ditch_azeroth
05-18-2006, 10:30 AM
It's got everything a geek would want: with the right wares, it's virtually a pocket laptop, load up on mp3's and blast away, take rather decent shots with a 1.3MP camera - and oh yeah, it's also a cell phone. w00t!
Ladies and gents, make way for the HTC Tornado/i-Mate SP5m/Orange C600. Marvel at it's 240x320 TFT 65k (QVGA) screen which takes up more than half the length of the phone… WOW… and wifi connectivity (802.11b.) Of course, it’s got Bluetooth 1.2 and Infrared SIR for you to beam those pictures and files to your buddies – oh and stereo Bluetooth headset (with the right updates ^_^). Unlike the SP5, the four quick buttons up front are very apparent. Push these and Presto! Blast away with your latest playlist of MP3’s, go to the next or previous track, or connect to the net. Want these buttons to do something else? Sure can do. Just re-map them to go somewhere else – but you need to unlock your SDA for this.
Navigation is a cinch with the 5 way joystick – what’s that you say? Kind of hard to use? Actually, yeah – but you’ll get used to it. Besides, you can use the numeric keypad for shortcuts. If you’re a big guy like me (with big fingers, among other things ^_^), keypad usage takes a little getting used to. That’s why they designed the keypads to be sort of ‘humpy.’ Responsiveness is blazing fast if you don’t have too many applications running. The 200Mhz processor (actually, it’s more of 195, but who’s counting) helps, and the 64MB RAM AND 64MB ROM helps. Also, I turned off the grid menu for faster response, and it looks like this:
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/gridoff.jpghttp://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/wifi.jpghttp://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/homescreen.jpghttp://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/commmanager.jpg
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/samplemovie.jpg
Take shots using the Camera button on the right side, change your profiles and a few other things by a short press of the power button on top, check/change your connections using the ‘Comm Manager’ button on the left hand side and change the volume on the – you guessed it – volume buttons on the left hand side. Press and hold the ‘lower volume’ button and record voice notes. Buttons everywhere! Whew! Of course, there’s still the ‘home’ button, the ‘back’ button, the two soft keys, and the ‘send’ and ‘end’ buttons. Deedee would go crazy over this phone.
Of course, there’s a 2.5mm jack where you can plug-in the hands-free earphone/mouthpiece. The hands-free that comes with the package is not too shabby to listen to mp3’s. I tried using your common 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter – dang! Only the left channel works. Apparently, the moved the terminals of the jack a few millimeters. Why I oughtta… Anyway, you’ll also see the mini USB there and you can sync while charging – common with USB devices these days. Oh, and there’s a software out that you can activate your USB connection as a mass storage device and connect to your PC via USB 1.0… no problem in transferring files to your miniSD, but we got card readers for that (but then again, I wouldn’t want to keep on shutting down and removing my back panel and battery to take out the miniSD.)
Behind, you’ll see the camera with the self-portrait mirror. I ran through the registry and saw an option where you can turn on the light – where is it? Did a last minute decision stop them from putting a small LED or strobe there? (probably an LED)… oh well, I guess we will never know.
The battery is your standard 3.7V 1150mAh so talk and standby time is not too shabby. The WM5 OS helps, but we’ll get to that later. Behind the battery, you can put in your SIM and your miniSD. Tried a 2GB miniSD – no problems. You don’t have to partition your miniSD anymore. Why is it not hot swappable? And why didn’t they use SD instead of miniSD? SD’s have gone really far these days… you got SD’s that are 4GB (reports of 8GB-32GB are lurkin around… a whole hard drive on your phone ^_^), SD’s with wifi (don’t need that because you got wifi already ^_^), SD’s with FM receivers, SD’s with video/audio out… why oh why? The miniSD slot is not even SDIO… huhuhuhu… but no matter.
So, enough with the hardware.
Windows Mobile 5. What can I say? Some say it is an improvement, some say there are too many bugs for it to be an improvement. It looks a whole lot nicer but basically it is still WM2003/WM2003se. There are new bells and whistles, that’s all. For example, the still capture may not be too good but you can always change the settings (brightness, contrast, etc.). I’m also looking into some reg tweaks but not really successful so far. The video capture though is comparable or maybe even better than most smartphones out today. I like the idea that you could capture videos either 3gp, mp4 or avi.
PIM is basically the same, T9 is impressive (I haven’t tried languages other than English and Spanish, perdon ^_^), most WM2003/se wares still work. Basically, everything looks nicer. Everything also seems faster (well actually, everything is a wee bit faster.) I tried IM wares on it (especially skype) and it works. It just takes a little workaround to make it work but bottomline, it works. Not as fast as most PPC’s but it works.
Of course, you got emails (POP/IMAP/SMTP), text messaging (you can add several recipients easier in one text message, so useful when you’re hitting up your buddies and girlies for a party ^_^). You may not have Word or Excel or whatever that allows you to do what you do in a PC, but there are workarounds for that ^_^.
The phone is quad band. Put any sim in there, it will work (unless it is locked by your operator.) Connect via WiFi, EDGE, or the measly GPRS, you are hooked. Most of the time, I use WiFi check my emails; maybe some surfin’, but that’s it. Otherwise, your laptop or your desktop PC is still best for that job.
