i-mate Smartflip

The Smartflip differs from the other i-mate phones in two ways: it's the only clamshell phone that i-mate has in their entire line-up, and it's one of the very few i-mate phones without a combination of 'SP' or 'JAM' or 'JAS' in its name. Sorry, I couldn't resist—these guys have phones named JAM, JAMin, K-JAM, SP JAS and JASJAM!

The Smartflip, originally known as the HTC Star Trek, is a quad-band GSM phone with EDGE support. No 3G/WCDMA/UMTS support in this.

I also couldn't resist to write about the obvious uncanniness the Smartflip shares with the RAZR. Actually, it's not something that needs to be mentioned, because it is—like I said—obvious. The Smartflip is slim, though not as slim as the RAZR, and has the same brushed metal finish on the keypad. But unlike the RAZR keypad, the Smartflip keypad has very faint demarcations, making it very difficult to find keys without looking. The call and end keys are very small and circular, and are the most difficult to touch and find, which is not a good thing because those are the most frequently used keys. The keys have similar tactile feedback, but the software response introduces a little lag. I'm not saying that Windows Mobile 5.0 on the Smartflip is slow—on the contrary its one of the fastest phones I've used since the Sagem myX-8—but it just feels a bit slow to type; something you'll have to try out for yourself.

The Smartflip may be slim enough to be easily carried around in your jeans, but it turns out to be really huge when you open it up. I had a similar problem with the RAZR once upon a time, but this phone is even bigger and wider than that. The only other clamshell that made me feel like a hobbit when talking into it was the N90. The Smartflip isn't as huge as the N90, but it's still big when opened up.

The display on the inside is a 2.2-inch, QVGA 240x320 resolution TFT, but it only does 65k color. There's a slight difference when you see pictures and videos. However, for most application this doesn't pose a problem. The display is somewhat washed out in sunlight, but you can still manage to read it. The external display on the flip is also a 65k color 128x128 display, which is mostly useful as an MP3 player (the phone has play/pause, previous and next keys on the flip as well), but it also shows you the time and the usual notifications.

The MP3 player sound quality is quite crisp, as I've noticed with most Windows Mobile-powered phones. The player handles MP3, WMA, AAC as well as WAV formats. The loud speaker is loud enough to deserve that name. The Smartflip comes with a stereo headset for use with the MP3 player.

The 1.3 megapixel digital camera offers decent quality pictures. There is no flash, though the usual camera settings are available. But still, 1.3 is quite a low megapixel count in this day and in a phone that costs this much, not worth the price.