Orange SPV E650 review

Since our HTC S710 vs Orange E650 video we’ve still not had any luck getting our hands back on a new Orange SPV E650 from Orange PR nor are we due an upgrade. However, our friend and long-time follower of the blog, Alasdair Ford, wrote this great review of the device as he has been using the E650 for a few weeks. So here for your viewing pleasure is Alasdair’s ‘warts-and-all’ assessment of the E650.

Having lived with the E650 for a full three weeks this is a summary of the journey so far, overall it’s been a very positive experience.

I’m not stat hungry so I’ll be providing real world measures of performance, my perception of the way the device operates not stopwatch statistics.

The device has been used in a real business environment, as part of an Exchange 2003 messaging system using exchange activesync so some of the snazzier features associated with Exchange 2007 are not there yet but our upgrade is imminent so hopefully the three month review will be able to include these.

I am a geek and a techie but I try to apply the mother test for ease of use – I.e. could my mother use it? – a good yardstick for the levels of technical aptitude and patience displayed by most directors 🙂

My most recent devices of choice have been the Orange SPV c600 a candy bar smartphone running window Mobile smartphone edition 5.0 AKU 2 and the Orange SPV m3100 a traditional PDA form factor with touch screen 3G which I wanted it for and the addition of a sliding QWERTY keyboard (which I didn’t want at the time but now love) running Windows Mobile 5.0 AKU 2.3 Pocketphone edition (for now)

The E650 has complemented my traditional notebook for two weeks but for the last week it’s been my only contact with work as I’ve been away on Holiday (more about that in an Off-Topic later).

Conventions :

Where I refer to keypad I mean the E650 standard phone alphanumeric keypad where I refer to keyboard is the slide out QWERTY keyboard

Highlights:

Lowlights:

No Lights:

So on to the review!

Form Factor:

it’s a Vox I know but the E650 skin isn’t out in MobiControl just yet

The device is a lovely piece of kit, a little heavier and bulkier than the C600 and most standard candybar format phones – way heavier and thicker than the slim Jim LGs of this world but it fits comfortably in the shirt pocket and the weight provides a reassuring feel that suggests great build quality.

The keyboard is a real surprise to people not in the know the E650 just doesn’t look like it could hide a QWERTY in a device that size. the keyboard action is very slick only requiring a little push to expose or close the keys, much nicer than the m3100. Portrait to landscape transitions can be a bit slow occasionally but it’s no massive deal.

The screen is great much more vibrant and clearer than either the m3100 or c600.

The phone has four hardware buttons on the periphery – on/off on the top; the voice activation and volume rockers to the left of the screen and the camera button to the right – the camera button placement is somewhat counter intuitive as when you access the keyboard you rotate the phone clockwise which leaves the camera button on the bottom of the rotated handset if you are shooting in landscape mode – a minor gripe.

The front mounted function keys are easy to access, I was worried about the placement of the send and end keys as they look like they could be easily operated in a pocket however the E650 actually suffers less from this than the c600.

The soft keys are a little fiddly at first but you get used to that, and anyone with more slender fingers than mine wouldn’t be troubled.

The SIM slot is hidden behind the keypad and is accessed when the keyboard is exposed and there is an external MicroSD card slot covered with a rubber shield, again a great improvement on the c600 but less vital now that MicroSD cards are Multi-Gigabyte

USB and accessory connection is via an HTC extended mini USB port – a pain in the backside tbh which is covered by another rubber flap which makes the handset unstable when stood up on its end, a minor design flaw that only grates because the rest of the device seems so well thought out.

Operation:

The E650 is great to use, much zippier than the equivalent WM5 device, despite the underpowered processor (only 201 MHz). occasionally (very occasionally) the Camera application refuses to start due to memory usage but this is down to the fact that there is no native way to end an application apart from through the task manager a disappointing feature of smartphone versions of the WM platform.

Battery life is good although the quoted 5 hours / 7 days actually equates to about 2 1/2 days realworld usage (GPRS, voice, a little WiFi)

Configuration

I’ve always found the smartphone interface a little fiddly for making settings changes however the keyboard is a real bonus here – there’s no massive differences between the WM5.0 & 6 menus in this area.

Applications:

I’m concentrating on the core business applications – for me that excludes the camera although the 2 Megapixel produces pictures sharp enough to annoy your coworkers when you are on holiday.

Office Mobile in WM6 is great but is really only designed to read attachments the giveaway is that the apps start in view mode – you could (at a push) compose on the E650 as the keyboard makes this possible for those with thinner digits – I still hit space+n or b+space a bit too often for my liking.

Pocket Outlook tends to be the place I spend most of my time 🙂 – Highlights are Fetchmail which is a massive productivity tool and a real encouragement to download the rest of any message, it’s that smooth. (and a nice GPRS earner for Orange)

Keypad shortcuts are fantastic

Email triage is speeded up no end and this is a major use of most smartphones.

The E650 even has Adobe Reader LE installed so clicking on a PDF attachment allows you to read it.

We’re still running on Exchange 2003 SP2 in our production environment so when internal IS get Exchange 2007 sorted I’m sure Webready and HTML mail will be fantastic additions, looking forward to this.

Contacts quick search is much improved and now ignores gaps between consecutive keypresses and the # is interpreted as a space which makes finding the actual Richard or Dave or Andy you want that much easier.

You at last can send a contact as a vCard however the E650 insists on sending it as an MMS rather than a text which seems odd and might affect your bill – it doesn’t work at all on my work SIM as we disable MMS for all our staff by default.

Calendar operation is slick as well week view with appointment details is another great productivity aid and the ability to add both required and optional attendees from contacts or the company directory when creating an appointment was something I always yearned for in WM5

Where’s my Microsoft Voice Command Orange? and MSN messenger ?

Voice command is bundled by Microsoft and I’ve just gone out and spent £20 on it because of this omission.

No messenger is not so bad for me as we use office communicator but I can see it annoying some people – there are suggestions that Orange’s new flat rate tariffs will exclude IM and VoIP so this might be the reasoning

Stability

Overall stability is good apart from when the battery runs low when you get occasional application errors – this would have been a problem on WM5 however on the E650 the device seems to recover without a glitch and I’ve yet to lose any data at all – apart from a momentary annoyance this is much less of a problem than it has been in previous versions.

Ease of Use

The handset feels great in the hand and one handed operation is easy in phone mode, all the keys falling easily under the thumb, in landscape mode with the keyboard exposed a juggler can manage to use the E650 one handed.

Missing Links

Could I get rid of my c600 at the moment? – absolutely the E650 outclasses it in every way how about the m3100? no I use TomTom navigator 5 a lot and memory map when walking neither of which are windows mobile 6 compatible. I do miss the touch screen in some apps however the E650 is rapidly weaning me off it.

Overall Assessment

I use the word slick a lot in this review that’s exactly what the E650 is, slick; very, very slick.

There are a few minor niggles but they are outweighed by a factor of 10 by the improvements

Do I use the E650 more often than the equivalent WM5 devices? no

When I do use it is it faster brighter and better? sure thing

Do I get more done? oh yes

Will Orange get this eval unit back ? NO CHANCE

The Orange E650 isn’t my perfect device but it’s not far from it.

Should you buy one – at £0 on most contracts and £165 on the Orange business price list yes you should, it’s a steal. if you are a business you’ll get that £165 back in a couple of weeks in improved productivity.

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Our sincere thanks to Alasdair for letting us use his review and for providing the screen shot images. You can find other news and reviews on Alasdair’s own site Mashup of Mayhem.

Posted by: Matt
Photo credit: Tracy

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