The iMate JasJam is an enterprise pocket PC phone and organiser that runs on the Microsoft Mobile phone operating system. And at $1,200 one would expect it to be one piece of slick all singing all dancing communication devices.

From the outside the JasJam looks impressive however when one starts using this device you suddenly realise that this Mobile PC is one big irritating system that is slow and lacking in the quick connectivity of a Blackberry. This is the same phone that is sold by Cingular as the 8525.

A need to constantly keep tapping the screen to activate functionality almost drives one insane especially when the system keeps locking up time and time again. The device that I tested was  slow between actions whether one was tapping a calendar for a date or seeking a contact from the Outlook contact database. On several occasions simple actions took up to 5 seconds to transact. This is despite the system being soft booted twice. On several occasions the system simply froze forcing me to have to remove the battery and re boot the operating system.

 

Overall this device has some nice features from the placement of the buttons for quick access to the camera, mail and phone. One irritating feature is the location of the stylus at the bottom right hand side of the device. I am left hand and I much prefer the stylus to be located at the top of the device than the bottom.

Thiis iMate organiser and phone was released late in November 06 to run on the new Telstra G Network however it does not work well with the new Windows Vista operating system which was also released to the Enterprise market in November 06.
 
Connectivity back to an Exchange Mail system is difficult. The first thing you will find is that Microsoft has done away with Active Sync which is the software one use to use to sync iMate phones with a PC allowing one to easily access such key enterprise applications such as mail, contacts and calendar. This is an  an expensive organiser designed specifically for an enterprise power user one would expect imate to at least have on their web site instructions as to how to use the device in a Vista enviroment.

iMate are always boasting about their relationship with Microsoft when it comes to development of new features in their SmartPhones running on the Microsoft platform so one would expect them to have a head start when it comes to delivering the right drivers and software.


With Vista  Microsoft has replaced Active Sync with a Windows Mobile Device Centre. This is not mentioned in any of the iMate documentation. However a call to the iMate support Centre led me to a download area on the Microsoft Mobile site. “Download this and you will have no problems said iMate. OH Yes! .  Located at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/activesync/activesync42.mspx the download was hopeless. It not only failed to work it kept locking my system up.

At this stage I chose to do a total refresh of the device. I discarded the Telstra supplied OS with all their business centre functions in favour of a new raw Microsoft mobile operating system. The system re loaded easily enough, however I ended up tapping the screen for some five minutes to get it to set the screen.
When I finally had a new operating system running it not only failed to sync with the Vista OS but the new Active Sync now available for Windows XP users. With both the Vista OS and the Windows XP OS I was running Outlook in the new Microsoft Office 2007.
At the time of writing this review we are 4 weeks away from the consumer release of Vista and the new Microsoft Office Suite. iMate, has had access to developer kits for the new operating system and Microsoft Office for at least 6 months. To release an enterprise organiser that runs on a Microsoft operating system with any support at all for a new OS and above all a brand new  piece of software for communicating with a PC is appalling.
Making matters worse is the appalling iMate web site which has no reference all to new ActiveSync technology or the Windows Vista operating system.
This is not only one of the worst organiser and phones I have reviewed it is a device that badly needs to be taken back to the drawing boards and re worked so that the so called functionality actually works.

For: This device looks the part. But then again so did another British design the Jag and we know what a failure that has been.

Against: This Pocket PC has to be taken back to the drawing boards and re worked.

iMate JasJam Mobile PC. www.imate.com.au (A web site that needs a lot of work)

Reccomended Retail Price: $1,290.00