If you are a fan of the Sidekick format of devices, as sold by T-Mobile in the UK, but want something a bit less teenage and a bit more along the lines of a sophisticated smartphone, then the Ultimate 9502 from i-mate could be your saviour.

The overall design of this Windows Mobile device is very much in the Sidekick vein, in that it has a screen which slides away from the main body of the unit to reveal a keyboard. It does this in wide format, so that the keyboard can occupy plenty of space.

It's a clever system and, while we've seen plenty of Windows Mobile devices with sliding keyboards, we have never seen one that approaches the idea quite like this. The Sidekick really is the only other device that uses a similar arrangement.

Unfortunately the overall size of the Ultimate 9502 might not endear it to you. At 116mm tall, 60mm wide and 18mm thick it is chunky for a smartphone and it weighs a heavy 200g. That and the generally bland physical design might mitigate against it having wide appeal.

But if you start adding up the features you'll find there is a lot going on here. The 2.8-inch screen delivers 640 x 480 pixels, when we are much more used to seeing 320 x 240 in a similar space, and it is sharp and bright.

The Ultimate 9502 supports 3G with HSDPA and has a front-facing camera for two-way video calling. It has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS built in. There is 128MB of RAM and 256MB of flash memory, with a microSD card for adding more.

The headset connector is 2.5mm in size, which is a disappointment as you can't use your favourite headphones without an adaptor to 3.5mm, and the processor struggled a little to do everything we asked of it.

The real innovation, though, is that like other devices in i-mate's Ultimate range, the 9502 has the rare ability to send video to an external device (the necessary cable is supplied). This means you can send anything that the built-in screen can show to a much larger display: presentations, Web pages, streaming media, photographs taken with the 3-megapixel camera, and plenty more.

When we tried this it worked well and without any problems. We can see uses both in work and in leisure, and would like to see more Windows Mobile devices capable of the same.

The Ultimate 9502 is packed with capabilities, but its unusually large and heavy format might reduce its appeal. If i-mate could cram the features into a smaller package it might have a more winning device on its hands.