Windows Phone Thoughts: Presenting On The Go: The Impatica Showmate Reviewed

A Projecting We Will Go


Figure 2: The Showmate next to my Treo 750.

The viewer software loaded up without a hitch on my Treo 750, and I proceeded to click on the Project button at the bottom.


Figure 3: Simple and easy, no awards for eye candy in the viewer!

Next came a rather unique problem. While the Showmate appeared in the list when I searched for it, I had a heck of a time pairing it to my Treo. The Quickstart Card told me that the Showmate would have a 10 digit serial number, with the last 6 digits being displayed when my device found the Showmate. The first 4 digits were supposed to be the pairing code. Everything went fine until I realized my serial number had 11 digits. I went through around 20 different pairing attempts trying the first 4 digits, the first 5 digits, the second - fifth digits, etc... until finally I got one to work - using the first four digits! I'm not sure if this was just my Treo acting strangely, my inability to peck out keys (which is possible) or something screwy with the software. What I do know is that I rebooted the Showmate a few times (by simply pulling out the USB power cord) and after a few more minutes work, I was paired up. Phew! What a relief that I don't have to do that everytime I want to give a presentation!

Finally I was ready to project. I fired up my Optima projector, plugged in the Showmate's VGA port with the VGA cable included with my projector, and powered up the Showmate with the provided USB power plug. I like that Impatica used USB for their power plug for a few reasons. First, it's helpful for Blackberry users who need to tether their devices to the Showmate for projection. Second, I have plenty of mini-USB cables lying around here (retractable ones at that) that I can use to power the device. I also have a Proporta USB-accessible battery that I can power the Showmate from, further reducing my cord clutter. Finally, I suspect some of us may be presenting where USB power is already available (For instance, in Media-enabled classrooms at The University of Toledo, presenters are given a "Guest" VGA cable and a female USB cable to plug USB drives into the computers carefully stowed within the console) - so being able to plug in with just a retractable USB cable is a plus indeed. Although, to be truly mobile, I'd like to see the next version of the Showmate include a rechargeable battery!

The Presentation Experience
I must say I was REALLY skeptical about the actual presentation experience with the Showmate. I'd used Bluetooth remote software before to control a presentation on my laptop with very poor results. I'd click the softkey to advance, and my slide would sit dormant for 2 - 3 seconds and then finally lurch forward. I'd tell it to jump to another slide, and nothing would happen for an eternity in presentation time (i.e. 10 seconds). I figured with my device actually having to send the commands and the Powerpoint, how fast could this be?

The answer? Pretty fast! I was pleasantly suprised when I hit "step" on the software and my Powerpoint moved in less than a second. I could wander around the room freely with virtually no problem communicating with the device. The transitions were snappy and I was pretty amazed. Most of this speed comes from the fact that upon connecting to the Showmate, your PPC uploads the presentation entirely to the device, so you're, in essence, just sending quick commands to a fairly fast onboard processor on the Showmate. All went well until I decided to jump around a bit with my presentation. I jumpped to the 30th slide on the presentation, and it popped up pretty quickly. However, when I hit "Step", it revealed the text on the slide as usual, only in reverse. That's right, the bottom portion of the slide text appeared, then the top, then the next slide (Slide 31) bottom, then top, etc.... This behavior persisted until I restarted the presentation. I was fairly annoyed! I'm not sure where the bug came in (through the converter, through the viewer software, through the firmware), but it made me decide to that if I was going to use the Showmate full-time, I'd better ditch step-by-step transitions. This is something I'm more than willing to live without. The moral of the story, however, is that you should always test out your show, and any contingencies (i.e. will I have to jump slides) before heading out with your Showmate to a presentation. (Unless you want the bottom line to make a strange impact!)