If you are looking for a handheld device and want Windows Mobile, then the choice between Windows Mobile Smartphone and Windows Mobile Pocket PC can be a difficult one to make.

While the line dividing the two is a little blurred, in general it is fair to say that the former is built into smaller hardware that is more phone-like, while the latter has a touch-screen and more advanced software.

I-mate has just blurred the dividing line further with the JAMA. It looks like an ordinary candybar mobile phone with a slider format that keeps the number pad hidden away until needed. But in fact the relatively small casing (106mm tall, 52.5mm wide and 15.6mm thick) houses Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC. This means it doesn't need a hardware-based number-pad. The dial-pad can go on the screen, which is touch-sensitive.

So is the JAMA the best of both worlds or too much of a compromise?

The answer depends on what you're looking for in a handheld device. The touch-screen comes in really handy for getting about between applications, but don't expect to be using it for fast data entry. Pocket PCs have a tappable keyboard for writing SMS messages, e-mails and suchlike, while on some Pocket PCs you can tap at this with fingertips. But the 2.4-inch screen of the JAMA makes it too small for that, so you are reliant on the stylus. On the plus side, this also means you can use the built-in handwriting recognition.

If you want a handheld with Wi-Fi or 3G then look elsewhere as neither is here. In fact, the JAMA is just dual-band. We can't remember the last time we saw a phone of any kind that wasn't at least tri-band.

Of course there is a camera - a 2-megapixel one - and there is around 45MB of free storage space for applications and data, including photos and music to play through the JAMA's copy of Windows Media Player, and more. A microSD card slot is on the left edge of the casing for more memory to be added.

If you are thinking of using the JAMA as a music player then you'll want to know that when we asked it to play music non-stop from a full battery charge, with its screen forced on to push the battery hard, we got a little less than six hours of music. That's not bad, but the 'battery low' warning came just eleven minutes before the phone switched itself off, so you could find yourself in a mad dash for mains power.

We don't dislike the JAMA, but we aren't sure its mix of Smartphone format and Pocket PC features really works well for us, and the problem is mostly in the screen size.