I-Mate's 'Jama' Smartphones Roll With Windows Mobile 6I-Mate's 'Jama' Smartphones Roll With Windows Mobile 6

In an apparent new launch this week, i-Mate introduced two smartphones running Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 operating system: the Jama 101 and the Jama 201.

I-Mate, a Dubai-based company that specializes in Windows Mobile hardware and software, began showcasing its new smartphones on its Web site. Online bloggers reported about the launch on Friday.

According to official specs released by i-Mate, the touch screen Jama 101 comes with the Windows Mobile 6 Professional operating system, tri-band GSM capabilities for global roaming, Bluetooth, 2 megapixel camera, and MP3 player. GSM, short for Global System for Mobile Communications, is a digital cellular phone technology that's predominantly used by wireless carriers in Europe, and by AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States.

The Jama 101 offers 128 Mbytes of Read Only Memory and 64 Mbytes of Random Access Memory that can be expanded with microSD memory cards.

The battery life is not great with only up to four hours of talk time. After all the smartphone is intended for mobile professionals, providing features like "push" wireless e-mail, Windows Live Messenger, Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile, and PDF viewer. Those using the smartphone with mobile applications are likely to carry a spare battery.

The Jama 201 has many of the same features as the Jama 101, except that it sports a full QWERTY keypad and runs Windows Mobile 6 Standard. The smartphone also has a Video Graphics Array screen for a crisper, better resolution display.

Microsoft launched Windows Mobile 6 back in February, renaming the different versions of its operating system. The platform that was once called Pocket PC Phone Edition is now called Windows Mobile 6 Professional and the scaled-down version, Smartphone, is now dubbed Windows Mobile Standard. The main difference is that the Professional version is for devices that have a touch screen, while the Standard one is designed for handsets that don't have touch screens.

Many will be disappointed to know that neither the Jama 101 nor the Jama 201 have built-in Wi-Fi, which is becoming a standard feature on smartphones. That means users are stuck using a carrier's cellular network for data access instead of faster Wi-Fi hotspots when they're available.