So What Is K-Jamming?

Ok, so just what is this blog about? What is a K-Jam? The K-Jam among the latest Pocket PCs using the new Windows Mobile 5 OS made by a company in Taiwan called HTC. Actually, HTC calls it the Wizard. iMate's version of it is called the K-Jam. It has a Quad-band GSM radio, uses GPRS for data and can utilize the newer high speed EDGE data technology, though I have no clue what that is like since I am on T-Mobile in middle Tennessee, so I am stuck with GPRS for now. When near a hotspot or someplace I can plug in my WiFlyer, a portable wireless router, I can turn on the WiFi radio and get real broadband speeds. It has a 1.3 megapixel camera that takes pretty good shots, as you can hopefully see in the attached image. That was on the large setting which is 640X480. It can take larger images too. I may get into that later. There are a number of settings on the camera like Sport and Burst mode.

The K-Jam is the first PDA Phone I've had that really works well as both a phone and a PDA. Previously, I used a PDA2K, also known as the Audiovox 6600 on some networks. It is a great PDA and works well as a phone if you have a headset. If not, it is rather large to be holding up against your ear. The PDA2K slide-out keyboard isn't nearly as useful as the one the K-Jam has. I also have a JasJar. It has a superb screen and keyboard, but as a phone it is just HUGE. Plus, for some reason it was designed to not dial out if the case was closed, which drove me nuts. You have to open the clamshell to dial, or swing the screen around and put it in PDA mode vs. the "laptop" mode it works best in.

The K-Jam though is an excellent size for phone and PDA use - no compromises. For data entry, like responding to emails, the slide-out keyboard works great. There is a magnet in the keyboard so that when the keyboard slides out, the screen automagically rotates to landscape mode, and does it surprisingly quickly. Sliding the keyboard back in rotates the screen back to portrait mode.

Up until now, I have been very excited about the Windows Mobile based Treo from Palm. I still think it will be a successful device, but if the K-Jam and clone devices can get out there and sold by various GSM (T-Mobile, Cingular and everyone in Europe) and CDMA (Verizon, Sprint) it will be wildly successful.

I'll admit for this post I am cheating a bit. While I do like the built in keyboard, I am more of a touch typist than a thumbboard typist, so I am using my Bluetooth Stowaway Keyboard by ThinkOutside which thus far seems to work flawlessly with the K-Jam. I can't figure out how to activate the WM5 softkeys thought without reaching for the stylus. :-/

So what is the point of this blog? Well, it is temporary. Not sure if it will be for a few weeks or months. I plan to post several times a week. No post will ever be this long again. Most will be a few sentences and might have a screen shot or picture on things I discover about Windows Mobile 5 or the K-Jam, things I like and dislike, or things that just interest me.

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So, I hope you enjoy it.