Please note –
We managed to get the iMate Ultimate 8150 and iMate Ultimate 6150 handsets recently. Both of these phones are gold in colour and are early production builds. Although we’ve taken up-close shots of these phones, we’ve now received the following images of the final black builds. These are constructed to a higher build quality than you’ll see in the close-up pictures of the gold units used in this review.
Final Unit Pictures
Here’s the iMate Ultimate 6150 in black as you’ll receive it if you buy one..
Whilst below you can see the iMate Ultimate 8150..
I started this review looking at the iMate Ultimate 8150 alone, however – as
you’ll see below, it rapidly became a review of both the iMate Ultimate 8150 and the iMate Ultimate 6150. Confused? Well, read on for a full explanation..
Imagine your perfect phone. Some may want a small phone, some may want
a thin phone, others want a feature-packed handset. If that’s you then imagine a
phone with 3G, HSPDA, WiFi, touch screen, numeric keypad, Bluetooth v2.0 with
A2DP, FM radio, 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus, video output, loads of
memory and a blistering 520Mhz processor complete with an NVIDIA graphics
accelerator to push things even faster.
Interested?
Meet the iMate 8150.
Up Close
iMate have thrown (almost) everything at this handset. Sure, there’s no QWERTY
keyboard and no GPS, but one thing that instantly jumps out at you is the speed.
If you open up the "Programs" window and scroll down the motion is so fluid
you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’re using a real PC. The graphics
accelerator and extremely fast CPU really show through – the phone just charges
into every application and game with venom.
The device, let’s admit, is a little large. The design is, if I’m kind, not to
everyones taste.
The main screen is surrounded by a fairly heavy black frame, making it seem
smaller than it actually is. At the top there’s the flashing LED’s for network
activity, plus your earpiece and the face-mounting camera.
The numeric keypad at the bottom cleverly integrates the joystick for navugation.
Each number key is wide but, for reasons I don’t quite understand, both the
numbers and the letters seem to be the same height and font-size.
The soft keys at the top are awkwardly positioned and it feels like they should
be seperated from the main keypad. When I tried pressing either of the black
softkeys I sometimes hit the "call" and "drop" keys below, which was a little
annoying.
On the right side of the handset is a the camera button – it activates the
auto-focus camera. Press this down and it’ll focus on what you’re pointing at –
press it down further and you’ll snap it. Next to it is the rubber flap covering
the VGA output slot. Don’t get too attached to this rubber flap because it’s not
actually attached to anything. Pull it a bit and it simply drops out. There’s
nothing holding it in, it’s nothing more than a cork.
The miniUSB plug is also here, as is another hole (you may have seen another on
next to the camera button) which is covered by a small rubber gromit. I’m not
totally sure what these are for to be honest.
At the top is a power button and the IR window.
On the left you can see the retractable stylus which fits snugly in the phone when you’re not using it. The wheel below is a great addition –
it’s not the full roller-wheel, rather a "rocker" type with a knob to signify
the centre. Below that is the OK button and the microSD card slot ….
At the bottom left of the phone is a WiFi button. This takes you into the
Wireless Manager where you can control the phone, Bluetooth and WiFi
capabilities. This button does get pressed quite a bit when you’re using the
camera as, when your finger is all ready to hit the camera button, your thumb is
invariably on top of this wireless button. Press the camera button in and you’ll
end up pressing both keys at once by accident, firing off a shot and then
dumping you into the Wireless Manager, or perhaps one or the other. The only way
around this is to watch how you hold the phone whilst taking shots.
The reset button is also on this side.
At the back there’s a camera / mirror / flash / speaker arrangement
which is arranged in a strip. It’s like the headlight on an old American car.
Next to this is the 2 megapixel camera whilst below we have the battery cover. Below that the battery is, frankly,
pretty bloody big. The battery cover itself is metal and can bend easily at
times. I think this one has already started bending at the edges here.
Inside
The iMate 8150 is a phone of two halves. It’s fair to say that we weren’t too
impressed with the outside of it, but inside it’s a totally different story.
I’ve already noted down some of my highlights…
– The screen, for example, is bright and colourful. The resolution is excellent.
– When browsing pages the resolution really shows through – as does the speed.
Web pages are rendered quicker than I’ve ever seen on any other Windows
Mobile handset.
– Videos are smooth, sharp and quick. The video output works, and it works well.
– The camera produces excellent shots and the preview window is just like
looking through glass.
– This phone is quick, seriously quick. Software runs well, images fire onto the
screen instantly, searches are performed in an instant.
– Applications like "Remote Desktop" become even better due to the higher
resolution.
– Plug it into your PC or laptop to sync and it’ll ask you if you’d like "Fast
Charging"
First up thought, I have to show you the resolution off this phone. Here’s a
shot directly from the screen at thr 640×480 resolution. Obviously I can’t do
all screen-grabs this size, else the review would be massive, but here’s one to
give you an idea of the resolution and pixel difference. A higher resolution
does mean slightly smaller text though, but you can adjust this in applications
like Internet Explorer.
My next idea was to give you a look at the specs within this
phone. I fired up the Device Information from the iMate 8150 and took some
shots…
There, plain as day, is the powerful XScale CPU running at 520Mhz
along with the extra memory and 640×480 LCD. You’ll see that these are the shots from the 6150, which we haven’t looked at until now. However, after putting them side-by-side I started to notice some distinct similarities..
