I-Mate SP5. The Bad Bits...

[Guest Pagemakers]

Well, the title of this post "the bad bits" is a little unfair!

The SP5 doesn't have any bad bits really, but it does have things that could be better.

In fairness to the phone, many of the 'glitches' are probably Windows Mobile 5 'glitches' and not specifically the SP5.

Anyway, I am sure there are many of you out there who are watching this phone with fingers prised so here are MY opinions of the not-so-good bits.

Just before I start my list however, for me, this is the best Smartphone I have ever owned by a huge leap and I've had them all from the SPV, through the C500 and C550 and almost every model (non-SPV included) in between.....

1) Contacts. The phone has a dedicated contacts button and the right soft key is also a contacts button....Doh! There is no option in the phone to re-map the soft keys but luckily Pzee has created a tweak. For me, my right soft key is now 'Internet'.

2) Wifi. When wifi is turned on, it automatically powers down if the phone is not used in xxx minutes. That's good! What's no so good is if your phone polls your email account automatically, it does not wake the wifi module to do this. It uses GPRS instead. Stupid really. In the house I'd like to use wifi permanently to connect to the outside world. The manual says if you leave wifi on permanently the battery drains very quickly....I've not tested this so I can't really comment.....Yet!

3) It is not possible to leave the screen 'display' on (dimmed like the C500). The options are backlight on or off. I find myself constantly pressing a key to 'wake the screen just to see if I have any new . I think this is a product of the new hi resolution displays.

4) No 'delete all' button for the email inbox. I receive about 150 emails a day (I don’t sync emails with my pc or exchange). I find myself pressing 'menu/delete' hundreds of times a day instead of pressing 'menu/delete all' after I have read all of my downloaded emails.

5) IMAP Email. There is still no way to 'purge' IMAP email. Consequently, if you use IMAP you can NEVER delete an email permanently. It comes back on the next send and receive, just like 2003.

6) No alarm time: By default the alarm time is not displayed on the home screen. If the alarm is set there is an icon to indicate an alarm is set but you can't click it to open the alarm setting page. Disappointing really.

7) Edit T9. Sadly there is still no way to go back through your text and re-edit your T9 words. Nokia have been doing this for years.

8) Camera. Much better than before, but why have they released it with 1.3 Mega pixels? Many other cameras are 2.0 minimum.

9) 3G - Where is it?

10) Non-timed appointments do not update on the home screen, unless a timed appointment forces the change (just like 2003).

11) The MRU is remembered even through a power cycle so it is not possible to set which app you want in the MRU at boot up (even if you use the MRU tweak).

12) There is no way (without Pzee's tweak) to switch between the menu display - grid or list. Shame it's not built into WM5

13) To unlock the phone it's 'start + *' and not 'start + #' Just takes some getting used to. Like wise clicking 0/9 no longer scrolls through the start menu.

So you see, many of the issues are WM5 based.

Great phone - Get one!

Edited October 12, 2005 by Pagemakers

[Guest JesseRPI]

Whew - not too bad. I was holding my breath reading your post, expecting worse :o.

[Guest argh]

I agree with most of these (although I'm not complaining about 3G, really - it would be nice, but you know that you're not getting 3G when you buy this phone).

11) The MRU is remembered even through a power cycle so it is not possible to set which app you want in the MRU at boot up (even if you use the MRU tweak).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's a plus point for me, I don't want to have to edit the XML each time I change my favourite applications. If I wanted a static list, I'd use RJ Shortcuts (if this doesn't work on WM5, I'm sure that someone will write something similar).

13) To unlock the phone it's 'start + *' and not 'start + #'  Just takes some getting used to.  Like wise clicking 0/9 no longer scrolls through the start menu.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The 0/9 thing may take a while to get used to, but I think that it's still a plus point. Having the key to move to the next screen change depending on what theme you were using was a little annoying.

[Guest sethk]

I know the device doesn't support "full" 3G, but does the EDGE support work? Is EDGE noticeably faster than plain GPRS?

[Guest Pagemakers]

Well I'm on Orange, and they don't support EDGE (I don't think it is supported in Europe) so I don't know.

[Guest gilesjuk]

1. Fair enough, a control panel would be nice like in PocketPC.

2. What if it's plugged into a mains charger?

3. I never really used that feature, the displays are transreflective normally, in that daylight bounces off the back of the screen and makes it visible. Maybe the greater DPI obscures more light?

4 and 5, I never use email on the phone.

6. annoying, especially given the smartphone alarms work reliably unlike pocketPCs.

7. Would be useful to have T9 edit, Microsoft's answer is that someone can write a tool to do it (but rarely are they free).

8. Cost. A W800i phone costs the same as an SP5 yet the W800i isn't a Smartphone, hence the camera unit adds more cost.

9. Where is it? good question, there's so little coverage to make it useless :o

10. Tell Microsoft :(

11. Not familiar

12. Indeed, but you don't get the choice at all on other phones.

13. This change brings it more in line with Nokia phones. 9 was a bit illogical and a pain.

Edited October 12, 2005 by gilesjuk

[Guest Pagemakers]

2. When it is plugged into the mains charger I tell wifi not to turn off. Then it's OK. Just a bit of messing about that all. Shame wifi just didn't wake up if the phone needs to go online and wifi is enabled.

