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The smart phone is getting smarter
By William O'Neal (March 15, 2005)
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It's only a matter of time before all cell phones are considered "smart." In the meantime, however, most of the mobiles that we commonly refer to as smart phones stand above the mobile crowd and have a few things in common: they typically sport a third-party operating system, and they allow for data connectivity on the go; in a sense, they are small computers. These four devices--two from i-Mate, one from Nokia, and a promising product from BenQ--all share the above-mentioned features. Of course, they each add a little flavor of their own. The triband i-Mate SP3i features Windows Mobile Second Edition, a built-in camera, and a Mini SD slot, all in a compact candy bar-style form factor. The i-Mate Jam, on the other hand, rocks a 1.3-megapixel camera but no dial pad; consumers use the screen for all input needs. The triband Nokia 6682 is essentially an update to the company's 6600 model that we reviewed last year. It boasts a 1.3-megapixel camera with flash, support for Nokia's XpressPrint technology that allows you to print to Bluetooth-enabled printers, and operates on high-speed EDGE networks. Rounding out this quartet is the BenQ P50. As with the i-Mate products, it uses Windows Mobile 2003 SE but ups the ante with a 262,000-color display and a full QWERTY keyboard.
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| Model |
Provider/network |
Date available |
What's cool about it |
i-Mate SP3i
Check prices |
Triband (GSM 900/1800/1900) |
Now |
Candy bar-style phone; Windows Mobile 2003 SE; built-in camera; 65,000-color (176x220 pixels) display; 32MB RAM/64MB ROM; Mini SD expansion slot; Bluetooth and infrared wireless technology; GPRS; Windows Media Player 10.0 Mobile |
i-Mate Jam
Check prices |
Triband (GSM 900/1800/1900) |
Now |
Windows Mobile 2003 SE; built-in 1.3-megapixel camera; 2.8-inch, 65,000-color (240x320 pixels) display; 64MB RAM/64MB ROM; SDIO/MMC expansion slot; Bluetooth and infrared wireless technology; GPRS |
Nokia 6682
Check prices |
Triband (GSM 850/1800/1900) |
Q2 2005 |
Candy bar-style phone; Symbian OS series 60; update to Nokia 6600; 1.3-megapixel camera with flash; 262,000-color display; high-speed EDGE network support; XpressPrint-enabled; Bluetooth |
BenQ P50
Check prices |
Quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS |
Q2 2005 |
Windows Mobile 2003 SE; QWERTY keyboard; 1.3-megapixel camera; video recording (MPEG-4, WMV, 3GP;) 2.8-inch, 262,000-color display; speakerphone and conference calling; 64MB of memory; SDIO/MMC expansion slot; Bluetooth and Wi-Fi; Windows Media Player 10.0 Mobile
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