Eten Glofiish V900 review

Introduction

As Matt mentioned earlier I have been playing with the Eten Glofiish for the past week or so. This was the first time I had used a Windows Mobile device that wasn’t manufactured by HTC which was one of the main reasons for wanting a shot of this phone. Another reason was the full DVB TV which I’ll tell you more about as the review moves forward.

Eten Glofiish V900

The 10 second review:
Device: Eten GlofiishV900
Cost: SIM free only: £464.13 (Inc VAT) from Clove Technology.
Available to pre-order from: CLOVE technology (Go and buy one from here)
Summary: As far as Windows Mobile devices go this is fairly bog standard but then we look at the phone and see there’s just a little more to this than meets the eye.
Best of: DVB TV, Box & Packaging, GPS Folder (See below), FM Radio, SMS Service
Worst of: Screen Flicker, Bottom App Section

What’s in the box?

Well we wont go into too much detail about what’s in the box as we have an Unboxing Video already online.

Specification

Matt has posted the specs along with the  Unboxing Video already so have a look there before reading on.

General

The Eten Glofiish V900 didn’t really follow in the same design the other Glofiish handsets out there (not that there is a specific Glofiish design). Weighing in at 147g it’s not quite the lightest handset out there but saying that it really isn’t heavy either.

The front end of the phone boasts a large 2.8" 480 x 640 touch screen. Sitting at the top of the screen there is a front facing VGA camera for 3G Video calls and an earpiece grill which houses two system indicator lights.

Angled view of Glofiish V900

The left hand side of the phone has just 2 buttons and the DVB antenna which looks like a stylus when tucked away. The button at the top is the rocker volume switch which I have to admit would have been better on the right hand side for comfort. The second button is defaulted as Voice Command but can be customised.

The Left Hand Side

Moving over to the opposite side we find the power button, reset pin hole, MicroSD slot, camera button and the Stylus.

The Right Hand Side

The top of the handset has nothing but a simple GPS logo etched in.

Top View

At the bottom we find (from left to right) the 2.5mm Jack socket (please stop this device manufacturers), miniUSB port and the microphone.

Bottom View

At the top left hand side on the back of the phone 3.1MP auto focus camera with the self portrait mirror, LED flash, and large speaker sitting just to the right of it. Underneath this lot we see the Glofiish name and windows logo printed on the removable part of the back cover.

Back View

Removing the back from the phone allows you access to the Li-Ion 1530 mAh battery and simcard area. The first thing I noticed when removing the back cover was a label saying "Don’t Tear" which if I’m being honest I have no idea what it relates to but can only guess that its talking about a piece of plastic film that’s been stuck to the battery to make it easier to remove.. 

Highlights and Lowlights

+ DVB TV

+ GPS

+ FM Radio

+ Screen Size

– Screen seems to get brighter every now and again causing a flicker effect.

– Flimsy Antenna

– No full paper version of instructions

Review

The phone is priced quite highly which for me was a downside, even with the DVB and GPS. If I was to pick a group of people that would be interested in this phone I would go with the Windows Mobile fan who just wants a little more tech in his technology.

When I took the phone box out of its very nice "Special Delivery" pack and bubble wrap the first thing that caught my eye was a very simplistic yet eye catching box. In saying that I found it funny that the box told you where to buy it despite the fact that by having it you have already bought it (or had it for Free like us). Opening the box was very refreshing, no confuddle of leaflets, cables etc… just a very plain cardboard insert housing the phone which did however take me a wee while to get the phone out of there as I had not seen Matt’s video at this point. Underneath the initial cardboard insert lay a cardboard box which was very neatly packed with the cables and leaflets that normally clutter every other box.

Powering on the phone gave a very bright orange background which if you look at the glofiish website seems to be their trade colour. After running through the normal Windows Mobile set up it loaded the spb Shell interface which in general I am not a fan of but it was nice for a change to see it coming built in.

Navigation was very simple as you’ll find that all Windows Mobile systems handle the same way. The D-Pad wasn’t however just as easy to navigate with. I found this quite cumbersome and slow to respond. I decided that for the remainder of my trial I would only use it if needed.

Angled D-Pad View

There were lots on nice things sitting inside the programs menu like the GPS folder which had a GPS viewer, Location SMS and Satelite Data Update tucked inside it. The next "nice thing" was the Multimedia folder which had the FM Transmitter, FM Tuner and Mobile TV Player inside. I played a lot with all of these tools and loved everyone of them. The FM radio needed no headset to play which was a great feature and the Location SMS was simply fun to use.

If asked to describe the Mobile TV Player I would say I have mixed feelings. After speaking with Matt we thought that it might only be possible to get this service working on London or Birmingham as those were the only 2 cities in the UK listed in the presets however after fiddling about with the settings a little more I eventually found a section that would allow me to scan deeper and low and behold I had Digitial TV working on the phone. This was met with a little annoyance as it did take over 10 minutes to scan and load the channel lists.

At the bottom of the today screen there is a section that contains nearly every app / program the phone has, I found this really annoying as I prefer to have a clean desktop but would admit that this could come in handy if your not as fussy as I am.

The MicroSD slot was a nightmare! I had to use the stylus to insert and remove my 8gb MicroSD as the slot was sunken so deep a mere mortals fingers would struggle to get anything in our out of it.

If you were to ask me what I would change on this phone I would say remove the D-Pad, remove the app /program launcher at the bottom of the today screen, include a paper user manual, fix the software on the Mobile TV to allow for a quick scan, sort out the MicroSD slot and more preset Cities and strengthen the antenna. Having said all that there are a number of features I would hate to have changed such as GPS, SMS and FM radio.

Antenna View

Conclusion

I used the phone for over a week and found it very easy to use. Having never used another manufactures windows mobile device I was surprised to see that there was so much that could be tweaked / customised from one device to another and that Eten took advantage of this. I enjoyed using the phone and despite it’s downsides and would honest still buy one for the TV & Radio systems alone. I think it was a very bold move for Eten to include the TV on the phone but I think it was a move which will pay off for them.

If you are interested in this handset then why not pop over to CLOVE technology where you can pre-order this handset for £464.13 (Inc VAT).

Posted by: John