i-mate spl smartphone - first impressions

My i-Mate SPL smartphone arrived last week (after 5 weeks on order) and I thought I'd post my initial thoughts on it based on a week or so's usage. I'm not doing a full review as this is covered elsewhere, for example, see Paul's excellent review on MoDaCo.

I've been looking for a windows mobile 5 smartphone for quite sometime but I've always struggled to find one that is truly portable and is 'phone like' rather than based on IPAQ/Palm sized devices. I already have an IPAQ but I needed something I could always keep with me, thus meaning something no bigger than a 'normal-sized mobile phone', weighing no more than say 110g but with a high res screen suitable for the odd email and web browsing.

The Orange SPV was probably the closest match but somehow it felt dated.

The i-mate SPL took my eye after speaking to a couple of delegates at the last VBUG conference, as they had i-mate phones (albeit different models).

After reading Paul's spl review, I took the plunge and ordered it. 5 weeks later (no one had them in stock), it arrived.

First impressions - a sleek, quality phone with a superb screen (240x320 2.2" QVGA 65K). Sharing a scary likeness to the Motorola SLVR, it 'feels' a good quality handset and so far battery life has been excellent. Call quality is also very good.

The mobile UI has a classic 'windows feel' and is very usable. There is a noticeable pause when loading an app for the very first though, which I believe is common to most mobile 5 based phones.

OK so far so good... so are there any gripes? The keypad took me a couple of days to get used to as ALL the keys lie flush and although the feel of the keys when pressed is good, because the keys are not raised it is easy (initially) to press the wrong key - you find keys by either 'looking' at the phone or by learning where they are by rehearsal ('by feel' is not really an option although there is a very very slight beveled line separating them). After two days I found my brain had mentally built up a model of the keypad structure and now I am fine with it. I can't help feeling though 'why was this not picked in usability testing'? The joypad is also very small and requires even more accuracy, but with practice you overcome its rather fiddly design. Just slightly raising the joypad would drastically reduce the odd error you often make initially because the keys around the joypad are very close to it. Again, lack of feel/feedback in the keypad design causes these mistakes. A shame. I found I had to adapt to its design, rather than the keypad itself being a good starting point. Surely the keypad is a key factor in any phone design?

Anyway, that aside, my overall impression? A great phone. Once I got used to the keypad I found I could happily text, browse the web (Pocket IE combined with the great screen resolution makes browsing the 'mobile web' a breeze) and reply to the odd email (I've started off with gmail mobile rather than the built in outlook). Yes the processor could be quicker and GPRS for data transfer is still not the quickest but for getting at your email when you are out and about, it does the job nicely.

Camera is 2MP, which is fine for my uses. Snaps I have taken so far appear to be very good in decent light.

The device also has .Net CF in ROM... cool but I've not had chance to make use of it yet.

If you are looking for a highly portable smartphone that looks and feels like a normal mobile phone, rather than a PDA, then this is worth a viewing.