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View Full Version : CES 2008: Gear Diary First Impressions of i-mate Ultimates


Nurhisham Hussein
01-16-2008, 07:00 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.geardiary.com/2008/01/14/ces-2008-meeting-with-i-mate/trackback/' target='_blank'>http://www.geardiary.com/2008/01/14...mate/trackback/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"So what were our overall impressions of the new i-mate Ultimate line? They are solid, well made, full-featured, and there is something for almost everyone. Although I suspect that there will be some who think the Ultimates are too big, too thick, or too whatever - we were truly impressed by them."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/hisham-20080116-thumb_geardiary_imate_ultimate_meeting_ces_08.JPG" /><br /><br />Judie Lipsett and Jerry Raia from Gear Diary had a chance to sit down and fondle a few of the about-to-be-released models from i-mate's Ultimate line at the recently concluded CES 2008. What came out of that meeting were a whole bunch of nice pictures and first impressions of four models: the 8150, 8502, 9502, and 6150. It appears all four will be available in the near future, although prices were not disclosed. Good stuff, and worth a look.

frax
01-16-2008, 01:38 PM
The 8502 sounds interesting, but I just placed by order for a Kaiser!

Knocksock
01-16-2008, 02:21 PM
First, I would say its a pity that you chose Kaiser instead of 8502. But, I assume you would have waited quite a bit for the 8502 to arrive. Kaiser is ok ;)

Secondly..I must say I am not impressed of the 2 journalists research of i-mate as a company since they didn't spot Jimbo on 300 metres distance ;)

netboy
01-16-2008, 03:35 PM
i cant wait for 9502 to replace my eten x800!
wait, i already replaced my eten x800 with Imate 6150.
but 9502 is even better, with build in GPS, VGA, and tri-band HSDPA!

PdaAddict
01-16-2008, 04:14 PM
Good things started happening after Imate broke up with HTC. Anyone knows who manufactures the Ultimate series?

Jerry Raia
01-16-2008, 04:54 PM
First, I would say its a pity that you chose Kaiser instead of 8502. But, I assume you would have waited quite a bit for the 8502 to arrive. Kaiser is ok ;)

Secondly..I must say I am not impressed of the 2 journalists research of i-mate as a company since they didn't spot Jimbo on 300 metres distance ;)

First of all, we are bloggers not journalists, so says Gizmodo. :wink:

Secondly, it's OK, he didn't recognize either of us at 3 meters. :lol:

netboy
01-16-2008, 04:57 PM
Good things started happening after Imate broke up with HTC. Anyone knows who manufactures the Ultimate series?

I think the real reason for breakup is HTC is impotence of making VGA pdaPhone that fits in your pocket!*

*my opinion

srmz
01-16-2008, 08:37 PM
I read somewhere in this preview that the 9502 is manufactured by "MobiNova" after Imate broke its relationship with "TechFaithWireless". Now that is a concern as never heard of this company MobiNova. What will the build quality be like?? How good will be the fit and finish?? Will the device be reliable in the longer run ?? And many more such apprehensions obviously creep up.

Jerry Raia
01-16-2008, 09:53 PM
I read somewhere in this preview that the 9502 is manufactured by "MobiNova" after Imate broke its relationship with "TechFaithWireless". Now that is a concern as never heard of this company MobiNova. What will the build quality be like?? How good will be the fit and finish?? Will the device be reliable in the longer run ?? And many more such apprehensions obviously creep up.

You are right about the new manufacturer. See Judie's comment (http://www.geardiary.com/2008/01/14/ces-2008-meeting-with-i-mate/#comment-57032) in the original article.

Knocksock
01-17-2008, 01:30 PM
i cant wait for 9502 to replace my eten x800!
wait, i already replaced my eten x800 with Imate 6150.
but 9502 is even better, with build in GPS, VGA, and tri-band HSDPA!

My personal opinion is that 9502 is a bit big and heavy - the design is, well not very new. Maybe areas where the Sidekick has been popular it will be popular. The 6150 and 8150 is made by Arima and I would say 6150 is a quite plain PDA, very nice 2.8" VGA screen, feature as connecting to an external display is nice, camera is ok. Some say it could have a larger screen as the 6150 don't have 12 keys keyboard as 8150 have, but only 0.2" larger screen (and size is the same for 6150 and 8150). I believe the GPS is not the best on the market, but we'll see how it performs. The HSDPA/HSUPA is nice!! But it ofcourse drains power, something is very much related to the user pattern of Bluetooth, Wlan and so on.

