit with a fingertip. On the top row of the home screen there are three: a ‘multi-tasking’ icon that lets you switch between currently running apps, one that takes you to the inbox and another for switching the profile. These are usable, though, and if I have a major complaint about the touchscreen it’s the old grease gathering gripe.

You’ll notice this most after sweeping the screen and also when using the built-in handwriting recognition, which you can use for things like writing SMS messages and making notes to yourself. You can use a finger for this but only if you have a nail to drag around the screen. Sadly I found the recognition engine not what it could be. You can resort to T9 tapping or a widescreen QWERTY keyboard instead if you prefer. Which I did.

Beneath the screen are Call, End and Cancel buttons. More buttons sit on the right edge. One switches the camera on and then shoots, one locks the screen, and the third is a really handy switcher between stills, video and image library modes.

Then there is the jog wheel. Not side mounted as you might expect but incorporated into the camera lens surround. This makes it quite awkward to use, which is a pity as it performs a lot of functions; for example scrolling through menus, adjusting music and call volume, and camera zooming. I found one-handed use of this a bit tricky.

So what about the camera, then? Well five megapixels are definitely ‘in’ and if you want state of the art that’s what you have to look for. But there is more than mere megapixels here. The autofocus, Xenon flash, and macro mode all seemed to work well. The Viewty will shoot video at a massive 120 frames a second, too, which seems a bit over the top.

The coloured dish, my standard indoor test photo, has good colour reproduction and is perfectly acceptable. The passion flower is nice and sharp, and its complex colours including the paler yellows and greens have been reproduced well. Phone cameras can over-expose brilliant whites thereby losing subtle differences in shading. Here, however, the LG does a very good job in retaining detail and shading along the white sepals and petals. The green plant in the last shot is a small Sempervivum not more than 3cm across and was shot with the macro lens. Definition is superb and the early morning dew is nicely captured.

Battery life proved no more than adequate. Continuous music playback got me a little over seven hours, though the screen did remain on throughout and I suspect you could better this in the real world by turning the screen off during playback.

On board storage for tunes, photos and other data tops out at 90MB and there is a microSD card slot for adding more. The LG Viewty does fall down by requiring you to remove the battery to get to the memory slot, and because it takes a little time to boot up, swapping cards can be a real pain.

Other stuff not yet mentioned include an FM radio, calendar, to do list manager, alarms, calculator, unit converter, photo editing and voice recorder.

Verdict

The Viewty is a good example of what a touchscreen handset can be. Large icons (mostly), easy access to most common functions, and some neat extras like the sweeping feature. Even the camera is top-notch. All we need now is a screen that doesn’t gather fingerprints and an easily accessible memory slot.

Review Video:

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The KT610 is a Symbian Smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard, 3.5G and a support of 2.4 inch with 400 x 240 pixels main screen. Indeed, it is a smartphone S60, the KT610 supports all the usual features S60 and functions.

LG KT610, it has no WiFi and lack KT610 GPS, the excellent large screen of 800 pixels on the E90 and also comes with a very simple, 2-Megapixel-camera. On the other hand, these 109 x 54 x 17mm camera is less than half the weight of the brick as E90 and it is a little larger than standard telephone business.

The keyboard is good, and relatively large screen is very useful for e-mails and much better than a standard screen for Web browsing. Thus, the LG KT610 seems attractive, even if it is not considered as feature-packed, given that some mobile phones. The number of devices Symbian S60 with the QWERTY is pitifully small, it is clear that the KT610 is a useful option.

That is why it seems to be increasingly cold shoulders LG? After all, someone in LG to all those who have trouble with the planning of the thing, it must be safe for the Advancement of LG? We believe that the problem is as follows: fashion. LG have quite crazy touch screen for mobile phones and kT610 is firmly Non-Touch-Screen-Camp. This is not a very attractive so that they hardly fit the image, which tries LG tend to encourage.

The rumor is that the LG KT610 is only to take distribution channels, but then it was meant that in the last month. We believe that LG are not genuine efforts to promote the KT610, at least on the basis of their current success of the balance.

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Though overshadowed in volume by regular mobile phones, PDA-phones and handhelds have always had the latest and greatest when it comes to technical features. Unfortunately, most of them lack a crucial element–style. That’s a factor which is becoming a major consideration even among techies who used to just focus on the features. That’s why brands like LG are a welcome addition to upcoming handhelds. The company has a reputation for making some good-looking mobile phones, and that’s something it will bring to the PDA-phone world with the KS20.

Design

At just 12.8mm, the KS20 is the slimmest Windows Mobile 6 handset with a touchscreen you will be able to find. It’s just a hair thinner than the Samsung SGH-i780 which has a depth of 12.9mm. The chassis of the KS20 is modeled after the Prada phone, which was well-received because of how good it looked. With its uncluttered facade and pocketable size, this handheld is definitely one of the prettiest you can find without a keypad.

