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View Full Version : What Cellphone Gives Orange E200 "Award of Excellence 2004"


Jason Dunn
01-15-2004, 04:00 PM
If you're a reader of <b><i>What Cellphone</i></b>, you'll already know this, but for the rest of us, they've done up a review of the Orange E200, and they liked what they saw. Here's the cover from the latest issue:<img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/what-cellphone.jpg" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/> Be sure to look for the magazine to check out the full review!

Phoenix
01-16-2004, 01:34 PM
I've never seen this mag. Where can someone get it?

Mike Temporale
01-16-2004, 01:45 PM
here's the web site: http://www.what-cellphone.com It's a UK based mag, but that doesn't mean you can't get it in North America. You just have to go the the big magazine stores. They usually have all sorts of stuff from UK.

Great Canadian News is the big guy in downtown Toronto. They have a flagship store in BCE place. They have every magazine you can think of, and then some!

possmann
01-16-2004, 11:56 PM
does anyone here (in these forums) have this phone? personal opinions please...

Mike Temporale
01-17-2004, 01:22 AM
does anyone here (in these forums) have this phone? personal opinions please...

Not me. But I really, Really, REALLY want one. :onfire:

Underdog
01-27-2004, 05:46 PM
does anyone here (in these forums) have this phone? personal opinions please...

Actually we have two. One for the wife and one for me. (We always have the same phones, it makes sync'ing them easier + I can keep a charger in my suitcase, the other stays at home.)

OK, I primarily got the phone because it would synchronise with Outlook easily and would do this over Bluetooth. I had looked at the original SPV and the '100, but decided to wait for the Bluetooth support so that we could be 'hands free' in the car by just using a Bluetooth headset. (UK legislation now makes it illegal to even hold a phone whilst driving!)

The phone is capable of so much more than the above and is 'way' beyond what is required to manage your day to day affairs 'on the go', but it does, IMHO, have a few really annoying traits.

Firstly, getting your computer to 'talk' to the phone via Bluetooth is not particularly straightforward, it took several attempts before I could connect reliably (I'm not a computer novice). The software supplied (Active Sync) is very flakey unless you initially use a 'wired' connection and then adjust the settings once connected. You also need to manually activate firstly Bluetooth, and then ActiveSync and then tell the phone to use Bluetooth for the connection! (That's THREE different actions you must do to be able to synchronise, and each of these actions requires several button presses - around 10 in total!) Not at all what I had in mind. I fully expected to be able to walk into the house, the phone to find the computer (and vice versa) and synchronise calendars etc. with NO intervention from me. This, to me, is what Bluetooth is capable of, so why we have this abortion of an implementation is beyond me!

Speaking of Bluetooth on the e200. The use of headsets is generally fine, but why no voice dialling? My 2 year old phone had voice dialling - why it hasn't been implemented on this is a mystery. This almost entirely negates the enhanced safety of using a Bluetooth headset with the phone as you have to dial manually to make a call. Something that is now illegal in the UK whilst driving!

Lastly, there are various bugs in some of the 'features', the predictive text drops letters, the SMS editor will 'bomb' to the home screen if you didn't exit the SMS program gracefully before, etc. etc.

Grief, it would take me all day to list the pro's and con's of this phone. From my gripes it may seem that I don't like it, and sure, it could do with a lot of bug fixing, but the potential is there for this phone to be great. Things that need to be sorted are Bluetooth implementation, Voice dialling, SMS bug fixes, Predictive text fixes, oh yes and battery life is poor. Apart from that, it's great!

Regards,

Underdog