Pocket PC SmartPhone Review: i-mate Smartflip / Qtek 8500

The i-Mate Smartflip or otherwise known as QTEK 8500 windows mobile smartphone, is a radical new admission into the smart phone market, offering a truly compact and light-weight clamshell design. The Smartflip is running the Windows Mobile 5 operating system.

This device gave an end to the impression that smaprtphones and pocket pc mobile phones running Microsoft’s operating system should be large, heavy and bulky. The smartlip measures only 98.5 x 51.4 x 15.8 mm and weights 99g.

DESIGN:

Regardless the fact that the device is thin, HTC have managed to insert a number of buttons onto the Smartflip’s external front panel, including a set of dedicated contorls for MP3 player, a camera button on the right and voice tags and volume control keys on the left. There's also a single USB and charging connector on the right hand side, but this isn't a standard mini-USB port. This is bad because this implies that you always must use the included proprietary cables.

The Smartflip’s front panel (exterior) also includes a small TFT screen capable of displaying caller ID information. This is very useful since you do not have to open the phone every time you have a call to see who is calling. This is the same concept many Nokia mobile phones have. The external screen also includes battery life meter, signal strength, missed calls information, and new SMS alerts. The time, date and wallpaper are also shown. All these items can be configured through the phone settings menu.

The Smartflip interior reveals an impressive, bright and clear 2.2” TFT LCD display (it is not a touch screen). This is the smallest display we have seen so far on any smartphone, windows powered device. It has an excellent viewing angle and is clearly visible in sunlight. Just under the display you can find the keypad. It is the usual keypad you may find on any “regular” phone with some large flat buttons covered by stylish silver imprints. Once conern we have is about the size of the keys, they are fairly large and this makes your thumb a little tender when moving from key to key. Of course if you have large fingers then this cannot be considered a disadvantage. The controls on the Smartflip are the standard ones:
5-way navigational pad
two selection keys
answer and end call buttons
Home and back buttons.

SmartFlip is a smartphone, there is no touch panel or stylus. You operate the windows mobile operating system and programs using the normal phone keypad. This is ideal for those who want a WM smartphone but do not want to change the way they are used to work with their phone. For this differntiality of SmartFlip, HTC played a big role by making the menus and operations of this phone simple and easy.

For example when you are on the home screen, the left selection button is the Windows Start button, and the right button opens the contacts screen. The functions of these keys, as you would expect in a windows mobile, change from application to application, making the device easy to use.

SPEED:

Due the nature and processor requirements of this device, the Smartflip is one of the fastest Windows Mobile devices we have seen till now (August 2006). It is running a OMAP 850 processor at 195MHz. This is more than enough for applications to load very fast. Switching between running programs is very easy and without effort and besides startup time (which is usual and normal) there is not much more to say about its performance. Everything works fast and the camera in particular starts almost the moment you open it, unlike other HTC devices (i-mate JAM, i-mate K-JAM), which take a couple of seconds (or more) for the camera to open.

MEMORY:

The Smartflip is built-in with 64MB RAM and 64MB ROM, of which 44MB is available for storing your data. The other 20 megs are for operating system needs. This is fairly standard, although the idea of 128MB of, “basic”, RAM sounds like a better option. Of course the Smartflips has a micro SD memory slot so memory can be expanded. Having no other option HTC placed the memory slot under the battery, which means that you must turn off the phone, slide off the back cover and remove the battery in order to access the card slot.

CAMERA:

The Smartflip includes a 1.3 mega pixel camera, this is somehow disappointing as most of the smart phones are currently shipping with 2.0 mega pixel or greater cameras. The camera includes a number of features, including grayscale, sepia and cool effects, a two and ten second self-timer, 2x digital zoom and the ability to adjust white balance settings. The camera does not have a flash, and the overall quality of pictures isn't impressive with some poor color reproduction and image noise. With the camera of Smartflip you can also capture short or long videos but the quality is not that good, it is rather disappointing for a 2006 phone.

CONNECTIVITY:

No WI-FI support. This is a very big disadvantage for Smartflip especially for people who want to connect to wireless networks, access the internet or use Skype (anyway smartflip is not a 3G phone- only supports the 2.5 G network). The device includes GPRS and Bluetooth connections but no infrared.

PHONE FEATURES:

Phone features include a loud and clear hands free speakerphone, polyphonic MIDI ring tones, Java support, a microphone for voice dialing tags and MP3 player.

SOFTWARE:

Of course, the Smartflip includes the range of applications that come with Windows Mobile 5, including Pocket Outlook, Calendar, Contacts, Internet Explorer Mobile Windows Media Player, ActiveSync, Pocket MSN, Calculator and Games.

BATTERY LIFE:

The Smartflip has an average battery life with up to five hours of talk time and 150 hours of standby time according to HTC figures.