Not only is it thin, the KS20 is also very light. Everyone who handled our review set was amazed at how weightless it seemed. At just 92.5g, this handheld is even lighter than the HTC Touch which tips the scales at 112g. While most users will be happy with that, some may lament that it feels too much like a toy because of the same reason. While we admit that the chassis is a little plasticky, the fine construction on this LG ensures that it doesn’t come across as cheap. The black and silver glossy finish does invite fingerprint marks easily, so using it with a case is advisable.

Although its front surface is pretty clean with only the call and hang-up keys along with a directional joystick below the display, there are quite a number of shortcut buttons on the right side. One of those is the power button, while the other two activate the browser and camera applications. We would have liked one more button to act as an OK key so minimizing applications can be done much faster. A microSD card slot is also found there which supports cards up to 2GB in capacity.

On the left side are the volume control keys and a cover connector port for headsets and the charge/sync cable. This is a proprietary LG connector so you’ll need to use the charger and sync cable found in the box and not the standard mini-USB one most users are accustomed to for Windows Mobile handhelds. An upside is that an adapter is also included in the standard retail set, which allows you to plug in a 3.5mm audio connector so you can use your own headphones when listening to music.

Most likely in an effort to cut down the size, the battery of the KS20 does not sit behind a cover like most other devices. This means the back of the battery is also part of the chassis of this PDA-phone and can be removed by pressing a button at the base. Mobile phones that employ this design aren’t common these days, partly because the battery gets loose over time and may cause unplanned resets. This may be a problem for those who keep their mobile phone for a few years, though not so much for those who upgrade regularly.

The stylus of the KS20 has the same color as the sides, i.e. silver. This is an extendable one found on the bottom left corner of the device–a strange place because it’s almost impossible to retrieve when holding the handset in the left hand. So, on this rare occasion, left-handers are advantaged.

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The LG-KS10, also known as JoY is a S60 smartphone with a slider form factor that was announced in London last year at the Symbian Smartphone Show and now it is available in Italy and will be available in other European and Asian markets by end of this year.

JoY is an attractive slider smartphone based on Symbian OS v9 and S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. With a 2,4" LCD screen, HSDPA radio and full xHTML browser, JoY makes it fast and easy for fun seekers to browse the Internet and download content and applications.

The marriage of LG Electronics and Symbian OS is an ideal fit and JoY as an ideal offspring as it combines advanced electronic computer capabilities with an attractive form factor and high performance. With consumer market trends leaning towards convergence and network operators looking to bring smartphones to market even quicker, Symbian is working closely with LG Electronics to fuel this fast growing segment of the market.

JoY combines the stunning appearance of LG Electronics’ latest handsets with Symbian’s intelligent and robust operating system, compatible with thousands of commercially available applications, making it a smartphone that appeals to a wide audience. We welcome LG Electronics’ Symbian smartphone and look forward to more products from them in the future.

It packs a 2.4 inch color screen, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth for connectivity and a media player with support for the usual files that the user can store either on the phones internal memory or on a MicroSD memory card. The LG KS10 will become available in Italy before this month is over, and start shipping in other parts of Europe as well as Asia by the end of the year, although a specific date was not announced.

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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:

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Summary

We are very impressed at mPhone with this I-Mate SmartPhone. It is one of the best SmartPhones on the market. The SP3 comes with an enhanced user interface, reduced size, at the same time keeping all the expected functionality of a SmartPhone.

What is the SmartPhone 3 (SP3)?

SP3 Size

The SmartPhone 3 is more than a simple upgrade. The new chassis is smaller, thinner and lighter than previous SmartPhones. Impressively, the chassis still captures the large range of buttons we have come to expect from SmartPhones.

Display

The SP3 includes a 2.1″ colour screen which is the same size as the SmartPhone 2. It is of much better quality though, with good colour reproduction and sharp picture.

Connectivity

The SP3 has a standard USB port. Meaning the phone can be synchronised with a PC using the supplied cable. This method can also be used for charging the phone. Although, some people may prefer the cradle supplied with the SP2. A separate UK power adaptor is also provided (as standard) so you can also charge your phone when away from your PC.

Memory

The 64MB of internal memory should be more than enough room for storing personal information, pictures and video clips. However, should you start to run out there is a mini memory card slot. Unfortunately, its located under the battery, meaning the phone has to be turned off to remove or replace it. mPhone offer these reduced size SDs. They are listed under the SP3 SIM Free.

New SP3 Operating System (OS)

It is not just the outside that has had a overhaul, the Operating System has been upgraded to Windows Mobile 2003 2nd edition. Not much has changed in comparison to the SP2, but the interface is a bit better in terms of clarity and is easier to select the common features such as MSN messenger, email, contacts, and the personal diary.

Texting has been dramatically improved with the keypad better labelled. It is now easier to write longer compositions such as emails.

Control

Thankfully, the SP2 joystick has been replaced by a unique and user-friendly button scroller. This offers much enhanced performance and control.

SP3 Camera

As with most phones today, the SP3 comes with a camera to a maximum resolution of 640×680. It can not compete with a dedicated digital camera but adds allows for the odd snap shot to be taken then sent by email, MMS or downloaded to the PC.

SmartPhone Applications

New applications are also included, such as file and task manager.

mPhone Rating:

Overall we give the SmartPhone 3 (SP3) a rating of 4 out of 5.

Positive: Small size, long lasting battery, great interface

Negative: Memory card slot is difficult to access.

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Design
The i-Mate K-JAM, on first glance, appears to look much like any other touchscreen smartphone; a simple set of dialling buttons surrounding a five-way selector underneath a 2.8-inch, 240×320 pixel display, which would lead you to suspect that it utilises a naff touchscreen for all of its typing activities. Those who have used other i-mate products — most notably the i-mate JASJAR won’t be too surprised to find that the K-JAM hides a QWERTY keyboard, although unlike the JASJAR, there’s no facility to flip and spin the screen; it instead simply slides out on the vertical axis, like some kind of slider phone experiment flipped through 90 degrees. When the keyboard is slid out, the display likewise flips through 90 degrees and becomes an instantly more business-document-friendly widescreen aspect ratio. The keyboard itself is understandably very small — fitting into a 108 by 58 by 23.7 millimetre frame doesn’t afford you a lot of key space to begin with — but reasonably responsive, and certainly good enough for typing out quick messages, responding to emails or simple document editing. The rear of the K-JAM houses a 1.3-megapixel digital camera, the battery casing, which is locked into position, and the stylus which sits at the base of the K-JAM body, next to the USB port which serves double duty as a data and charging port.

Like the JASJAR, the visual design of the K-JAM is on the plain side, which is presumably meant to entice IT departments into buying shedloads of the things. With its bulky shape and fairly hefty carrying weight of 160 grams, this isn’t a phone to bring out to impress your pub mates, although it’s conceivable you might get the odd envious glance from within the corporate boardroom while weilding one.

Features
The phone portion of the K-JAM is, like many modern smartphones, quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900) designed for cross-planet roaming wherever you can get an actual mobile signal. It’s also equipped with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), miniSD and the aforementioned USB port for data transfers, as well as an infrared port for talking to truly ancient phones.

On the smartphone side, the K-JAM packs in 128MB of ROM and 64MB of SDRAM; that’s a touch on the low side, although it could be supplanted with a miniSD card. It’s somewhat meagre Texas Instruments OMAP 850 200MHz processor runs Windows Mobile 5.0, which gives you access to a raft of productivity applications, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook, along with slightly less business-centric applications such as Media Player, Internet Explorer and MSN Messenger.

Performance
i-Mate rates the K-JAM’s 1250mAh Lithium Ion battery as being good for between 3.5-5 hours of talk time and between 150-200 hours of standby time. Our testing revealed figures slightly lower than that, although we’re used to seeing phone manufacturer stated figures sit on the optimistic side. On a moderately heavy usage profile we were able to keep the K-JAM up and running for around four days in between charges. That was with relatively low wireless and Bluetooth usage; you could expect to halve that (or worse) if you were a heavy data pusher. We did like the fact that the phone charges from any USB connection, including when it’s plugged in for data transfers.

On the application side, the K-JAM performed at what we’d deem an acceptable level for a smartphone, but never really swiftly, which we’d put down to the comparatively weak 200MHz processor at its core. It was most noticeable when using the camera functionality; while most camera phones are particularly built for opportunity-based snapshots, the four to five seconds you’ll have to wait for the camera to fire up will render most such opportunities with the K-JAM wasted.

The K-JAM is currently available at a lower asking price than the JASJAR — that’s hardly surprising, given the somewhat lower specification screen, lack of 3G support and much less grunty processor, and for what it offers is good value in a very competitive smartphone space.

Review Video:

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IMate have released a brace of products in recent weeks but his on the iMate JasJar is the one we’ve been waiting for, not only has it a unique folding clamshell design and a picot system more akin with a tablet PC but it also runs on the latest Windows Mobile 5.0 platform.

iMate have pitched the JasJar at the mobile professional and clearly its main competitor has to be the Nokia communicator range, it’s not a small device measuring 81 x 127.7 x 25mm and tipping our scales at over 285 grams. The closest real life object we can relate the JasJar to is the older Psion Series 5 palmtops, its a big heavy beast but it’s aiming to stop you needing your laptop although so on that basis we’ll forgive it’s dimensions.

