04-13-2006, 07:00 PM
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Developer & Designer, News Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 12,959
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PDAgold.com Reviews the Qtek 9100
"Qtek 9100 is not the direct successor of the popular Compact (HTC Magician) yet it is hard to avoid comparison. There are many enhancements over the earlier model, such as Windows Mobile 5 as the operating system, EDGE and WiFi for fast data transmission, 128 MB of FlashROM, and a convenient slide-out keyboard for typing larger chunks of text. All that together with a more than reasonable price has made this device one of the most eagerly awaited Pocket PCs of the past year."
PDAgold.com has just written an extensive review of the Qtek 9100 (HTC Wizard), which is worth a read if you're considering purchasing it. Like some other reviews have mentioned, it struggles with select media-intensive applications, but otherwise, it's a great all-round device.
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04-13-2006, 08:55 PM
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5000+ Posts? I Should OWN This Site!
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 5,067
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Indeed ROM version 1.6.7.1 has brought a definite speed increase in every respect: boot-in time, EDGE transfer speed and general responsiveness, in addition to, of course, the increased stability. Pre-1.6.7.1 Qtek ROM versions (except for the 1.5 series, which were also pretty good � see my benchmarks at ) are plain useless.
As far as the '1' mark given to the processor is considered, I really disagree. I've compared the thing (with 1.6.7.1, and, nowadays, with the offficial AKU2 Qtek ROM) in games and other CPU-intensive tasks to current top-of-the-line PDA's and I can state it isn't (much) slower. It's probably only at Skype that it sucks - but, with overclocking � see OmapClock (see this article on both overclocking and the quantitive comparison benchmarks, including EDGE throughput speeds, of different ROM versions) - , this is not a problem.
In games, I'd say it's equally responsive and fast as my 520 MHz Pocket Loox 720 and 624 MHz Dell Axim x51v, somewhat faster than my 400 MHz iPAQ 2210 and much-much faster than my 206 MHz PPC2k2 StrongARM iPAQ 3660. In applications, the real processing speed of the CPU really excels: for example, in my comparative Webby benchmark tests (see the link for quantitive results), it fared considerably better than my iPAQ 2210 and almost as fast as the Dell Axim x51v.
Finally, as far as the screen quality is concerned, the Wizard (as with almost all 2.8" HTC PPC PE models) has a very good screen, even better than old Casio Cassiopeias and, consequently, much better than any Dell Axims - but certainly worse than the HTC Universal / Pocket Loox 718/720/C550/N560 / HP iPAQ hx4700. I've just made some comparative screenshots of several Pocket PC's; will publish them tomorrow (need some time to convert/upload them).
Sure the HTC Wizard has its drawbacks too � for example, as with most HTC PPC PE models, it can't record both parties in phone conversations (it's really annoying as I love recording my conversations with my wife and relatives so that we can include them in my diary � BTW, this is one of the reasons why I still stick to teh Sony-Ericsson T610, which does this flawlessly). The lack of 3G support is also one of a big grief. But, all in all, it's a decent PDA phone - with really stellar battery life and good EDGE speeds.
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04-14-2006, 10:15 AM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 524
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I've recently upgraded from an MDA Compact (Magician) to the Qtek 9100 (aka iMate K-Jam). There are some issues to do with speed - but (and I don't play games except PDAMill solitaire) these seem more to do with Today plugg-ins when screen turns from portrait to landscape. I had Pocket Plus & Phone alarm loaded - and switching to keyboard invoked a 15 second delay to refresh screen! Needless to say I now keep today screen clear of extra pluggins (I do miss them though).
But things like Core Player work OK (no worse than on last PDA) & generally I am impressed. Plus points - I have AKU2 - pushmail works well with our exchange server . Its great to have WiFi - especially for home where signal for GPRS is poor. I like WM5 - including the soft keys - though biggest pain is the difficulties loading TomTom Nav5!
The biggest surprise was that out of 128mb of Rom only 44 was available to user. I don't have any problems with lack of memory but clearly WM5 must be much bigger than WM2003SE which fitted in 64mb Rom with room to spare!
Finally - the 9100 does have a great screen and battery life is superb! Overall I have no regrets buying it!
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