HTC to 'compete with i-Mate'

By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor

Johannesburg, 20 Apr 2007

Hi Technology Corporation (HTC) and its official South African distributor, Leaf Wireless, released two new mobile products this week.

The smaller of these offerings is poised to compete favourably with the i-Mate, according to David Liebovitz, product manager at Leaf.

Until last year, HTC was involved in the manufacturing of i-Mate devices. However, it decided to discontinue production of new i-Mate products because HTC decided to build its own brand. The company still produced a few i-Mate products.

S710 Vox

The smallest of the new offerings, the Vox, features a semi-auto sliding qwerty keyboard, as well a separate numbered keypad. The 2.4-inch QVGA TFT LCD screen can be viewed in both landscape and portrait modes, giving the user the option to use the device with one or both hands.

Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 is the standard operating system for the device, and in terms of connectivity the device has all the standard trimmings: GPRS, EDGE, WiFi and Bluetooth.

X7500 Advantage

"The Advantage is a device targeted more at IT," says Liebovitz. The device is something like a mini laptop with a 5-inch touch-screen display. "It has PC-style power and functionality, yet is more compact than the smallest PC notebook," says the company.

The device features a 624MHz CPU and an 8GB hard drive (flash) that can be upgraded to 32GB. The South African version of the device comes standard with Window Mobile 5, but Liebovitz says users will be able to upgrade at a later stage to Mobile 6 for free.

"One of the coolest things about the device is the magnetic keyboard," he says. The keyboard doubles as the cover to the mobile.