The heart of the iMate JasJar is a 520Mhz Intel processor which is paired with 128mb of RAM providing the engine for Windows latest incarnation of their mobile platform, this suits the 3.6″ TFT screen will especially it’s 640 x 480 pixel resolution. You can switch the interface between portrait and landscape modes at the press of a button or by rotating the pivoting screen as seen in most tablet PC’s, however this does seem to take quite some time for the OS to sort itself out and resume normal operation.

Living with the phone for a week was a mixed bag, you get all the toys that the busy exec could wish for any using it in clamshell mode makes for a suitable small laptop replacement for sending a receiving emails and even browsing web pages, although we did find it best to use WAP designed pages. The inbuilt WiFi is a most welcome extra but we have to ask why it’s only 802.11b and not .11g? Too much to ask for that extra speed? at least the iMate WiFi tool is easy to use and has a nice feature which disables the WiFi if its without signal for a pre determined time thus saving you battery.

Battery life was very impressive, we had feared that using the full feature set (WiFi and Bluetooth) would really dent iMates claimed 10 day standby and 8 hour talk time. However we managed around 2 days between charges with serious use of WiFi and leaving Bluetooth permanently switched on. using the JasJar as a normal mobile we found that the Tri bands reception was good if not stunning and it managed to hold onto most calls giving an OK RF performance. Call quality isn’t 1st class but more than ok, the weird thing we found was a 3 second delay when taking calls from flipping the phone open (or twisting it round) to actually answering the call, we thoughts that the 520Mhz processor would have been quicker than this.

The basic office mobility features work very well email is great when using iMates push email service and find yourself a WiFi hotspot and you could almost be sat in the office, the WiFi connection seemed to perform as well as most PDA’s and our own WiFi card equipped iMate Jam, you can use WEP encryption too. The processing power of the iMate was plenty to play MP3 files while accessing a word document with an excel sheet open at the same time, the MP3 files were stored on an SD card which was tucked into the slot.

Using the JasJar keyboard proved easy and difficult at the same time, there is a full Qwerty keyboard but the keys are just too tightly packed together for anything more than 2 finger typing, that said we managed to get quite proficient and this is one of the few devices we’ve used where the stylus stayed firmly in its storage slot. The screen is a joy to use and the 180 degree swivel feature means you can find a comfy position to use it even when resting is those ergonomically challenging airline seats.

We had a play with a few other applications like the video calling, using a 3G network we were able to take advantage of the JasJar’s 2 cameras, using the forward facing one we were able to have one of those wonderfully jerky video calls with a colleague. We also tried the Skype client that is pre loaded onto the device, strangely despite a number of attempts and trips to the settings menu we just couldn’t get it to play ball, which is even stranger as our iMate Jam works a treat saving pounds by using data and VOIP instead of paying for roaming charges.

Like all Windows Mobile devices you can rely on either Bluetooth, Infrared or USB 1.1 and use active sync to push data, emails and services like Avantgo to your device, this does feel a bit like the dark ages but the mini USB jack can prove very useful. You can go wild customising your desktop and the complete look and feel of the interface and the revised version 2005 of the Windows OS is certainly one of the key selling points of the device, if only it was as stylish on the outside, we have to say its one of the plainer devices we’ve had in the office this year.

When you are shelling out £649 for your iMate JasJar you do have to think carefully about your needs and if you are willing to carry such a heavy device around with you. We certainly regretted having it when we only wanted a phone, its just not an option to take it on a night out or to tuck it into a jacket pocket, this is a bit of kit for the serious road warrior only or for those who are ditching that “travel laptop”.

Overall iMate do have a winner here and one that we’d choose over the Nokia range, however there is a health warning, make sure you are prepared to cart it around before you buy!

Review Video:

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It’s a sad fact that much of the tech on sale these days is still targeted at men. Many smartphones, laptops, PCs, sat-nav devices seem very masculine, not only because they’re toys and fun to play with, but because of the way they’re designed.

Take my wife (come on, it’s Christmas, I’m allowed one Les Dawson gag…): whenever I wave a new gadget at her with a silly grin on my face that says “isn’t this cool?”, the response is normally distinctly luke warm. “It’s too masculine,” she moans, a criticism that, just recently, has been aimed firmly at the smartphones I’ve had in for review.

When you sit down and think about it, she’s right, of course. They’re usually quite big, squarish and grey or black. Even the names are macho: the X600, the 503G, the TyTN II (for pity’s sake!)… you get the picture. So it’s refreshing to see something that elicits something different to the wrinkled-up nose and look of disdain. I’m talking about i-Mate’s latest BlackBerry-style smartphone, the Jama 201.

