The size and weight of mobile phones and that of laptops seems to be getting inversely proportionate. While laptops are veering more towards the lighter notebook side, shrinking and shedding kilos in their pursuit to become hand-holdable, phones are becoming smarter, read gaining weight, to give laptops a run for their money. Again, while laptops are becoming cheaper, now coming in sub-30K range, smart phones are either climbing the price ladder or staying put at their lofty perches of between Rs 25,000 and Rs 40,000.
The front runners in this race are Acer Aspire One, MSI-Wind U100 and Asus Eee PC 1000H in notebooks and Nokia Communicator E90, Nokia E71, Apple iPhone 3G, and Blackberry Storm in smart phones. The latest to join the race is i-Mate Ultimate 9502 which looks every bit of its 200gram of weight and measuring 60x178x116 mm in dimensions, is no minnow in size either. The front face of the Ultimate 9502 boast of a startling bright 2.8 inch VGA touch screen, resolution of 640x 480 pixel and 65k colour TFT with adjustable backlight. It is very crisp and bright and displays true colours without any trace of murkiness.
There are also a few function key buttons, a five-way navigation pad, ear-piece and a small VGA camera for self-portraits on the front bezel like any other touch-phone. But its similarity with other phones in its class ends there, just apply a little pressure to the left of the display panel and it slides open with a spring-loaded smoothness exposing a full 39 keys QWERTY keypad in full glory. The display screen also swiftly changes its orientation to horizontal from original vertical.
The device automatically detects which way the phone is oriented and rotates the screen in unison. With the display slid up, the Ultimate-9502 looks like a gadget straight from a science fiction movie. The touch-screen is very sensitive and responds to the slightest touch. Though the fingers can be used to tap the screen, but I personally liked using the provided telescopic stylus for want of accuracy. The other thing that drew my attention is the scroll-wheel on the left side of the phone, it makes scrolling up or down through the menus and programs swift and fun.
On the same side there also is a mini-USB slot to connect the provided multimedia cable apart from the usual data cable and the power adopter for charging the phone battery. With the use of the multimedia cable the phone can be connected for direct video/audio out function to projector or other external display devices for presentations, a function that qualify this device for very professional users.
The Ultimate 9502, like all other i-Mate phones, also runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 Professional platform, and to run this version of the Windows Mobile smoothly there throbs a mini power house of a processor ?400 MHz Qualcomm MSM 7200?? and inbuilt 256MB of ROM and 128MB of RAM memory with the option of expanding it through a Micro SD card.
The device functions smoothly and chugs through most of the applications effortlessly, but the moment you attempt multi-tasking the phone starts gasping for air. I also had issues with the removable 1660mAH, Lithium Ion-Polymer battery, though it is one of the biggest and powerful battery used in the smart-phones and claimed to last quite a few days in standby mode but the one I got for review could not see me through one single day even on standby mode.
The 3 mega-pixel Camera with auto-focus and LED flash, is excellent. I could shoot some superb head shots with very accurate colours and almost razor-sharp details in ambient light indoors without any trace of lost details or noise. In bright daylight outdoors it reproduced vibrant colours and no burn-outs of highlights.
The i-Mate Ultimate 9502 also boasts of HSDPA and HSUPA connectivity, but here in India we have to wait for quite some time to take advantage of this as we are still struggling for the long awaited 3G connectivity for lack of spectrum. But till such time we can always put it to some good use via GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz and Bluetooth 2.0 EDR. There also is the WiFi connectivity to take advantage of those hotspots while on the move. Some of us may also appreciate the integrated GPS utility and find it useful, I personally would rather call a more knowledgeable friend or ask a passer-by for directions. Needless to mention that Ultimate 9502, too is loaded with most of the windows applications software as the other present day smart-phones.
In the times of Global recession the MRP of Rs 38,000 may not appear to be of your best liking, but you can always draw the satisfaction of possessing one of the best feature-loaded Touch-Smart-phone, recession or no recession.