MWC: i-mate news: 810-F (comparative shots), Project Centurion etc.

February 19, 2009

While the booth of i-mate was really-really big, they had little to show to the world, except for, of course, their new Windows Mobile smartphone, the ruggerized 810-F. (You could only see the old stuff – that is, the 8502 and the 9502 - given the poor economic situation i-mate is in, no wonder they couldn't come up with anything else) in the rest of the booth; and, of course, the Project Centurion, which is a touchscreen-less, very small, credit card-sized (!) MS Smartphone reported on it at, for example, MoDaCo. Of course, as it's just a WM Standard device, I don't think a lot of people would actually shell out the money for it. If only it was a touchscreen-based one...).

At first, when I saw the device and still didn’t know what it’s capable of, I immediately thought “Sheesh! The design of this model is even worse than that of i-mate’s four released models (the 8502, 9502, 8150, 6150). How come this thing is THIS thick? And, how come its casing looks like plastic made by a cheapo tool?”

Of course, after learning its merits, I no longer thought the device was that bad. On the contrary - for a Windows Mobile touchscreen QWERTY phone, it’s pretty much a feat i-mate has managed to produce a size this much.

The QWERTY keyboard turned out to be pretty nice too - I could enter text at about the same speed as on my BlackBerry 8800.

Let me show you some comparative pics of the 810-F, comparing it to the BB 8800. As you can see, it's considerably thicker, but the other dimensions are roughly the same. (All photos taken by me at MWC; as usual, click the images for a much larger & better-quality version.)

I can only hope the new model won’t suffer from the problems of the previous ones (8502, 9502, 8150, 6150); for example, the lack of SDHC support.

You might also want to check out my i-mate MWC article of last year (2008) for my report on the 8502 and 9502, which, again, were both showcased (again).

Finally, some (other) shots of the i-mate booth: