I remember when the Dell Axim X51v came out. That was, and still is, a seriously high-spec pocket PC. I loved it and always always wanted one. Then I kind of lost interest in PocketPCs and went the feature-phone route. Recently though, and I mean, really recently, like, last 5 days recently, I’ve been looking at a lot of PocketPC/Smartphone devices again. It started when I ordered the Vodafone version of the HTC Trinity for my wife last week. The GPS, Wifi, Bluetooth and 3G is just such a great combination and with the 2MP cam, nice styling and big 3rd party software base, it set me off on a new track. Its definitely a MID related track though and I think I probably just need to get it out of my system before MIDs turn up in 2008. I think I’m going to buy a Windows Smartphone. Actually, I think i’m going to buy an i-Mate 9502.

Doesn’t it look cool? Hold on, here’s another pic courtesy of Ubergizmo, who had some hands on time with it.

Now it looks cool right? That little baby there has HSUPA (FAST cellular data!) a VGA screen, 3mp auto-focus cam, GPS, VGA-out, Wifi, BT, secondary cam, WM6, uSD card slot and of course, the sliding screen and keyboard. It’s like a mini MID!

Now I know that the Internet isn’t going to be as fast as on an x86 device and i’m certain that i’ll be better served with a small feature phone and a ‘real’ MID but I’m thinking, as my Nokia 6280 screen broke the other day, that this might make a good little 6 month replacement. For research purposes you understand!

The only 2 problems at the moment are 1) Its expensive – about the cost of an HTC Advantage. 2) Its not available yet.

Is there anything better than this? (I don’t like the Advantage. Its WM5 here in Europe.) If so, speak now!

• Sharps W-Zero3. Trendy! (via PocketPCThoughts #1)
• Opera Mobile 9.5 public beta on July 15th
• The current devices.