114 of 117 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Size matters, 31 Dec 2004
This review is from: i-mate JAM GSM/GPRS Pocket PC (Electronics)
In many ways, the i-mate JAM is an unexceptional Pocket PC/phone combo, much like the O2 XDA. However, its small size makes it genuinely pocketable, and a practical alternative to a smartphone. The full Pocket PC operating system is more flexible than the Smartphone edition of Windows (as seen on the i-mate smartphones and the Orange SPV). In particular, it's a much better device for Web access: with appropriate third-party software, you can squeeze an SVGA Web page to fit (just) legibly without reformatting.
A few cons that cost it a star:
- Modest battery life. Good for size and for a pocketPC, but worse than a phone (although modern high-speed colour phones can be pretty poor, too). Top up the charge every day (it charges from its USB cable, so it's easy) and you'll be fine.
- No cradle supplied, or even available at the time of writing. Seems like a crazy omission, but no more than an inconvenience.
- No built-in Wi-Fi. Easily added with a Sandisk 256Mb + Wi-Fi SDIO card, but that annoyingly pokes out the top. No doubt this will come on the JAM 2.
- No GPRS EDGE. Also likely to appear in later models.
- Slight flakiness. Compared to, say, one of the simpler Nokia phones, anything powered by Windows is going to look a bit flaky. The worst problem I've encountered so far is with Bluetooth: with my SonyEricsson HBH-300 headset, after almost exactly 8 minutes on a call the remote party can no longer hear me, even though I can hear her or him fine. Dropping and reconnecting clears the problem, but it's a pain.
Although I'm a gadget fan, I'm pretty picky about what to use day-to-day for communications. For e-mail, I'm hanging onto my Blackberry for now, but the JAM is small enough to have become my phone, and it's handy still to be able to have data connectivity even when I've left the Blackberry at home.
Recommended.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great phone / PDA, 12 Mar 2006
This review is from: i-mate JAM GSM/GPRS Pocket PC (Electronics)
I love my I-Mate JAM since getting it three months ago. The battery life is superb - much better than any of my previous phones. It can go for days without charge, and 72 hours of battery life are reserved so your PDA won't lose any data if you do manage to drain it.
The worst part of the phone is the Windows Mobile operating system. Can be flakey at times, and some of the options are in strange places so certain things look to be designed by several different software teams that never talked to each other. Good once you get used to it though, although I have had to add quite a few third party freeware and shareware purchases in order to get decent functionality from the device. It's good that you can do that easily and makes the device fun to own due to all the tweaks and software you can add to customise.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good for PDA beginners, 29 Dec 2007
This review is from: i-mate JAM GSM/GPRS Pocket PC (Electronics)
Fairly simple operating system which is easy to work out even if you don't read the manual. My husband & I both bought the same phone so we could beam appointments & shopping lists etc. Only problems we've had has been short battery life, freezing screen and repositioning of touch point. Occasionally it will loose signal so you have to do a soft re-set. Also had problems with blue tooth (Nokia). However, we will buy the same brand again next time (maybe next model up) as overall it has been the best phone either of us have ever had & we're really happy with it.
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