Bryant Likes's Blog

i-mate SP3i

A month ago I decided to take the plunge and buy a SmartPhone. With my new job I have a gadget budget so that helped me make the decision. After doing some research I decided to get the i-mate SP3i.

The pros:

• Nice and small phone
• Internet access - Syncs with Exchange (thanks to Chris De Herrera who helped me get the settings correct for T-Mobile at the last SoCal .Net Insiders meeting).
• Syncs with my Outlook on my laptop
• Best of all - Compact .Net Framework - so I can play around with custom SmartPhone apps
• Bluetooth

The cons:

• The biggest con is the joystick. When I first got the phone, toggling to the right didn't work that great. As of yesterday toggling down stopped working completely. This is a major issue and I'm hoping that i-mate will help me resolve it.
• Finding things. On a normal mobile phone everything is easy to find. However, on a SmartPhone you have a start menu which buries lots of useful things or puts them where you wouldn't think to look.

Overall it is a pretty cool phone, but the joystick issue is a deal breaker if I can't get it fixed. Especially since the phone isn't cheap. At this point I'm not sure what i-mate's response is going to be (and I suppose I should also contact the vendor I bought it from).

Update: Expansys sent me out a new unit this morning to replace my defective one! They even gave me free second day air shipping. I'm impressed with their customer service! Hopefully the new phone doesn't end up with the same issue.