i-mate reveals Ultimate 8502 and 9502: move over Kaiser

Well even though we have yet to see three of the five high-end Ultimate smartphones promised by i-mate earlier this year, the company has decided to reveal yet another pair of QWERTY-packing family members, including one -- the 9502 -- that gives the HTC Kaiser / TyTN II a run for its money. Almost identically-spec'ed to what is now the AT&T Tilt (save for the, um, tilt), the quad-band GSM / tri-band HSUPA Windows Mobile 6 handset manages to step up the game by featuring a VGA display along with video out, LED "flash," and standard 2.5-millimeter audio jack. Slightly less impressive but still pretty feature packed, the candybar-shaped Ultimate 8502 sports the same radios (including WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth 2.0), memory configuration (256MB ROM / 128MB RAM) and 400MHz Qualcomm processor as its big brother, but replaces the 3.0 megapixel autofocus camera with a 2.0 megapixel fixed focus and, more importantly, drops the display down to a pedestrian 2.6-inch QVGA. Still, there's a lot to love here, but until we see some pricing and release dates, i-mate, we're not gonna go blending our current phones just yet. Check out the entire US Ultimate team -- including the already well-known 6150 and 8150 -- in the gallery below...

Gallery: i-mate reveals Ultimate 8502 and 9502: move over Kaiser

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[Thanks, Salem S.]

Read - Ultimate 9502
Read - Ultimate 8502

[Serhei @ Oct 23rd 2007 10:46AM]

The one on the right = WinMo based Sidekick = stuff of nightmares.

[j.R @ Oct 23rd 2007 10:48AM]

OmG WhAT A RiPOF!!! SiDEkICKS ARE SOOooOOOOOOOO MUChC BETttRE!!!


TmOBILE FOR LYFE!!!!

I beT IT DoESNt COME IN anY cOLORs OtHEr THaN BOOOOOOORRRRRRINNNGGG BLACCCKKKK!!!!!!

IT PRoBABLY CanT EvEN GET AnY FAlL OuT BoY RiNGtoNZEEEEEEEEEEE

[Nedy78 @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:03AM]

OmG PlEAse NoTe THAt TypINg liKe THiS dOEs NoT HeLP YOuR CaUSe AnD in FAcT ShOWs WHaT A ReTaRd YoU aRe aNd HooOOoooWwwW "BOOOOOOORRRRRRINNNGGG" YoU ARe.

[j.R @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:17AM]

My above post was meant to be a commentary on rabid fanboyism and how ludicrous and unintelligible brand fanatics act when they feel that their material messiah is under attack.

Since you missed the point entirely, instead of doubting the effectiveness of said commentary, I'll just claim that it was so accurate that you couldn't disseminate between my joke, and the real thing.


Mission accomplished

[darx23 @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:48PM]

Your comment was completely unneeded as nobody made the comparison between the two devices. Your only making an asshat out of yourself, especilly by trying to come up with some kind of intelligent, witty response.

[boe @ Oct 23rd 2007 10:57AM]

Finally some good VGA phones reach the States! Suck on that HTC!

[Dave Haupert @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:03AM]

Sure it doesn't have the tilt feature? PocketPCThoughts.com said it did, which was a surprise to me. Obviously one site is in error and I'm too lazy to dig into the specs to find out which!

[Jon @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:20AM]

Nice VGA screen but the keyboard is unergonomic. I rather have the Tilt. HTC give us some Windows Mobile devices with 2.8" VGA screens!

[Jacob Varghese @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:29AM]

There aren't a lot of phones out there with both WiFi and GPS. So I'm going to jump on this if it's

[Grizz @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:33PM]

"You had me at GPS..."
I'm so sick of shelling out $3 to Verizon every time I get lost, or need to drive into Boston.

[Erwos @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:34AM]

Ah, how I wish there were CDMA/EVDO versions of these.

[boe @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:39AM]

Agreed - I'd love to get he I-Mate 6150 or the Eten 800 - I'm tired of the 3 year old technology we get on the CDMA side of things.

[Sam @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:39AM]

I'll stick with my Tilt

[gfar @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:48AM]

"and standard 2.5-millimeter audio jack"
...that's the standard one I hate to see on a device. Nothing like buying a bulky adapter to use a real pair of earphones with it.

[Benson @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:55AM]

Yes, I like the ones with the 1/4" jack much better, too.

[Evan Blass @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:02PM]

Don't you use A2DP anyway? Get with the program!

Just kidding, you make a good point, in that you still need to buy an adapter just like with the single-connector HTC handsets.

[Razvan Dragomirescu @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:07PM]

BTW, the 9502 seems to officially have HSUPA capabilities (not HSDPA, but HSUPA - high speed uploads). The Kaiser/Tilt was rumored to have HSUPA too but for some reason that feature didn't make it into the final device.

[JJ @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:15PM]

OMG! It's such an iPhone ripoff! Why does everyone have to steal Apples ideas??! A phone? With a screen?! It's so Jobs.

;)

Sorry, couldn't help myself... there were no iPhone comparisons yet.

[noodleneck @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:22PM]

too bad support for HSUPA, or any 3g gsm data is crap in the us, they try to say they are rolling it out, but its bs! Do youself a favor and pick up a cdma device until somethin better rolls around for true high speed wireless data networks in the us of a...

[roger_huston @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:23PM]

Anyone have any idea on availability?

[Richard Lai @ Oct 23rd 2007 2:05PM]

VGA, huh? Maybe HTC will need to start adding in the mini-projectors onto their phones as well as making the Touch feature more practical.

[gm76 @ Oct 23rd 2007 3:08PM]

Looking forward to seeing Spb Benchmark comparisons between the i-mate's 6150/8150s and the 8502/9502s. The former two uses 520MHz xScale processor AND an NVIDIA GoForce 550 while the latter two only use a 400MHz Qualcomm.

[Jeff Lewis @ Oct 23rd 2007 4:03PM]

Err, doesn't iMate basically resell unlocked HTC phone under their own brand? All the phones they've sold so far are...

Unless iMate's changed drastically, I don't think they're 'designing' anything.

[Carl @ Oct 23rd 2007 4:50PM]

I-Mate "split" with HTC this year and so no longer rebrand HTC handsets. Now im not certain if I-Mate are making these themselves or rebadging another less-known manufacturer or not.

[The Steven @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:04PM]

I'll stick with my Tilt until the Borg get here and implant somthing better in my skull.

[Ilikepi @ Oct 25th 2007 5:50PM]

err... @2, winmobo phones are alot easier to add ringtones to the phone then if you try with any other phone...

[ANSPlus @ Oct 26th 2007 10:16AM]

I believe that imate has advertising and planning issues!! nobody know the release date of this two products!! Like the ultimate 9150 & ultimate 7150 . . we know nothing about them till now. so i advise not to wait if anyone like any of these products!! About this 9502, my opinion . . its big with a bad design.

[dan @ Oct 27th 2007 9:51AM]

iMate make good keyboards, but the radio's have always been gprs.

Now they've caught up with western world, i want one.

When can i have one, huh, huh??

[b_a_boone @ Oct 31st 2007 4:15PM]

I want the 9502 ultimate CDMA/Rev A would be nice. Because the HTC Touch and the Mogul arn't doing it for me. I'll stick with my Personal Perfection Controller AKA PPC-6700 WM6. So heavy I can throw it at anyone who tries to mess with me or my post!