[General Topics] P996:
The 9502 could be a great device if people would start cooking ROMs for it like they do with the TyTN II but I'm afraid this ain't going to happen.

Currently, the 9502 doesn't have many advantages over the HTC TyTN II but it definetely has the better display and of course the fabulous VGA resolution, the better camera incl. LED(pretty good pictures...for a WM device), it also seems to have a slightly better reception(3G and GSM), the phone audio speaker quality is also a bit better I'd say.

A surprise could be the HSUPA capability of the 9502, I haven't read about it anywhere and I don't know if the TyTN II is capable of it.

Under System Information/Cellular Standards it says:

GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA/HSDPA/HSUPA.

Maybe this is just the general description of the Qualcomm chip capabilities but it is worth mentioning it.

The 9502 needs a couple of improvements in my opinion and I hope they come with an URGENTLY needed ROM update:

1. better RAM management(the unit has 128MB RAM but only aprox. 33MB are available with no third party applications in memory, this is ridiculous)

2. giving the user the choice of installing the i-Q package or not, this saves at least 4-5MB RAM, maybe more

3. the GPS satellite reception needs to be improved, especially the first "fix"

4. video hardware driver support(I still think i-mate did the same crap like HTC)

5. the possibility to specify which applications are to be removed from RAM when we "click them away" (Asus has such an utility, it works pretty well).

6. the battery life indicator needs more accuracy, around 4 pm I had only 60% power left and now at midnight and a couple of conversations over the 9502 later, the battery indicator shows 46%. Very unlikely I guess. So battery life seems to be better than I thought, the crappy battery life indicator confused me.

In my opinion, i-mate could have had the KILLER PDA with the 9502 but they made the wrong choices:

1. they should have used the Marvell PXA310 the i780 is using

2. they should have used a SirfIII GPS chip

3. they should have used a transflective VGA display

4. they should have used the FULL surface of the slider, they gave away at least 10% of the possible size of the display, a pity

5. the upper part of the click thingie with the four arrows below the display(sorry, don't know the right english word for it) is too narrow, I can hardly use it and I have small hands and small fingers. A "virtual" mouse like on the i780 would have been very nice.

6. the 9502 can't be used with fingers instead of the stylus. Especially the phone "dial buttons" are too small, they need to be aprox. 25% larger. I know the 9502 uses a VGA display but the phone dial buttons should have been larger for stylus-free usage.

7. built-in 8GB flash memory would have been nice too

8. some software goodies like VGA video player, YouTube video player, etc. would have been nice too

9. blackberry client

I'm still using the 9502 now but I hate to say this: currently, I like my Blackberry Curve, my Nokia N95 8GB(kick-ass phone, would be almost perfect with a VGA display) and...don't be surprised...the iPhone.

I lately tried the HP 614c and liked it a lot but I'm still waiting for a real kick-ass WM phone and I always thought that HTC is going to deliver it. Looking at Samsung's i780, I suppose the Koreans will offer my dream phone in a year or two. Unless HTC really gets their stuff straight and try to cope with the competition. i-mate I'm afraid has to offer something MUCH MORE special to stay in the game. The 9502 is a very nice WM phone but without a PERFECTLY working ROM and without some ROM cooking support from the XDA community, I'm afraid it isn't a real good choice.