Paul Annett

The i-Mate Jam smartphone / compact PDA was kindly demo’d to be by Stu at our first wedding anniversary BBQ, and I have to say it looks nice!

Unfortunately, for my network it has been renamed the not-quite-so-catchy Orange M500, and been given a facelift (facedrop?) to make it less curvy and more corporate (read, dull). Presumably this is in an attempt to prevent those of us who want the i-Mate Jam on Orange from finding it!

I’ve always been a hipster PDA man than one who lugs too much technology around. But with the start of my new job in a management role I’ll probably have to think more about backing up the data I create on the move. Not wanting the inconvenience of a large PDA, a seperate mobile phone and an iPod around with me, the compact size of the i-Mate Jam appeals. I’m yet to be convinced that it’ll replace the iPod!

For more info, see The Register’s in depth review of the Orange M500 which is slightly more favourable than their review of the original i-Mate Jam.

The iMate Jam is also known by the following pseudonyms:

• Magician (generic term)
• i-Mate Jam (Vodafone)
• Orange M500 (Orange)
• MDA Compact (T-Mobile)
• XDA Mini (O2)

One thing I neglected to mention earlier was that whilst I was in London, my fiancé Relly was back in Brighton being bored.

As she tends to do, she browses eBay to upset herself about all the pretty things we can’t afford because we’re busy saving for the wedding in July. So there she was, sitting on the sofa and using the iBook to check out the prices of an iPod to match.

You’d expect that pressing ‘buy it now’ would then take you to a page which says “you are about to buy an iPod for X amount of money plus X for shipping” - but apparently not if you’re already logged in. What she hadn’t realised was that I hadn’t logged out of eBay last time I used it, so now I’m the proud owner of a new 40GB iPod (yet to be delivered).

Fortunately this doesn’t bother me too much as we want to cut down on our massive CD collection so that we can move to a smaller flat soon, but since we don’t want to lose any of the music an iPod is essential. And rather than spending £400 in a high street store I’m much happier to get a new (sealed) one from eBay for £330.

She was very nice to me last night…