It’s easy to see why. Though the Jama is still clad in rather masculine black clothes, and has a pretty geeky-sounding name, it’s very, very slim. At 14mm thick it’s only a touch thicker than a biro, and it’s not too wide (63mm), tall (113mm) or heavy (152g) either. Despite the fact that it’s the same size on paper as the BlackBerry 8800 this just feels slimmer – in fact the closest phone I can think of to the 201 in terms of pocketability (or should I say handbag friendliness) is Samsung’s i600, but this i-Mate beats it hands down in terms of its chic appeal.

The 201 is also a very tactile device. The whole chassis is coated in that lovely rubbery, soft-touch plastic which, as well as feeling soft and smooth under your fingertips, also means when you’re typing away on its QWERTY keyboard it feels secure in your hands, unlike a number of soap-bar phones I could mention.

In terms of ease of use, these compact dimensions could have an impact, but surprisingly, i-Mate has done a decent job here as well. The keyboard is absolutely tiny and smaller than that on a BlackBerry 8800, for instance, and, if you’ve got big, builder’s thumbs, likely to be rather difficult to use. But I found that, once I’d got used to the size of the keys, typing short email messages and texts was surprisingly easy. The square keys have just enough space between them to prevent you accidentally striking neighbouring characters, and they have a positive click to them that means you know exactly when you’ve pressed or not pressed a key successfully. It can’t match the superb design of the BlackBerry 8800’s keyboard, but it’s not that far behind in its usability.

The button cluster above the keyboard and below the 320 x 240, 2.4in screen, is also reasonably well done. All the keys are well-labelled and are easy yet firm to click – just like the keys on the keyboard. The five-way d-pad is a touch fiddly, and again can’t match the 8800s scrolling ‘pearl’, but it’s by no means awful. I’ve used a lot worse than this.

Where the Jama 201 is not strong as I’d like, however, is on the features front. Most notable among the omissions is the lack of 3G or HSDPA internet; you’re stuck with GPRS with EDGE for browsing the internet and downloading email. It doesn’t sound like much, but try downloading attachments larger than a few Kb – a PDF file, for instance, and you’ll quickly become frustrated.

It’s just a tri-band phone too, with no support for the 850 GSM band so you can’t use the phone in the US if your business happens to take you there. And you don’t get the luxury extras you do with the flagship BlackBerry phones or other top-end handelds. There’s Bluetooth, but it’s not the faster version 2.0. There’s no GPS receiver, nor is there a Wi-Fi adaptor, and the paucity of advanced features extends to a bog-standard 2.0 megapixel digital camera, which is equipped with neither a flash nor a self-portrait mirror. It looks positively stone-age next to a TyTN II and even Samsung’s i600 which has been around some time now and boasts HSDPA where this has none.

Finally, the 201 is powered by a rather weedy-looking 300MHz Samsung processor, coupled with 128MB of ROM and 64MB of RAM. It doesn’t make for the snappiest-feeling performance when switching from application to application, but contacts lookups in my large test database, which contains more than 500 entries, are pretty much instantaneous.

There is an upside to the lack of features though. Sticking to just GPRS instead of the more power-hungry 3G and HSDPA connection, seems to contribute to impressive battery life. Despite the seemingly low capacity 1,110mAh lithium ion battery and rather average-sounding quoted four hours talktime and 150 hours standby, I found that a single charge went a long way with the Jama 201 – further than with my favoured TyTN II. I was able to go three to four days out of it at a time, and that includes making frequent phone calls, browsing the internet and picking up email from my Exchange Server.

Verdict

But despite the fact that my wife doesn’t think it’s bad, the i-Mate Jama 201 isn’t all things to all men and women. It’s well designed, slim, light and in general a pleasant device to use. The keyboard is good, making typing out emails and SMS messages a simple task and battery life is top drawer.

If all you want is a decent qwerty keyboard for messaging and the odd bit of internet browsing, it’s a competent device. But for me it’s lacking in just too many other areas to compete with the latest smartphones on the market. No HSDPA or 3G, no GPS, no quad-band GSM and no decent camera mean that, despite a reasonable price, it fails to gain the Trusted Reviews seal of approval.

Review Video:

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When I receive a review handset I usually open the box and scribble down my “first thoughts”. On the bit of paper here I’ve written, “dinky” and “robust” and “rubbery feel”. Even now, several days after opening the box, I’m still thinking the same thing. This is a solidly built handset which you’d never need a cover for.

The screen is inset slightly, giving a framed effect around it. It tends to make the main screen look slightly small, and indeed you’d be right, It’s only marginally smaller than the screen than the screen on a HTC Touch Dual, but the fact it’s inset gives it a slightly smaller feel. While I’m talking about the Touch Dual, I should mention that the i-Mate JAMA 101 is pretty much the same size as the HTC Touch Dual. Here’s a few quick comparison shots so you can see for yourself..

