i-mate JAQ (Inventec Mercury)

Available now
21st September 2006

You can almost guess the features of the i-mate JAQ before being told them - it's a Windows Mobile 5.0 device with a QWERTY keyboard, 320x240 pixel display and expandable memory... and you'd be right. And you'd guess that because it's an i-mate handset, it will actually be made by HTC... and you'd be wrong.

The i-mate JAQ is otherwise known as the Inventec Mercury, sourced from a different Taiwanese firm from HTC. Although i-mate haven't officially split from HTC, this new partnership follows O2's move to source some of it's Windows smartphones from manufacturers other than HTC, and comes against a background of HTC selling handsets under its own name for the first time.

The i-mate JAQ is a fairly large and heavy device at 160 grams and 122x71x22mm in size. And although the JAQ has a commendable 2.8" display, it lacks WiFi or 3G which are two things you would expect to find in a device of this size. There's no camera either, but that's a less serious omission. On the plus side, the i-mate JAQ has quad-band GSM and EDGE and the full complement of Windows Mobile 5.0 applications.

It's alright, we suppose, but the HTC S620 is more compact and certainly more attractive, and the Samsung i600 has more features. Overall, the i-mate JAQ seems to be a competent device rather than an exceptional one, and one that struggles to differentiate itself in what is becoming an increasingly crowded market.

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