iMate 8150 Mobile Phone The phone looks a real 'Business' phone with its exquisite black casing and a large TFT display. A phone operating on Windows Mobile 6 OS 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 processor and graphics card, surely sounds interesting. The phone scores high on its aesthetics and definitely appeals to the niche segment it targets. It is definitely not a spread out device like the Moto Q and is comfortable to hold. The very standard QWERTY keypad is aligned neatly beneath the display screen on the front. At the back there's a camera, mirror, flash and speaker arranged in a strip above the battery cover.
On the right side of the handset is the camera button, a VGA output slot and a miniUSB. The top accommodates a power button and the IR window. The left provides a slot for the stylus and a depressable jog wheel that serves multiple functions. Below that is the OK button, a microSD card slot and a Wi Fi button.
iMate 8150 gives a very solid feel when held and the grip feels secure. The sturdy build and overall weight makes the hand held a very convenient device to use. The iMate 8150's biggest asset is the ease of navigation. Actually, the full QWERTY keypad is trimmed too small to accommodate a vertically oriented 2.6in display screen. It also includes a joy stick interspersed in between the keys for navigation.
The soft keys at the top are awkwardly positioned and it feels like they should be separated from the main keypad. When we tried pressing either of the black soft keys we sometimes hit the "call" and "drop" keys below, which was a little annoying. The keys are small and crammed and frequent mishits are a regular feature if you chose to go with the keypad. However, it does compensate on this front with its touch screen navigation system. The touch screen shows a good response; however occasionally some icons may need a second tap of stylus. But the large icons coupled with good response make touch screen navigation easy.
On the performance front, the XScale PXA 270, 520 MHz processor does a fine job. A 520MHz processor actually executed most of the applications very fast and we were quite pleased with the blitzkreig response times. However, occasionally the response seems to be a bit slow, but considering the amount of functions and the quality it offers, we are not quite cribbing about these minimal occasional response lags. Software runs well, images fire onto the screen relatively fast and searches are performed at decent pace. The Office documents and PDF's offer very good clarity even at higher resolutions and are quick to load too. A quick look through the Programs list reveals ClearVue PDF viewer, the ever-useful File Explorer, Messenger, a Streaming Player and also Office Mobile to open and create Microsoft Office files too.
It delivers very good multimedia performance. The screen is bright, colourful and
quality is maintained optimally. Videos are smooth, sharp and quick with good fluidity and video output works well. A 520 Mhz processor complete with an NVIDIA graphics accelerator pushes the multimedia scores even faster. The sound quality is also surprisingly good. Even with the external speaks on and volumes cranked up, the sound quality did not crack as much in some other devices we have reviewed.
The camera quality is decent and the video recording quality exceeded our expectations offering fluid performance.
There is also a second camera on the front for video conferencing. The camera takes some time to start, but once activated, it is seriously quick with absolutely no delay while moving the frames. On the connectivity front, we rate it excellent, as a business phone must be. A 3G phone with the fast HSDPA connectivity ensured that Web pages are rendered quicker than most other Windows Mobile handset. Internet connectivity is quick and serves well. To summarise, the sturdy build quality, good navigation, fast connectivity, very good resolutions and quick multimedia access definitely make iMate 8150 a good choice.
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