The navigation controls on the i-Mate JAMA 101 are solid and sturdy. I particularly liked the power-button, which doubles as the “call end” key. This makes powering / waking up the device a lot easier than devices with a separate power button. As you can see, the navigation pad is dead centre and the soft-keys are arranged above as you’d expect.

This is a device which is designed for heavy wear and tear. Each key is easily accessible and the Windows, OK, call and end keys and nice and chunky while still maintaining a rubbery feel. The navigation made is slightly pronounced making it easy to use. As you can see below, the dimensions pretty much match the HTC Touch Dual, however…

…the specs don’t. The JAMA 101 is powered by a 300Mhz Samsung chip running Windows Mobile 6 and there’s a “2 megapixel-effect” camera for snapping photos. No, I’m not sure what a “2 megapixel-effect” camera is, but that’s what the official specs state. The camera itself seems to go up 1600×1200 so I’m guessing it is indeed a fully-fledged 2 megapixel camera.

There’s no WiFi, no 3G and, it would seem, no EDGE either. You get tri-band connectivity and err.. Bluetooth 1.2. The lack of extra radio kit does give you a stonking 150 hours standby (over 6 days) and 4 hours of talk-time. There’s also a microSD card slot. I tried putting my 6Gb card in but it didn’t recognise it, so I doubt this supports anything over 2Gb. That’s pretty much it for the specs if I’m honest, although the official details do continue with an increasingly desperate list which includes “an internal antenna” and “vibration for notification and incoming calls”. Err… OK then.

By now I’m assuming this is a device to keep you in touch, up to date and sync’d with your Exchange server or home PC (provided you don’t mind the GPRS connection-speed) whilst still being a solid phone for daily use by office workers and brick-layers alike. Let’s have a look around the JAMA 101…

The bottom appears, at first, to be one large flap. It’s not though, as both ends of the flap open to reveal audio and a miniUSB port. In the centre is the microphone and reset switch. Below you might just be able to see the 2.5mm audio port and below that there’s the miniUSB port on the right

You should also be able to see the stylus on the right corner here. It’s one of those retractable ones and extends to quite a long length – it’s actually longer than the height of this handset.

On the right side there’s a camera button and the volume up / down controls. It’s not often that you see these controls on the right, however it works well.

Up top there’s no power button because, as we saw earlier, the “call drop” button also doubles as the power. You can also see the LED at the top here which indicates network activity.

On the left you’ll see a round button which isn’t actually a button. This appears to be the external aerial connector whilst further along is the microSD slot which, unfortunately, isn’t SDHC compatible (nothing over 2Gb). Put an SDHC microSD card in and it’ll completely ignore it, so make so you get a non-SDHC one.

Around the back is the camera. No flash here, but there’s a little mirror for taking shots of yourself if you wish.

Take the battery cover off reveals .. well, the battery. Beneath that is the SIM card.

I figured a quick video tour of the device would show the phone off best, so here’s one of our YouTube specials…

Inside

The JAMA runs Windows Mobile 6 Pro and comes with the standard assortment of Office Mobile tools (Outlook / Excel / Powerpoint and Word) to add or edit documents plus handy communication tools like Windows Live and MSN Messenger. There’s also a calculator, pictures and videos and an i-Mate wizard to help you set your email up quickly.

i-Mate have added a Profile manager within the settings tab, which lets you change your ringtone and other audio settings easily.

This is also reflected on the main home-screen, which includes a quick profile switcher. If I just click “Normal” I can easily switch the audio off (Silent profile) or, with the button next to it, switch to an automatic profile which will use the data in my calendar to change the settings when I walk into a meeting etc. There’s also a profile switch here, plus lots of relevant information relating to my messages and appointment information. i-Mate have also added in a Windows Media plug-in, so you can listen to and skip tracks easily.

As usual we’ve got Internet Explorer for browsing plus, with this being Pocket PC, there’s a stack of software you can install.

Review Video:

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More powerful than any mobile communications device you’ve used before, the HTC TyTN II takes global connectivity to the next level. Staying connected means staying ahead. The TyTN II supports the full spectrum of network standards, guaranteeing that you will stay in touch ANYWHERE in the world. With an internet connection via 3.5G HSDPA that is nine times faster than 3G, using the TyTN II to download files and surf the Web is a breeze.

I have to say the first week of using the HTC TyTN II has been pretty interesting. The unit is probably one of the most powerful Windows Mobile phones I have used to date other than the HTC Advantage. I am very happy with the lack of soft resets, something that has plagued me with the WM6 Treo 750 I was using. The TyTN II does have some quirky things that really tick me off. The unit will not accept the little brother HTC TyTN battery! Yes, It is a completely different size! Now don’t get me wrong but COMON HTC lets get logical. The battery is a Samsung KAS160 battery which is a measly 1350mAh battery. Totally unacceptable for a POWERHOUSE phone. So what did I do? I immediately grabbed my USB car charger that has worked on EVERY HTC device I owned.. Guess what? Nope it wouldn’t work! So now I have to patiently wait for an extended battery solution. I am hoping our store will carry them also.

