Another new toy

20th Sep
2005

spv_c500.jpgIts that time of year again: the good folks at Orange let me get my grubby mitts on a brand new phone, in return for all the money I give them. This year the hand-sets available to me for free seemed fewer, and less impressive. Last summer I replaced my aging monochrome Samsung A300 with the funky Motorola V300.

This one lasted OK, but the battery was cack and the connector for charging didn't seem to click or fit properly into the bottom of the phone, meaning charging often failed. Attempting to charge a dead battery overnight frequently failed, leaving it out of action the next working day. Extremely frustrating, and it got worse. Often the phone was out of action for several days. Plus, to my constant embarrassment, the ringtone theme seemed to constantly reset to the default, that second to most annoying tone ever, 'Hello modo!' Incidentally, can you guess the first most annoying tone ever?

Anyway, I wasn't sure whether I was going to replace it this year. Did I need to? What would happen to my old handset? Could it be given to someone needing it? Could it be recycled? I decided it wouldn't do any harm to check out what was available to me for free, so off to the Orange shop I went.

As I said earlier, there weren't as many available this time round, as my 'usage was not high enough' to deserve something like the sexy (albeit rather flimsy-looking once I'd seen it hands-on) Motorola V3. That one would set me back fifty nicker.

The best option seemed to be the relatively new Orange SPV C500, a smartphone running (shock!) Windows Mobile Edition.

The beauty of these so called smartphones is PC connectivity and synchronisation. Lots of reviews are praising this particular handset as a corporate mobile phone or cheaper alternative to a PDA. The phone comes with Microsoft ActiveSync, which even when not using the mail/calendar syncronisation capabilities, allows you to view the phone's filesystem in explorer almost exactly like any other USB mass storage device such as digital cameras or MP3 players.

The mail/calendar integration and synching are not so great for me as a Firefox/Thunderbird user, but the ActiveSync connection allows copying files back and to a doddle, and you can even install applications directly from your PC, providing they come in the correct form.

Most of the features of smartphones are new to me, but the thing that probably got me as excited as a six year old on Christmas morning was the suggestion that I would be able to play Doom and Quake on it. Doom! Quake! Holy crapola. I haven't got em working yet (I think due to lack of storage space), but I promise you I will. Emulators for popular platforms like Spectrum, Gameboy/Gameboy Color, NES and SNES are also available, but again I had trouble getting roms to play. For LucasArts fans, ScummVM is also available. This one I did get up and running, then spent ten confused minutes trying to work out how to not get shot at the very beginning of Beneath a Steel Sky.

Here are some decent sites I've stumbled across whilst playing around over the last couple of days:

  • CoolSmartPhone.com - plenty of downloads and advice, but a rather cringe-worthy set of skins (barring perhaps Magneto or Windows Mobile 5.0);
  • MoDaCo - probably the best site I've found, chock full of utilities, home-screens and a busy forum which should be the first place to look for advice);
  • the::unwired - a good all round site for mobile/wireless news and articles;
  • msmobiles.com - not sure about this one yet, but seems to have a good deal of news on Windows Mobile-powered devices, as well as a rather familiar looking design.

So, all good so far. The screen is wonderful: bright, clear and large; all the bundled software works out of the box, battery life is very impressive. Whack a mini-SD in there and there's plenty of room for photos, captured video or a bunch of MP3s. Incidentally, MP3 playback is great and the bundled headphones sound spot-on.

Its just a shame that all the corporate features are so tied into Microsoft applications I don't use.

PS Whilst hunting around for all this crazy mobile phone shenanigans, I went out a-hunting for a free internet-based SMS service again. I found some a couple of years ago, but they were all taken down after threat of legal action.

AgentSMS seems to do the trick. A relatively new service requiring registration with a mobile number and e-mail address, AgentSMS allows you to send up to 35 free SMS messages per month, restricted to 5 per day and 1 per recipient per day. AgentSMS claims not to pass on any details to unscrupulous parties, and the only caveat is the appended 'sent free with AgentSMS' at the end of your message.

PPS Orange do provide a kind of recycling service. Drop your old handset off at an Orange shop, and it could be tarted up for re-use or recycled for parts. Thumbs up from me!

posted in

An update

So, its a couple of weeks in, and although I did manage to get a slightly jerky version of Quake running on the thing, I'm having a few teething troubles. Before that, though, a quick list of pros:

  • Battery Life: just awesome. I didn't charge the thing for several days after first getting it out of the box. Charging seems quick, and I can keep the phone on and in use for almost an entire week without charging. The phone also trickle-charges via USB when hooked up to a PC, too.
  • Software available: lots. Faves so far include Orneta Notepad for creating/editing text files, The Core Media Player for audio and video playback and of course, Quake.
  • Customisability: although the bulk of themes available on-line are just awful (celebrity boobs, crazy frogs and pleasegodstopthem, chrome), creating them is pretty easy, and there are a very few decent ones (Magneto and Windows Mobile 5.0, both based on the style of the forthcoming new version of the Windows Mobile platform) if you can't be bothered. The menus are also customisable, as they work in essentially the same way as the Windows XP Start Menu.

So, then. The rants.

Perhaps I should have been a bit more concerned when I heard the words 'Windows' and 'mobile phone' in the same sentence. As envisioned years ago when Microsoft originally started talking about Windows for Home (Windows in microwaves, TVs etc), I now have a relatively simple device which crashes.

Its fine normally, but after prolonged use (in an almost cute homage to its daddy XP on my desktop) the system slows down, gradually getting bogged down with unfinished, un-exited applications.

Possibly not Windows' fault, but rather the fault of some shoddy apps. Without an equivalent to Task Manager on XP, it becomes difficult to see whats going on and which apps are chewing up system resources. There is a task manager available from binarys.com, also highly recommended, but I haven't dared to unlock the phone yet.

I'm also unconvinced whether pressing the red hang-up button actually quits applications. Windows Media Player certainly doesn't exit: it keeps playing. Some applications have an exit option, others don't, which just adds to the confusion.

Anyone else stumbled upon this post with any thoughts on this handset?

Submitted by leafish_paul on Tue, 04/10/2005 - 12:32.

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.