I almost want to say that I can’t live without my phone but that would be ridiculous. Of course, I can live without my phone. I just wouldn’t feel complete. Two Mondays past, I exposed my phone to the elements; rain, slush and cold, for about 2 hours.

It flickered on and off for a while and later died; faced with the prospect of losing my phone I had a mini panic attack. Surely, I can live without my phone but do I want to?

I once read that no one loves their phone completely, there’s always something you’d like to change or add to your phone. This is true; my phone is far from perfect but it brought me so much joy, convenience and ease I feel it’s perfect enough.

I’ve had my I-mate Jamin (aka HTP Prophet, Qtek S200) for almost a year now. It’s my first ever pocket PC.

Prior to this, I had an Innostream 55, a very cute little phone, great conversation piece… but not so great phone. It shipped with an application called Lady Scheduler and a slew of other wacky stuff. The battery got wonky on me and I got tired of carrying a cell phone, MP3 player and a PDA.

I did a little research and opted for Jamin (ok, I liked the name!)

I won’t bore you with the details, there’re lots of reviews on the internets.

First thing I did was to get a 2GB SD card; I have so much awesome crap on there it’s daunting.

The Good:
• My songs, podcasts and videos on the go
• WIFI
• EDGE
• Word, Excel, PDF viewer
• Outlook with calendar, contacts etc.
• MSN Messenger, Skype and any other IM type compatible with WM5
• 2 Mega pixel camera – Most of the pictures on this blog were taken with the phone’s camera
• Bluetooth
• Voice dialing for contacts and applications
• A slew of downloadable third party applications
• Charging via USB cable
• OK battery life considering all it does

The Bad:
• Sluggish (200 MHz CPU), not as fast as I’d like it to be, although you get used to it
• Poor quality speakers, I barely use this, I normally hook it up to my Bose computer speakers
• 2.5MM headset jack, I have a 3.5MM converter, tragedy averted.
• Camera lag and not so great night time pictures
• Requires frequent resets to keep it sane

That Monday, I took out the battery and the SD card, and laid it out to dry overnight. I put it back together in the morning and… viola! Like magic it worked.

I appreciate my phone now more than ever, I wonder if there’re other people out there who feel the same way about their phones.

del.icio.us tags: i-mate jamin, htc prophet, mobile phones