i-mate JAQ First Look: Real-World Photos of the 2006 Windows Mobile Smartphone

In September 2006, i-mate — the Dubai-based phone brand best known for rebadging HTC's Windows Mobile hardware — introduced a device that looked nothing like its earlier lineup. The i-mate JAQ paired Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition with a wide, integrated QWERTY keyboard built into a single non-sliding candybar body, manufactured not by HTC but by Inventec after the two companies' longstanding partnership had ended. Mobility Today covered the JAQ twice that September: once with the device's first official announcement photos, and again eleven days later with its own hands-on comparison shots — coverage distinctive enough that Gizmodo singled it out shortly after. This article covers the original JAQ specifically, not the later JAQ3, JAM, or JASJAM, which are different products released afterward.

What Was the i-mate JAQ?

The i-mate JAQ was a Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition smartphone distributed by i-mate, sold as an unlocked GSM device rather than through a single carrier. Where most of i-mate's earlier catalog had been HTC hardware sold under the i-mate name, the JAQ was built by Inventec, reflecting a shift in i-mate's manufacturing relationships around that time. Its defining feature was a full QWERTY keyboard built directly into a single candybar-shaped body, rather than the sliding or flip mechanisms common among QWERTY-equipped Windows Mobile devices of the period.

Announcement at CTIA Fall 2006

i-mate announced the JAQ alongside a second device, the i-mate SPL, at the CTIA Fall 2006 trade show. Mobility Today published the phone's first official photos a day ahead of that announcement, on September 11, 2006, crediting i-mate USA with providing exclusive early access for the US market. TechCrunch covered the same images that day, independently noting Mobility Today had obtained the photos directly from i-mate — corroborating that this initial round of images came from the manufacturer rather than from a Mobility Today hands-on unit.

Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition

The JAQ ran Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition, the touchscreen-and-stylus variant of Windows Mobile 5 aimed at combined PDA and phone use, distinct from the non-touchscreen Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition used on devices like the Motorola Q. Mobility Today staff confirmed this directly in reader comments at the time, pointing to the device's Windows and OK buttons and included stylus as evidence it was a full Pocket PC build rather than a Smartphone Edition device, after some readers initially assumed otherwise given its keyboard-first design.

A Wide Candybar With a Built-In Keyboard

The JAQ's most unusual trait was its shape: a single-piece candybar body with the QWERTY keyboard built permanently into the lower half, rather than sliding or flipping out. Contemporary coverage described the design as bulky and heavily contoured, with pronounced curves on the front, back, and sides. Mobility Today's own commenters were blunt about it at the time, calling the design "ugly" and "bulbous" and comparing its width unfavorably to HP iPAQ handhelds from the same era.

Display: 2.8-Inch, 320x240 Touchscreen

The JAQ used a 2.8-inch TFT touchscreen with 65K colors at 320x240 resolution, oriented in landscape rather than the portrait 240x320 layout common on Pocket PC devices at the time. That orientation choice drew immediate attention in Mobility Today's comment section, with at least one reader flagging it as a potential compatibility concern for software written to expect a taller, narrower screen — a genuine, period-accurate worry given how much Pocket PC software of that era assumed portrait orientation.

Processor, Memory, and Storage

Under the hood, the JAQ ran on a 200MHz Texas Instruments OMAP 850 processor (ARM926EJ-S core) with 64MB of RAM and 128MB of ROM, expandable through a miniSD card slot. Mobility Today's own first-look coverage cited the same RAM and ROM figures directly.

Network: Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE

The JAQ was a quad-band GSM device covering 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, with GPRS and EDGE Class 10 data support — confirmed by both Mobility Today's original coverage and independent spec references. There was no 3G or UMTS support of any kind, a limitation covered in more detail below.

Bluetooth, Infrared, and miniSD

Beyond cellular data, the JAQ included Bluetooth 1.2, infrared, a miniSD expansion slot, and an integrated internal antenna — a detail Mobility Today's original write-up specifically called out as a design choice, since many phones of that era still used visible external antennas.