Now to the things I like! Boy where do I start. The TyTN II works like a charm with Skype and Slingbox! Two applications that are very processor intensive and it ran like a charm! I called Steve on the TyTN II over 3G and he clearly heard me with no feedback and a very slight delay. It almost makes you wish Skype for Windows Mobile supported video calling because this phone definitely would work with it. During my use with the Slingbox, I noticed really no problems whatsoever. The Sling always went to full screen giving me the best horizontal view possible. Now since the device slides open and at a 40 degree angle it is a pleasure to watch while eating my lunch.

One other factor that drew me into purchasing the TyTN II was the GPS radio. I have been using the free map w/TomTom and I was using Google Maps but once you get a taste of TomTom you really want the full experience. So yesterday I placed an order at the Mobility Today store for Tom Tom 6 Navigator for PocketPC! I have read many forums where people were not sure if the TomTom 6 Navigator for PocketPC would work and for confirmation it did! When I got the DVD today I immediately installed the application and was prompted with an error, “Not enough space on HTC TyTN II”.. Now, I should have known since I only had a 1GB card so I once again placed an order for a Sandisk 4GB MicroSD card. Now this is the mother of all memory cards to buy for any Windows Mobile phone! I used the included reader to move all my previous content from my 1GB card to the 4GB card which it only took 4.5 minutes to move 850MB’s of data!!! Unbelievable!

Once I got the maps installed I timed exactly how long it took the TyTN II to lock the satellites. The average time took me only 6.5 seconds!!! This is even better than my TomTom 910 unit! The guidance is dead on and exact! Now I have only used the TomTom for 1 day but I do have some long trips coming up so I definitely will put it through some paces…

So please keep posted as I will continue my adventure with the HTC TyTN II.. Please continue to post your questions as I will answer them as I can.

DISLIKES

• The unit definitely needs a bigger battery 1350mAh just doesn’t cut it especially for a device with 802.11, HSDPA, GPS and Bluetooth.
• I have no clue how to tweak the GPS as there is no application associated with it? It just works..
• TomTom included is a complete waste for US. Why? Because you have to buy the entire US/Canada maps on DVD not like European maps where you can buy cities.
• Bluetooth pairing w/my Speakerphone worked fine but it looks like the Bluetooth Stack on the TyTN II is weird. Volume is much lower compared to the Q9m and Treo 750.
• US Tech support is terrible for this unit. As per HTC America’s “We will not support the TyTN II, thank you sir have a nice day!”
• I need Microsoft Voice Command… CASE CLOSED! Poor decision HTC!!!!

LIKES

• I LOVE the tilt screen. Most comfortable keyboard I have ever used.
• Skype is fantastic on the TyTN II! Wish I could get video to work on Skype but they haven’t enabled it yet..
• Memory, Memory, Space.. Gotta love it!
• 3MP camera takes some great pictures!
• TomTom teaser makes me want to spend more money for maps.. Perfect fit for me in NY when walking around Manhattan.
• GPS works with zero configuration
• Google Maps and Live Search for Mobile works perfectly with the embedded GPS.
• Nice touch by adding a screen protector in the box
• USB charging.. Gotta love it!
• Slingbox works perfectly.. No stuttering and full screen viewing is beautiful on the tilt

Review Video:

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HTC has been producing Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and Smartphones for a long time, but it is only with the Pocket PC TyTN (and a new Windows Mobile Smartphone the MTeoR) that the company has come out into the open and made products available under its own name. It had previously used the Qtek brand name for selling its own products, but that brand has been shelved.

Where you will have seen HTC’s wares before is in Windows Mobile Smartphones and Pocket PCs branded by network operators. The advantage of buying in this way is that you get a generous operator subsidy on the hardware. The advantage of buying SIM free is that you can chop and change operator as you see fit.

Also, in this case the TyTN (pronounced ‘titan’) simply isn’t available directly from any operators yet, though you can find it bundled with some operator deals by third parties such as Expansys right now.

3G is a rarity for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs. It’s only been seen in one other device, a large format, Tablet PC style swivel screened Pocket PC known, among other things, as the Orange SPV M5000 [link to review]. That is a good device, and this reviewer uses one regularly, but it is large for the average pocket.

The TyTN deals with that by reducing the overall size of the hardware and still including a very good keyboard. The trick is one we’ve seen before in (non 3G) predecessors to this device. The keyboard slides out from the left edge of the casing. As you slide it out to use it, the screen reorients itself from the portrait (tall) format it uses in standard mode to landscape (wide) mode, ready for you to start typing.