[Guest gilesjuk]

2.  When it is plugged into the mains charger I tell wifi not to turn off.  Then it's OK.  Just a bit of messing about that all.  Shame wifi just didn't wake up if the phone needs to go online and wifi is enabled.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Probably why they stuck to 802.11b too, power requirements of a faster connection would make things even worse.

Is there a way of quickly switching between Wifi and GPRS access?

As in, can you make it such that when you're at home it will only use wifi, then when you're not at home use GPRS?

[Guest Pagemakers]

Wifi always takes precedent so there is no switching required. The problem occurs when you don't touch for phone for say 10 mins and wifi goes into sleep mode. If you press any key on the phone it correctly wakes from sleep mode as is active once again. If however you don't press a key and you phone needs to connect to your mail server to poll your email account, then wifi is not woken up and the phone uses GPRS instead.

[Guest mostafa]

Do you know if Line 2 works on this phone?

I bought a M500 recently but sent it back the next day when I found that one of Oranges own phone did not work with one of their major features.

[Guest Pagemakers]

I don't use that sorry.

[Guest gilesjuk]

Where do you live? do you carry your phone around all the time? :o

[Guest zeros1122]

2) Wifi. When wifi is turned on, it automatically powers down if the phone is not used in xxx minutes.  That's good!  What's no so good is if your phone polls your email account automatically, it does not wake the wifi module to do this.  It uses GPRS instead.  Stupid really. In the house I'd like to use wifi permanently to connect to the outside world.  The manual says if you leave wifi on permanently the battery drains very quickly....I've not tested this so I can't really comment.....Yet!

1. It's indeed very stupid. Maybe have a UI for us to configure is a better way?

2. You could try to disable the auto-off-when-lcd-goes-off function (2nd checkbox) from the "power mode" entry. It will keep wi-fi on when connected even LCD goes off.

3. The Tornado wi-fi is said to be able to sustain over one and half day standby. You could give it a shot and see how it works.

[Guest TigerNet]

1. It's indeed very stupid. Maybe have a UI for us to configure is a better way?

2. You could try to disable the auto-off-when-lcd-goes-off  function (2nd checkbox)  from the "power mode" entry. It will keep wi-fi on when connected even LCD goes off.

3. The Tornado wi-fi is said to be able to sustain over one and half day standby. You could give it a shot and see how it works.

...where do you find the option you mention in point 2???

Cheers

Nick

[Guest Pagemakers]

Yea, I'm a little confused by point 2 as well.

Edited October 14, 2005 by Pagemakers

[Guest leo-balou]

...where do you find the option you mention in point 2???

Cheers

Nick

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think he is refering to the Power Mode option in the wi-fi settings menu. (Option number 5).

[Guest TigerNet]

...still don't see it...

[Guest whathe]

how do i get one of these "PZEE TWEAKS" or any other tweaks

[Guest Pagemakers]

Do a search for pzee as the username. He's put lots of stuff out there.....and remember he does not have WM5 yet, sot it's only by luck that his things work on the SP5 (some of them).

[Guest someone]

has anyone checked if there is a mobile navigation program that actually works properly on a WM5 smartphone? I know TomTom mobile won't work without tweaking, but does Navigon Mobile Navigator|5 or Mapopolis do? If not, this will also be a disappointment (again, due to the OS but also navigation companies).

Edited October 14, 2005 by someone

[Guest]

I'm on A1 mobilkom in Austria, they support both: country-wide EDGE and UMTS/3G. EDGE on the Qtek 8300 is definitely a significant speed improvement over GPRS e.g. experienced on a Qtek 8080, capable only of GPRS!

But that's all nothing compared to UMTS speed. Unfortunately I can only experience it on a Nokia 6680.

HTC, where is the Qtek 8500 ??? ;-)

I know the device doesn't support "full" 3G, but does the EDGE support work? Is EDGE noticeably faster than plain GPRS?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

;)

[Guest Newchurch]

@someone:

Navigon Mobile Navigator 5 works without problems on the iMate SP5.

You can change the screen resolution of each Navigon menu with separate ini-Files (folder Layout ), which contain the x- and y-position for the menu entries.

See my post and screenshots (with C550 and Medion Navigator, same procedure with the ini-files) at mobilejoe.de.

Greetings Peter

[Guest whathe]

how do i get da tweak dat changes my top right hand corner button of contacts to something else cause i have 2 buttons to access contacts in da phone

[Guest Pagemakers]

I ges dat u wud do a surch for pzee cos hes da 1 who made da tweak ;)

[Guest JesseRPI]

HAHA!

I ges dat u wud do a surch for pzee cos hes da 1 who made da tweak ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>