Knocksock
01-17-2008, 01:37 PM
First, I would say its a pity that you chose Kaiser instead of 8502. But, I assume you would have waited quite a bit for the 8502 to arrive. Kaiser is ok ;)

Secondly..I must say I am not impressed of the 2 journalists research of i-mate as a company since they didn't spot Jimbo on 300 metres distance ;)

First of all, we are bloggers not journalists, so says Gizmodo. :wink:

Secondly, it's OK, he didn't recognize either of us at 3 meters. :lol:

Haha! You bloggers should be a little "undercover" you know, but Jimbo isn't easy to "cover" "under" anything ;) Nice to hear you were positively surprised with the meeting, but there is ofcourse many people out there that would have many questions to i-mate as a company. Are you from USA ? My experience is that USA often gets devices a little later than Europe and Middle East - and its in these areas much of the critics towards i-mate have come.

Knocksock
01-17-2008, 01:46 PM
Good things started happening after Imate broke up with HTC. Anyone knows who manufactures the Ultimate series?

I think the real reason for breakup is HTC is impotence of making VGA pdaPhone that fits in your pocket!*

*my opinion

I don't agree totally in these comments. i-mate first chose to cooperate with manufactors that made bad quality phones, without top-spec'ed models in their product line. I do agree that the i-mate / HTC situation was healthy, something had to be done. Arima is making the 6150 and 8150. I think the hardware and software is smooth designed and I hope they will stick with i-mate in the future. MobiNova Corporation makes the 8502 and 9502. This is a company founded not long time ago of pre-HTC workers. I am impressed of these devices. The software and design of 8502. As said, I think 9502 could have been much better (design).

I talked to HTC about VGA devices, I guess HTC will within short time come up with a device using VGA. I am not sure how they will do this, but probably a 2.6-3.0" VGA screen. HTC, however, claimed they didn't have these plans, but they must.

Craig Horlacher
01-17-2008, 03:37 PM
i cant wait for 9502 to replace my eten x800!
wait, i already replaced my eten x800 with Imate 6150.
but 9502 is even better, with build in GPS, VGA, and tri-band HSDPA!

My personal opinion is that 9502 is a bit big and heavy - the design is, well not very new. Maybe areas where the Sidekick has been popular it will be popular. The 6150 and 8150 is made by Arima and I would say 6150 is a quite plain PDA, very nice 2.8" VGA screen, feature as connecting to an external display is nice, camera is ok. Some say it could have a larger screen as the 6150 don't have 12 keys keyboard as 8150 have, but only 0.2" larger screen (and size is the same for 6150 and 8150). I believe the GPS is not the best on the market, but we'll see how it performs. The HSDPA/HSUPA is nice!! But it ofcourse drains power, something is very much related to the user pattern of Bluetooth, Wlan and so on.

I think I have a different take than you on things. To me, the Ultimate line are high end converged devices. I would not put a sidekick in the category. For me the base requirement is a vga screen, 128MB of RAM, and HSDPA. Now the 8502 doesn't have vga so it's not one for me but still loaded in other ways. I don't think any other devices have all these features. As if that isn't enough they add more like the fm tuner or gps, xga out or composite out, 256MB Flash, and some have HSUPA - which almost nothing has. The 6150 is my choice (and I'll probably buy it when it's available again) because it has 2 tenths of an inch larger screen than the 8150 and with that resolution at that size every bit counts. I can live without the physical keypad. If you're comparing the 9502 to a Sidekick I think you're missing the point of the Ultimate series. These are for power users, the Sidekick is better for teens, soccer moms, and people who just need a texting device that does little more. The 9502 is not for me because it has a Qualcomm 400MHz cpu instead of the 520MHz Xscale.

Malkatraz
01-18-2008, 12:41 AM
I have had a hardware keyboard device before (TyTN) and I got rid of it because of the size. My 6150 is absolutely perfect. And I find Touchpal a joy to use.

Hardware keyboard - 6mm + 50g weight
Touchpal keyboard - 1MB

Easy choice for me.

I would never consider the 9502 simply for its colossal size.

Jerry Raia
01-18-2008, 02:22 AM
Are you from USA ? My experience is that USA often gets devices a little later than Europe and Middle East - and its in these areas much of the critics towards i-mate have come.

Yes we are and you are quite right about us getting devices after the rest of the world. I think a lot of that is due to the carriers here locking down the devices, at least up until now.

Knocksock
01-18-2008, 08:47 AM
i cant wait for 9502 to replace my eten x800!
wait, i already replaced my eten x800 with Imate 6150.
but 9502 is even better, with build in GPS, VGA, and tri-band HSDPA!

