Another improvement is in the
style department. The casing color, quality, fit and finish look
really cool.
Click on the pictures to
view larger versions:
There is a noticeable improvement
over the earlier model. See side-by-side picture and judge for
your self.
i-Mate PDA2K looks more sophisticated
than the pervious model “HTC Himalaya” on the right.
The lines on the front panel adds to the stylish and professional
appearance. The back side is all covered in black instead of
sliver. Note that there is no battery cover on the PDA2K compared
with i-Mate.
On the top of i-Mate PDA2K the
power button has been moved to the left. You will find SDIO/MMC
card slot and Headphones jack. The Infrared port is relocated
on the left side instead which is not an awkward location keeping
in mind that it is not a long range IR port. Notice there is
a week point on the old i-Mate on top of the power button which
is common, as you can see there was a crack and got broken on
my device. I didn’t see any week points on i-Mate PDA2K
casing anywhere so far. Also it
is worth to mention that I am glad it comes with a hidden Wifi
antenna, but I hope that won't effect the signal strength of
the device when I test the wireless features later in this
review.
On the bottom the i-Mate PDA2K
on the left has a reset hole, microphone and the USB connector
which is also compatible with the Qtek 1010 and i-Mate. I am
glad that they thought about that in order to make most of the
accessories compatible with the PDA2K.
i-Mate PDA2K on the right has
the same button arrangements compared to the old i-Mate, but
in addition is has the Infrared port as well. The volume button
on the PDA2K is not very easy to use; I like the one on the previous
model much better.
On the following picture you
can see the stylus of i-Mate appears on the right side of the
device whereas the stylus of PDA2K is located also on the right
side but slightly to the back of the device. The stylus on the
new i-Mate PDA2K fits tightly and you won’t fear if it
will fall.
The extra hardware buttons on
the PDA2K is a welcome addition and they are located below the
screen. They can be re-programmed for various user tasks such
as assigning one of them for “Screen Rotation” which
is very useful to switch from landscape to portrait on the fly
(Start / Settings / Buttons).
You can see from the following
picture how headsets connect on both devices. On i-Mate PDA2K
the location is more convenient to carry the device on your shirt
pocket while the headset is connected on the top of the device.
The stereo headsets of both
devices share the same features such as Send/End Phone calls
and volume control.
The headset that came with i-Mate
PDA2K has the same connector, but it doesn't have the plastic
cover which makes is possible to use it with another phone.
The Keyboard:
The device comes with a slide-out
QWERTY keyboard as you have already seen form previous pictures.
To many people (including myself) this is a dream that came true.
This is one of the main reasons why I would decide to upgrade
and choose the PDA2K over the previous model. Immediately it
became my default input method and as a result I have become
more productive.
The slide-out design is very
useful and convenient I can even use it with one hand only. It
didn’t add to the overall size of i-Mate PDA2K compared
to the previous model. You want the keyboard! Just slide it open.
This way, when you are not using the keyboard you have the same
form factor and this is why I appreciate this design compared
with a permanent keyboard design which increases the overall
size of the device and makes it look bulky.
In Dubai you will find two versions
of PDA2K comes with both Arabic/English keyboard and you will
find as well an English only keyboard as shown in this
picture.
Every button on the keyboard
has raised portions to give the user a tactile feedback during
usage, click on the first picture to see a larger image of the
keyboard and the raised portions more clearly.
The keyboard is very easy to
use and it is integrated to be used in any Pocket PC application.
You can adjust the keyboard settings as follows: Go to settings
/ System / Keyboard. You will find the usual keyboard settings
such as repeat and key settings.
Clicking on Key Settings takes
you to the button settings where you can configure hardware buttons
to be used alongside with the integrated keyboard. This is very
handy and it can even minimize the usage of your stylus.
The screen:
The screen resolution is a Pocket
PC standard 240 x 320 pixel, 65 k colors. I am impressed with
this display the colors are vivid and the contrast is great.
One thing though I noticed is the yellow hue when you view the
device from an angle. You will notice from the following pictures
the difference between iMate PDA2K and i-Mate.
Click on the following images
to view larger versions:
Apparently the screen on the
i-Mate PDA2K is brighter than the previous i-Mate and the contrast
is even better. Note that I have set both devices to maximum
brightness.
The following picture to show
you the yellow hue clearly appears on the i-Mate PDA2K.
With some lightning in the background
you can still notice there is a yellow hue on the i-Mate PDA2K.
You can see the screen looks
more yellowish when it is viewed from the left angle.
But when you view it from the
right angle you don't see the yellow screen anymore.
The screen obviously has a yellow
hue, but I won’t consider this as a negative point because
I noticed that this screen is more viewable under the sunlight
compared to the previous i-Mate.
New i-Mate Pocket PCs
Here you can view some pictures
to compare the new i-Mate products which were released during
Gitex 2004 in Dubai.
Click on the above picture for a larger
view
Click
here to view pictures for all i-Mate products including
i-Mate Smartphones
I will continue on page
3 with benchmark testing to compare the performance of i-Mate
PDA2K with other devices. There are also some Battery tests...
The results seems to be very interesting!!
