Are these i-mate Ultimates mythical mobile devices?

While these devices do look quite interesting, I don't have the greatest confidence in them actually being made available any time soon. Last year several i-mate devices were announced in February 2007. There were then rumors that they were canceled, but my i-mate sources then informed me that there were six Ultimate devices that were still scheduled for release. However, we actually saw nothing released from them in 2007. Two of these four new Ultimate devices that Judie and Jerry showed off are completely different than the devices that were announced last year so my confidence in them actually seeing the light of day is quite low.

A couple of these current devices, the Ultimate 6150 and 8150 were announced at GITEX 2007 in September and are still not available. I don't know if there are manufacturing issues or what, but at GITEX the i-mate staff told people that these two devices would be available in the first or second week of October 2007. This obviously was not the case as these devices are still not available.

While the i-mate devices have some great specifications, they have always been a bit chunkier and buggier than Windows Mobile devices from HTC and Palm. I understand they may have some new manufacturers lined up to create these devices. I personally like having a wide choice of devices so I do hope some of these Ultimate devices are actually made available soon.