My personal opinion is that 9502 is a bit big and heavy - the design is, well not very new. Maybe areas where the Sidekick has been popular it will be popular. The 6150 and 8150 is made by Arima and I would say 6150 is a quite plain PDA, very nice 2.8" VGA screen, feature as connecting to an external display is nice, camera is ok. Some say it could have a larger screen as the 6150 don't have 12 keys keyboard as 8150 have, but only 0.2" larger screen (and size is the same for 6150 and 8150). I believe the GPS is not the best on the market, but we'll see how it performs. The HSDPA/HSUPA is nice!! But it ofcourse drains power, something is very much related to the user pattern of Bluetooth, Wlan and so on.

I think I have a different take than you on things. To me, the Ultimate line are high end converged devices. I would not put a sidekick in the category. For me the base requirement is a vga screen, 128MB of RAM, and HSDPA. Now the 8502 doesn't have vga so it's not one for me but still loaded in other ways. I don't think any other devices have all these features. As if that isn't enough they add more like the fm tuner or gps, xga out or composite out, 256MB Flash, and some have HSUPA - which almost nothing has. The 6150 is my choice (and I'll probably buy it when it's available again) because it has 2 tenths of an inch larger screen than the 8150 and with that resolution at that size every bit counts. I can live without the physical keypad. If you're comparing the 9502 to a Sidekick I think you're missing the point of the Ultimate series. These are for power users, the Sidekick is better for teens, soccer moms, and people who just need a texting device that does little more. The 9502 is not for me because it has a Qualcomm 400MHz cpu instead of the 520MHz Xscale.

Sorry for long quotes here. I don't know much about Sidekick, only that its popular and that it might have a design (screen ?) like 9502. People I have talked to have said 9502 has a design like a "gadget". So, thats why I mentioned Sidekick - no other reason. VGA screen is nice - its strange to sit and test VGA PDAs and then go over to QVGA. So its a pity 8502 don't have VGA, but I guess it could be priced lower and by that sell more. When you mention 128 Mb RAM it will drop down to about 75-80 Mb free when PDA is turned on. Guess ROM (storage) will drop down to 110-130Mb. 6150 and 8150 have HSDPA yes, and 8502 and 9502 both HSDPA and HSUPA. In some areas this is good, I guess the operators and content providers will soon be able to deliver services that (ab)uses this high-speed standard - but probably wait 'till WiMAX is launched + new technology on the web/communication site (programming language, how to wrap and compress data and so on). Regarding FM Tuner its quite good on 6150 and 8150. Haven't seen any on 8502 and 9502. The GPS will probably not be the best on the market (is it called OneGPS ? not sure..), and not come with GPS software pre-installed. Sure some retailers will wrap it with software, but then the price will raise. Look at HTC, they launched one of their devices with a "light" (shipped with a area map)version of TomTom - just like HP did with 6515. Customers had to buy a new software (preferrely TomTom) adding a price of about 150-200 pounds for the GPS navigation to be up and running. The XGA is great! I agree about the keyboard - from my point of view it makes a PDA heavier, therefore I am positive to 8502 with a great front keyboard. I also agree about Intel vs QualComm. Qualcomm seems to be a bit slower than the Intel. I am not negative to the new i-mate Ultimates, I just point out some of the weakness - for other people it might be it's strength :-)

Knocksock
01-18-2008, 08:50 AM
Are you from USA ? My experience is that USA often gets devices a little later than Europe and Middle East - and its in these areas much of the critics towards i-mate have come.

Yes we are and you are quite right about us getting devices after the rest of the world. I think a lot of that is due to the carriers here locking down the devices, at least up until now.

So there is a change in how the operators meet the market in USA ? That would be good. From our point of view the telecom/phone market seems very "stright".

JKingGrim
01-18-2008, 11:34 PM
Are you from USA ? My experience is that USA often gets devices a little later than Europe and Middle East - and its in these areas much of the critics towards i-mate have come.

Yes we are and you are quite right about us getting devices after the rest of the world. I think a lot of that is due to the carriers here locking down the devices, at least up until now.

So there is a change in how the operators meet the market in USA ?I would say things are getting better, but theres a long way to go.



When you mention 128 Mb RAM it will drop down to about 75-80 Mb free when PDA is turned on. Yes but that is true for any device. That is much better than 64mb that drops down to 22mb then strangely drops down to 10mb with nothing open. :(


Customers had to buy a new software (preferrely TomTom) adding a price of about 150-200 pounds for the GPS navigation to be up and running.Windows live search/google maps is free if you have a data connection. Very good software too.