The TyTN has a touch sensitive screen, and when you don’t want to pull out the keyboard you can use an on-screen tappable one, or two types of handwriting recognition – one by writing into a recogniser window the other by writing direct to anywhere on the screen. A stylus lives in a slot on the bottom back right edge of the TyTN for this and other screen-prodding duties.

The need to accommodate the keyboard means the TyTN is rather thicker than the average Pocket PC – just a whisker under 22mm thick, in fact, which feels totally out of proportion to its other measurements of 112.5 mm tall and 58 mm wide.

But on the plus side, the TyTN is an ideal mobile email system. Holding it in two hands and tapping at the keyboard with thumbs allows for fast typing – faster, this reviewer found, than that possible with the likes of a BlackBerry or other device with a smaller front facing keyboard – and as yet there is no 3G BlackBerry anyway.

As well as using the TyTN to tap out emails, it comes with Word Mobile and Excel Mobile, which produce documents compatible with their Microsoft Office counterparts. For those who like their email on the move both POP3 and Microsoft Exchange based push systems are supported.

There is a small front facing camera for video calling, and a larger one on the back for shooting stills and video at resolutions up to 2 megapixels. Unusually this has a macro mode, which you get to simply by swivelling a small lever on the lens. There is a flash and self portrait mirror, and a fairly good array of settings and features including burst and sports shooting modes and a panorama stitch mode, for example.

A neat system of on screen tappable menus provides access to all these options. The TyTN screen turns into a viewfinder when you are in camera mode and shifts into landscape orientation, the shutter button for the camera resting under your right forefinger.

While on the topic of buttons, HTC has done well with the array it provides for accessing system functions. Sitting above the screen a pair of buttons take you to the built in messaging centre (for email, SMS, MMS management), and to Pocket Internet Explorer for using the Web. Under the screen there are no less than seven button functions plus a navigation key and central select button, but these are nicely designed in a neat panel so that they don’t look too plentiful or messy.

Call and End buttons are at the far left and right of this panel, with vertical rockers inside them whose top end maps to the Windows Mobile soft menus (you can also tap these menus, of course), and whose bottom end take you to the applications menu and act as an OK function.

Inside these is the navigation button, while to the very far left a small round button is dedicated to video calling.

On the right side is the camera activation and shutter button already noted, the main power button and one which opens the standard Windows Mobile Comm Manager – a set of menus you can use to turn on and off the various wireless communications features. As well a 3G the TyTN accommodates Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and infra red. Wi-Fi means it can be used for using the Internet via any Wi-Fi network you have access to, and potentially for Voice over IP too.

On the left side there is a button that on a short press calls up the built in voice control software, and on a long press starts the built in voice recorder. Above this is a scroll wheel which sits neatly under the thumb and small OK button.

All this might sound like overload, especially if you remember there is a touch screen here as well, but in fact the result is a system that is very easy to use in the way you like best – some like to tap the screen, some prefer buttons.

With 128MB of built in memory the TyTN should cope with your diary, address and general information needs and leave space to install some of the mountain of add-on software available. But if you want to play music through the Windows Media Player, or store lots of additional information, then you’ll want more memory. This comes in the shape of microSD cards and the slot is on the left edge of the casing. It isn’t covered, which is a little annoying, but at least this location means you can swap cards easily.

Over and above the software already noted as provided comes a PDF viewer, picture and video viewer, PowerPoint Mobile for viewing (not editing) presentations, and a zip file manager. HTC really should have thrown a backup utility in for good measure, but at least you know that, because the TyTN has ‘persistent’ memory, your data and software won’t be lost if the battery runs completely down. You also get the software needed to synchronise Outlook with your PC, and a cable to connect.

The TyTN isn’t for everyone. It can be used to do a huge amount and is best suited to professional users or those who simply need a lot of ‘stuff’ in their pocket at all times. It is going to be overkill if all you do with a 3G handset is the odd bit of browsing and video calling.

But if you are looking for the Swiss army knife of smartphones, then the TyTN could be it.

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The HTC Touch Viva has compact design with a sensitive touchscreen with HTC’s TouchFLO finger-touch navigation. Running on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, consumers can synchronize their calendar, contacts, emails and more with their personal computer. Users can flip through album artwork, pictures and videos as if they were picture cards in the palm of the hand. They can visit websites, enjoy YouTube videos and browse Google Maps. With a built in RSS feed, users can get latest news or send and receive email with Microsoft Office documents.

HTC Touch Viva Features

• Built-in 2.8-inch touch screen, with four times the resolution of most phones
• Powered by Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
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• Integrated 2.0-megapixel camera for quality stills and video
• microSD slot for expandable storage

Review Video:

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