Here’s the iMate Ultimate 6150…
This hit me a little too slowly. Perhaps it was due to the fact
that I’ve been reviewing lots of phones at the minute and hadn’t really looked
at the other iMate, but on closer inspection it does indeed seem that these
handsets are pretty much identical in every way. The only difference between the
two is the screen-size and keypad. The iMate 8150 that I started reviewing here
has a numeric keypad and a normal-sized touch-screen. However, withn the iMate
6150 they simply binned the keypad and put a bigger screen in. Even the joystick
is in pretty much the same place.
Have a look at my evidence. Here’s the two devices side-by-side. You can see
already how similar the designs are and, while this was probably intentional,
it’s interesting to note that both devices are probably using the same
motherboard.
At the back you can see that both phones are identical in every
way..
On the top left we’ve got the same stylus, same wheel, same keys
and holes – all in exactly the same position..
The only difference here is the position of the soft-keys, which
are moved down on the 6150 to accommodate the bigger screen.
On the top is the iMate 6150 whilst on the bottom is the 8150..
err.. no, wait – I think it’s the other way around possibly. 🙂
Here’s a few comparison shots with the HTC Touch..
Inside (continued!)
Due to the fact that both phones are the pretty much the same in every way, I decided to include screenshots from just one of the handsets, however the capability and responsiveness is the same on either phone. First I tried out browsing. This was extremely quick. The WiFi was picked up and I fire up Internet Explorer. The text on IE is smaller than perhaps you’re used to on other Windows Mobile phones – this us because of the increased resolution on the phone. You can alter this if you like, however I found that pages looked fine and were perfectly readable even on the smaller 8150 screen.
I felt that the best way to show how quick the browser was would be through a YouTube video which you can see below..
The camera application is also incredibly quick. There’s absolutely no lag or delay when you’re moving the phone around on “preview” mode and it’ll adjust the lens when you press down on the camera button..
Video and camera modes are available on this, plus you can
switch to the face-pointing camera if you want to take a snap of yourself in
lower resolution. Let’s not forget that the camera also has a flash for those
low-light situations. I took some shots with the camera on its’ highest setting
– you can see what they look like by clicking the thumbnails below..
There was something else I wanted to test though, and that was the VGA out. Both handsets offer VGA / TV Out capabilities so I grabbed the phone and plugged it into our TV at home. The result is below. Apologies in advance for the darkness, but you should be able to see how the screen of the iMate 8150 suddenly feels like a tablet interface when you switch across to TV output.
Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that the video was recorded on the iMate Ultimate 6150.
Let’s have another look at the main "Today" screen at its’ normal resolution,
this time with the Start menu selected…
The FM radio needs the headset plugged in to act as an aerial
and works rather well. I couldn’t take a shot of it in action, however this is
how it looks when you load it up…
The FM radio allows you to have resets and it’ll even let you
record stations too! Handy huh ? 🙂
Next we move onto the Windows Media Player. Everything about it
is quicker and smoother with the CPU and graphics accelerator. When you’re
updating the library for example, this is done in seconds instead of minutes,
and when you do watch a video it’s able to handle much higher frame-rates and
higher quality videos. I’ve included a video to show this with a live news channel broadcasting via the WiFi…
Talking about WiFi, here’s a look at the connection manager, which is
triggered either from the menu or with the button on the lower-left of the
handset as we saw earlier. iMate have included the on / off controls plus
they’ve added the relevant settings buttons right next door so you can easily
tweak details like the WiFi Access Point.
If you’re on a WiFi point you can make use of the resolution and
log into servers or other PC’s with the Remote Desktop client, which has
thankfully been left in (a lot of builds now seem to be dropping this tool,
which is a real shame because I find it invaluable).
iMate have also included several tools to Backup your device,
check email or you can remotely access files using 1-View. 1-View lets you
access any file on any PC from where-ever you are. This is also a very valuable
tool when you’re looking for that all-important presentation, Word or Excel file
back at the office or on your home PC.
These tools form part of the iMate Suite, and you can get more details about
them or try them out yourself
here.
Phone calls and video calls work well and voice quality is fine. Video calls
look great in the new resolution too..
A quick look through the Programs list reveals ClearVue PDF viewer, the
ever-useful File Explorer, Messenger, a Streaming Player and we’ve also got
Office Mobile (which is accessible from the main screen) to open and create
Microsoft Office files too.
Conclusion
Both the iMate Ultimate 6150 and the iMate Ultimate 8150 are very capable handsets with lots of power on tap. The specs are excellent and both phones operate far faster than anything I’ve seen before. Videos are smooth, Office documents open quickly and complex Excel spreadsheets are handled without stress. The VGA output turns the device into a real mobile work-horse which lets you arrive anywhere and present a demonstration with nothing more than your iMate Ultimate and its’ included VGA cable.
Although the somewhat angular lines and portly dimensions could make this a turn-off, it should be remembered that the final handsets will be built to a much higher quality and may be curvier and perhaps even a little sexier than these test units. Keep an eye out on iMate.com for further information.
Link – devicewire.co.uk