What the JAQ Left Out: No Wi-Fi, No 3G, No Camera

Three omissions stood out even at launch. The JAQ shipped with no Wi-Fi, no 3G/UMTS support of any kind, and no built-in camera — all three confirmed directly on the device's official specification sheet. Contemporary reaction was mixed but candid: one Mobility Today reader, reacting to the first photos, said they'd rather have an HTC Excalibur instead, specifically because it offered Wi-Fi even without a touchscreen; another asked outright whether the JAQ had 3G, unsure from the photos alone. The missing camera drew a more divided response over time — some users later on user-review platforms specifically welcomed a camera-free business device for offices where cameras weren't permitted, while others considered its absence a real limitation for a phone at this price and feature level. None of these omissions were unusual in isolation for 2006 hardware, but having all three absent on one device was notable enough that period coverage flagged each of them.

Build Quality and Keyboard Feel

Contemporary reviews were generally unflattering about the JAQ's build, describing the plastic casing as low-grade — flexible enough at the battery cover to raise durability concerns — and criticizing the pronounced bulges across the body as more awkward than ergonomic. The keyboard fared better in the same coverage: despite oddly shaped individual keys, reviewers described it as comfortable to type on quickly and accurately once a user adjusted to the shapes, thanks to its generous overall size relative to competing keyboards of the time.

Dimensions and Weight

The JAQ measured approximately 122 x 71 x 22mm and weighed about 160g, per its official specification listing. Those figures line up with the real-world reaction in Mobility Today's comments, where readers specifically flagged the phone's width as excessive compared to HP iPAQ Pocket PCs of the period — a subjective complaint, but one consistent with the confirmed measurements.

Business and Email Positioning

Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition devices with integrated QWERTY keyboards were, as a category, generally aimed at mobile professionals who wanted faster on-device typing for email and messaging than a numeric keypad or stylus-only interface could offer. The JAQ fits squarely into that general category by design — full keyboard, Pocket PC Phone Edition software, business-oriented Windows Mobile feature set — though no specific i-mate marketing language or Mobility Today positioning statement from the period was recoverable to quote directly here, so this should be read as a description of the product category the JAQ competed in rather than a claim about how i-mate itself marketed the device.

An Unusual Form Factor as a Differentiator

Most QWERTY-equipped Windows Mobile devices released around 2006 used a sliding or flip mechanism to reveal the keyboard, keeping the resting footprint of the phone smaller. The JAQ instead built its keyboard permanently into a fixed candybar body — a genuinely unusual choice for the category at the time, and one that directly explains both the phone's added width and the strong, polarized reaction to its shape in contemporary coverage and comments.

JAQ vs Treo, BlackBerry, and Motorola Q

The JAQ arrived into a QWERTY-smartphone market that already included Palm's Treo 700w/wx, RIM's BlackBerry lineup, and Motorola's Q — each solving the same basic problem of physical-keyboard messaging differently. This isn't a comparison that declares a winner; each device had a different balance of software platform, keyboard style, and body shape, and preferences among them were genuinely subjective at the time.

Notably, at least one Mobility Today reader at the time pushed back on comparing the JAQ to the Motorola Q specifically, arguing it was closer competition for the Treo 700w/wx given the JAQ's 320x240 screen versus the Treo's narrower 240x240 display — a period-accurate observation worth preserving here as genuine contemporary reaction rather than this article's own technical judgment.

Real Photos vs Official Renders

On September 22, 2006, Gizmodo published a short piece by Jason Chen titled "i-Mate JAQ in the Wild," crediting and linking directly to Mobility Today's hands-on coverage of the device. Gizmodo's central point, summarized rather than quoted at length here, was that Mobility Today's own real-world photos of the JAQ made the device look noticeably better than i-mate's official product photography had — a distinction Gizmodo treated as unusual enough to call out explicitly, suggesting real-world hands-on photography had, in this specific case, outperformed manufacturer-supplied imagery. That's a meaningful historical detail: it wasn't Mobility Today's original September 11 announcement photos being singled out here, but the site's later hands-on shots specifically.

Mobility Today's Two JAQ Articles

Two historical Mobility Today URLs cover the JAQ, and research for this piece recovered archived snapshots of both — but they are not duplicate copies of the same content. They are two distinct articles, published eleven days apart, in different sections of the site, built from different photo sources.