Windows media player 10 is nice. The playlist functions are very similar to the PC’s WM10 but still, no EQ! It would’ve been perfect if it had EQ. Now I have to use a 3rd party application…. *grumble* (see last screenshot)
The Lowdown:
IT IS A GREAT SMARTPHONE. 9/10. It just has a few shortcomings but I really don’t mind. If you want more than what this smartphone could give, go get a Pocket PC. If you want the best smartphone around, get this. The SP5 is basically the same thing, without the media buttons. But I like this one better ^_^
Ladies and gents, make way for the HTC Tornado/i-Mate SP5m/Orange C600. Marvel at it's 240x320 TFT 65k (QVGA) screen which takes up more than half the length of the phone… WOW… and wifi connectivity (802.11b.) Of course, it’s got Bluetooth 1.2 and Infrared SIR for you to beam those pictures and files to your buddies – oh and stereo Bluetooth headset (with the right updates ^_^). Unlike the SP5, the four quick buttons up front are very apparent. Push these and Presto! Blast away with your latest playlist of MP3’s, go to the next or previous track, or connect to the net. Want these buttons to do something else? Sure can do. Just re-map them to go somewhere else – but you need to unlock your SDA for this.
Navigation is a cinch with the 5 way joystick – what’s that you say? Kind of hard to use? Actually, yeah – but you’ll get used to it. Besides, you can use the numeric keypad for shortcuts. If you’re a big guy like me (with big fingers, among other things ^_^), keypad usage takes a little getting used to. That’s why they designed the keypads to be sort of ‘humpy.’ Responsiveness is blazing fast if you don’t have too many applications running. The 200Mhz processor (actually, it’s more of 195, but who’s counting) helps, and the 64MB RAM AND 64MB ROM helps. Also, I turned off the grid menu for faster response, and it looks like this:
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/gridoff.jpghttp://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/wifi.jpghttp://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/homescreen.jpghttp://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/commmanager.jpg
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h198/ditch_azeroth/tornado/samplemovie.jpg
Take shots using the Camera button on the right side, change your profiles and a few other things by a short press of the power button on top, check/change your connections using the ‘Comm Manager’ button on the left hand side and change the volume on the – you guessed it – volume buttons on the left hand side. Press and hold the ‘lower volume’ button and record voice notes. Buttons everywhere! Whew! Of course, there’s still the ‘home’ button, the ‘back’ button, the two soft keys, and the ‘send’ and ‘end’ buttons. Deedee would go crazy over this phone.
Of course, there’s a 2.5mm jack where you can plug-in the hands-free earphone/mouthpiece. The hands-free that comes with the package is not too shabby to listen to mp3’s. I tried using your common 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter – dang! Only the left channel works. Apparently, the moved the terminals of the jack a few millimeters. Why I oughtta… Anyway, you’ll also see the mini USB there and you can sync while charging – common with USB devices these days. Oh, and there’s a software out that you can activate your USB connection as a mass storage device and connect to your PC via USB 1.0… no problem in transferring files to your miniSD, but we got card readers for that (but then again, I wouldn’t want to keep on shutting down and removing my back panel and battery to take out the miniSD.)
Behind, you’ll see the camera with the self-portrait mirror. I ran through the registry and saw an option where you can turn on the light – where is it? Did a last minute decision stop them from putting a small LED or strobe there? (probably an LED)… oh well, I guess we will never know.
The battery is your standard 3.7V 1150mAh so talk and standby time is not too shabby. The WM5 OS helps, but we’ll get to that later. Behind the battery, you can put in your SIM and your miniSD. Tried a 2GB miniSD – no problems. You don’t have to partition your miniSD anymore. Why is it not hot swappable? And why didn’t they use SD instead of miniSD? SD’s have gone really far these days… you got SD’s that are 4GB (reports of 8GB-32GB are lurkin around… a whole hard drive on your phone ^_^), SD’s with wifi (don’t need that because you got wifi already ^_^), SD’s with FM receivers, SD’s with video/audio out… why oh why? The miniSD slot is not even SDIO… huhuhuhu… but no matter.
So, enough with the hardware.
Windows Mobile 5. What can I say? Some say it is an improvement, some say there are too many bugs for it to be an improvement. It looks a whole lot nicer but basically it is still WM2003/WM2003se. There are new bells and whistles, that’s all. For example, the still capture may not be too good but you can always change the settings (brightness, contrast, etc.). I’m also looking into some reg tweaks but not really successful so far. The video capture though is comparable or maybe even better than most smartphones out today. I like the idea that you could capture videos either 3gp, mp4 or avi.
PIM is basically the same, T9 is impressive (I haven’t tried languages other than English and Spanish, perdon ^_^), most WM2003/se wares still work. Basically, everything looks nicer. Everything also seems faster (well actually, everything is a wee bit faster.) I tried IM wares on it (especially skype) and it works. It just takes a little workaround to make it work but bottomline, it works. Not as fast as most PPC’s but it works.
Of course, you got emails (POP/IMAP/SMTP), text messaging (you can add several recipients easier in one text message, so useful when you’re hitting up your buddies and girlies for a party ^_^). You may not have Word or Excel or whatever that allows you to do what you do in a PC, but there are workarounds for that ^_^.
The phone is quad band. Put any sim in there, it will work (unless it is locked by your operator.) Connect via WiFi, EDGE, or the measly GPRS, you are hooked. Most of the time, I use WiFi check my emails; maybe some surfin’, but that’s it. Otherwise, your laptop or your desktop PC is still best for that job.
Windows media player 10 is nice. The playlist functions are very similar to the PC’s WM10 but still, no EQ! It would’ve been perfect if it had EQ. Now I have to use a 3rd party application…. *grumble* (see last screenshot)
The Lowdown:
IT IS A GREAT SMARTPHONE. 9/10. It just has a few shortcomings but I really don’t mind. If you want more than what this smartphone could give, go get a Pocket PC. If you want the best smartphone around, get this. The SP5 is basically the same thing, without the media buttons. But I like this one better ^_^