i-mate - JAMA 101 review

Manufacturer i-mate is a well established builder of Windows Mobile devices available to anyone who wants them without a contract. The upside of this arrangement is that you can use them with any SIM. The downside is that without an operator subsidy they are relatively expensive.

The JAMA 101 is a case in point. At over £200 you are parting with a lot of money, so you need to be sure that you are getting a device that works well now and is future-proofed as much as possible.

On the latter front, the JAMA 101 has problems. There is Bluetooth but no Wi-Fi, which might not bother you today, but could do tomorrow, or next month, or next year. Without Wi-Fi you can't hop onto a network for some quick Web browsing, e-mail synchronising or file sharing. The more Wi-Fi there is around you, the more you may regret not having it on your PDA.

Hot on the heels of the x150 reviews we featured a few weeks ago we’ve had a hands on with the consumer equivalent the i-mate JAMA 101 the JAMA range is i-mates first foray into the consumer marketplace after the dissolution of their relationship with HTC so it’s quite key to their brand image, we’re going to look at how the JAMA measures up. The 101 is an upgraded version specs wise and styling wise over the original JAMA.

I-mates HTC devices have stood them in good stead, the JAMA looks just like a mini version of i-mates HTC JAMin which was a massive favourite of mine. The JAMA certainly turned heads the styling and size are fantastic, the screen is a little smaller than is ideal but you’re getting a really compact PDA here with Windows Mobile 6 professional on board.

Having some gorgeous thing :

i-mate JAMA 101

Mains charger

Battery

USB Sync/charge cable

User guide

Screen protector

Wired stereo headset

Spare stylus

Application CD rom

i-mate JAMA 101 full specification:

Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 6 Professional

Samsung 300 MHz processor

128Mbytes ROM 64 Mbytes RAM

2.4" 240 x 320 touch screen

GSM/GPRS (class 10) Tri-band 900/1800/1900 MHz

128MB ROM, 64MB RAM

Micro-SD card slot Memory Expansion (up to 2GB)

Nominal Talk time 4 hours, up to 150 Hours Standby

2.0 Mega Pixel-Effect camera with 5x digital zoom

Bluetooth® v1.2

USB1.1

No sign of life: the JAMA has no visual indication that it's on, no LEDs no lightsn no nothing. After my experiences with the ATOM this was disconcerting, I like a flashing LED at least to let me know the device is still alive.

Battery life: I got a day's use of the JAMA but that was it, I'd hope for a bit better, I know it's small but you need more juice than this

No WiFi, 3G and only USB 1.1: I suppose this is down to the size of the JAMA but I can't help feeling it's a retrograde step.

Flaky software: the JAMA hung far too often and refused to come back from the dead after I cleared the memory of my data prior to sending the JAMA back.

Erratic Bluetooth: possibly another symptom pf the same problem however the JAMA's Bluetooth just kept shutting down and a reboot was necessary to get it back sometimes.

The JAMA was a real pleaser initially and the styling certainly gained a positive reaction, however the lack of 3G and WiFi were a bit of a disappointment and with continued use the lack of visual notification and the fiddly on screen keyboards were a bit of pain. I wouldn’t replace my current devices with the JAMA at the moment but with an update to iron out the stability issues the JAMA could be a real winner.