The first, "EXCLUSIVE: I-Mate JAQ Photos," published September 11, 2006 in the site's News section, presented the JAQ's first official images a day ahead of its CTIA announcement, explicitly credited to i-mate USA and captioned as property of Mobility Today. TechCrunch's same-day coverage independently confirmed these came directly from i-mate. It drew nine reader comments, largely speculation about the phone's screen resolution and whether it had 3G.

The second, "First Shots: i-mate JAQ," published September 22, 2006 in the site's Reviews section, was a genuine hands-on piece — Mobility Today stated it had physically received the newly announced unit, and the article's second page consisted of its own comparison photography, placing the JAQ alongside an LG Chocolate, a Palm Treo 700wx, an HP iPAQ hw6940, a Motorola Q, a Sony UX-180P, and a DualCor cPC. It drew five reader comments, mostly reacting to the design, and closed by teasing continued testing and a podcast discussion of the device.

In short: the September 11 article was manufacturer-supplied announcement photography, and the September 22 article was Mobility Today's own hands-on comparison photography — the latter being specifically what Gizmodo praised. They're connected chapters of the same photo story rather than the same article under two URLs, and this piece draws on verified, recovered content from both rather than treating them as interchangeable.

JAQ vs JAQ3: Avoiding Confusion

The original JAQ covered in this article should not be confused with the i-mate JAQ3, JAM, or JASJAM, which were separate, later products with their own distinct specifications. Coverage of the JAQ3 in particular describes it adding Wi-Fi, a feature the original 2006 JAQ notably lacked — underscoring that these are genuinely different devices in i-mate's lineup rather than variations on the same release, and any spec claims about later JAQ-family devices shouldn't be read back onto the original JAQ described here.

Legacy and Availability Today

The i-mate JAQ is long discontinued, and finding a working, unlocked GSM Pocket PC Phone Edition device from 2006 today is mostly a matter of luck on the used and collector market. Its lasting footnote in mobile history is a fairly narrow one: a genuinely unusual candybar-QWERTY take on Windows Mobile 5, and a small but well-documented moment where a site's own hands-on photography was publicly judged better than a manufacturer's official product shots.

FAQ

What was the i-mate JAQ?

A Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition smartphone from i-mate, released in September 2006, built by Inventec with a full QWERTY keyboard integrated into a fixed candybar body.

When was the i-mate JAQ released?

It was announced at CTIA Fall 2006 in September 2006, with Mobility Today publishing the first official photos on September 11, 2006, a day ahead of the formal announcement.

What kind of touchscreen did the JAQ have?

A 2.8-inch TFT touchscreen at 320x240 resolution with 65K colors, in landscape orientation.

Did the i-mate JAQ have Wi-Fi?

No. The JAQ shipped with no Wi-Fi support, confirmed on its official specification sheet.

Did the i-mate JAQ have 3G?

No. It supported quad-band GSM with GPRS and EDGE Class 10 data only, with no 3G or UMTS support of any kind.

Did the i-mate JAQ have a camera?

No. It shipped with no built-in camera, an omission contemporary readers and reviewers specifically noted at the time.

What operating system did the JAQ run?

Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition, the touchscreen-and-stylus variant of Windows Mobile 5, confirmed directly by Mobility Today staff in period reader comments.

What is the difference between the JAQ and the JAQ3?

They are separate, later devices in i-mate's lineup, not the same product under different names. The JAQ3 is described in period coverage as adding Wi-Fi, which the original 2006 JAQ lacked.

How does the JAQ compare to the Motorola Q?

Both were QWERTY Windows Mobile devices, but the JAQ ran Pocket PC Phone Edition with a touchscreen while the Motorola Q ran Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition without one. At least one contemporary reader felt the JAQ was actually closer competition for the Palm Treo 700w/wx than the Q, given their similar screen resolutions.

The i-mate JAQ never became a mainstream success, and its heavily contoured candybar design drew as much criticism as curiosity when it first surfaced in photos. But its place in mobile history is a specific and well-documented one: a Windows Mobile 5 device announced through manufacturer-supplied press photos, followed eleven days later by a site's own hands-on comparison shots that a major outlet publicly judged more flattering than i-mate's official imagery — a small, verifiable reminder that real-world photography could still outshine a manufacturer's own marketing shots, even in 2006.