[General Topics] ripnetuk:
Hi,

I posted the following message (which is all true btw!) to iMAtes offical forum yesterday, and they censored it (by removing the thread). Since then, the promised callback from sbe (their UK repair center) failed to materalize.

I think the WM community deserves to know what level of service they can expect if they are silly enough to purchase a iMate device.

george

Hi,

I bought a 9502 on release day from Clove, for around £500. It lasted all of 2 and a half months, before the buttons stopped working. Clove recommended sending it to sbe limited for repair, which I did, 3 weeks ago.

Firstly, they tried to quote me £150 for the repair. I emailed them, and got no response after a week.

So I phoned them, and was told that it would be repaired for free, and be back within a week.

Ive now waited 3 weeks, during which I sent sbe 3 more emails, all of which have been completely ignored.

I phoned them up today, and after being on hold for 25 minutes, they finally answered, and said they are awaiting parts, and will call be back with more info... I will post here if they do, but I doubt they will!

They told me they have a massive backlog of emails to get through - thats a shame for them, but its not good enough for iMate to be successfull in this market.

Ive since bought a HTC Touch Pro, and, guess what? it works...

I will never buy another iMate device again, and i suggest noone else does either.

The device itself doesnt work very well at all (keeps hanging, slow, reminds me of the failed toshiba g900, but not QUITE as bad as the tosh). The Touch Pro, despite being practically the same chipset, works very very well in comparasion.

On the iMate ultiamte, the old Windows Mobile problem that it cannot keep up with my typing occurs. I have to literally tap one key, wait for it to respond, and then tap the next key and so on. The Touch Pro has the innovation of a keyboard buffer - if it cant keep up, it remembers what I typed, and processes the keys when it can.

We were also promised an official WM61 update in august... suprise suprise, that hasnt happened either.

The battery life is also crap compared to the Touch Pro (even though the iMate has a higher capacity battery). I put this down to lack of graphics accelleration on the iMate - you can literally see it struggle to redraw the home screen, whereas on the touch pro, it just happens instantly.

If you want any support at all on your phone DO NOT BUY IMATE. They are obviously too small a company to offer proper support (disclaimer - ive never had to use HTC's support, because their devices work, so I cannot comment on it, but I doubt the networks would let them get away with this poor level of support).

I will post an update tommorow (or before if SBE actually bother to ring back).

Does anyone have an email address for iMate themselves, so I can complain about sbe - surely iMate will want to know their reputation is being trashed be SBE??? their web page doesnt seem to offer any email address (a good way to keep pesky customers off their backs i guess), and their live support is only available for a couple of hours in the morning - i will try it tommorow).

A mobile phone is only valuable for 12 months IMHO (as I replace mine every year), so I have lost at least 1/12 of the value of the iMate, just by not having it for this time.

Even if the repair is slow, a good start would be to use a repair company that actually has the staff / resources to answer emails / phones. I dont feel like a valued customer.

ps. IMate - if you delete this forum message, I will make it my business to post it on as many mobile phone related forums as possible (modaco, xda developers etc).

/disappointed

george