E-TEN Announces the Glofiish X650

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.glofiish.com/index4.htm?no=x650' target='_blank'>http://www.glofiish.com/index4.htm?no=x650</a><br /><br /></div><i>"E-TEN Information Systems has announced the Glofiish X650, the company's latest Pocket PC Phone to offer the benefits of all-in-one connectivity, VGA display, and an ultra-compact form factor. E-TEN first introduced the option for a VGA display in May and since then has added several more models to its product lineup aimed at different customer needs. The latest X650 is designed to appeal to those seeking a compact, full-featured device that is also affordable. A VGA display offers several significant benefits to the user. The greater resolution (four times higher than that of a typical Pocket PC Phone) enables a larger proportion of a document, calendar, map, or web page etc. to be displayed on screen at once, increasing productivity. Additionally, the higher pixel density means that text appears sharper and easier to read while pictures and video appear more detailed. VGA is set to become one of the key specifications for Pocket PC Phones in the coming year. The Glofiish X650 features E-TEN's all-in-one connectivity solution comprising of worldwide GSM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. The device all comes preloaded with E-TENs exclusive software suite including Mobile Shell, Namecard Manager and Backup Utility as well as Microsoft Office Mobile, Windows Live and other utilities."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20080111-glofiishx650.jpg" /><br /><br />If you're a fan of the <a href="http://www.glofiish.com/index2.htm?no=600">X600</a> (watch out for a review on Pocket PC Thoughts soon), you may like E-TEN's recent release of the <a href="http://www.glofiish.com/index4.htm?no=x650">X650</a>. It takes the same form factor of the X600 and most of the same specs, and adds a Samsung S3C2442 500MHz CPU, 256MB ROM, a 2.0-megapixel auto-focus camera, a VGA display, and an FM transmitter (great for the car) in addition to an FM tuner. Expect to see it in stores in two to three weeks in both black and purple.

[pocketpcadmirer]

Is the eten allergic to 128MB ram :?:

[netboy]

is HTC allergic to VGA? haha

[cab124]

Other than the 64MB of RAM, this looks to be exactly what I would like to have.

Is it possible to get this in US? Which carrier would support it?

[x51vuser]

Is the eten allergic to 128MB ram :?:

lack of skills and expertise to handle 128MB chips

[cgavula]

All the manufacturers seem to be allergic to using the 624MHz processors unless they have large form factors (like the Advantage) with huge batteries.

--Chris

[srmz]

A perfectly perfect device spoilt by lack of RAM

[Cybrid]

No, manufacturer's aren't allergic to 128Mb or to 624Mhz processors.

Users, are however, allergic to crappy battery life. See Menneisyys' battery drain experiments. 128Mb Ram and 624Mhz will reduce your battery life 30-50%

[x51vuser]

sounds like marketing crap from eten's brianwashing seminars

[Cybrid]

sounds like marketing crap from eten's brianwashing seminars
Sure.... and this post opened my eyes!! The fact that my Dell X50v (624Mhz) and CDMA Touch (128Mb)* have lower battery lives...is all about the "brianwashing". BTW, who is this Brian?

*Had to look up the talk times. GSM Touch (200Mhz/64Mb) has a 5 hour talk time. CDMA Touch (400Mhz/128Mb) has a 3.5 Hour talk time. 'Nuff said.

[cab124]

No, manufacturer's aren't allergic to 128Mb or to 624Mhz processors.

Users, are however, allergic to crappy battery life. See Menneisyys' battery drain experiments. 128Mb Ram and 624Mhz will reduce your battery life 30-50%

I currently use an x50v. Based on what you are saying, the x650 may have better battery life?

[Cybrid]

No, manufacturer's aren't allergic to 128Mb or to 624Mhz processors.

Users, are however, allergic to crappy battery life. See Menneisyys' battery drain experiments. 128Mb Ram and 624Mhz will reduce your battery life 30-50%

I currently use an x50v. Based on what you are saying, the x650 may have better battery life?Possibly ....I'd take a closer look first.

[virain]

I'd say with this device, Eten has a shot to be T-Mobile USA supplier

[cgavula]

First - more memory, higher resolution, and a faster processor take up more battery? What a revelation!

Second - isn't it funny how Apple has managed to get 8 hours+ of life out of a device with a 620MHz processor and 128MB RAM and still managed double the resolution of a standard QVGA device with a higher color depth (252K, vs the WM standard of 64K).

Users aren't allergic to the idea - most buyers don't know the difference! It's just that no single WM manufacturer seems to be able to manage it, yet. I'm totaly sick of the "battery" excuse - and that's all it is. If manufacturers are worried about power drain, then put the faster processor in and offer a "power save" mode that steps down the processor.

--Chris

[netboy]

Second - isn't it funny how Apple has managed to get 8 hours+ of life out of a device with a 620MHz processor and 128MB RAM and still managed double the resolution of a standard QVGA device with a higher color depth (252K, vs the WM standard of 64K).

I'm totaly sick of the "battery" excuse - and that's all it is. --Chris

me too! people keep making BS excuess VGA kills battery faster than QVGA! i have a Eten x800 with 500mzh and VGA and HTC tytn with 400mzh and QVGA, i dont notice any shorter battery life on x800!

[cab124]

Second - isn't it funny how Apple has managed to get 8 hours+ of life out of a device with a 620MHz processor and 128MB RAM and still managed double the resolution of a standard QVGA device with a higher color depth (252K, vs the WM standard of 64K).

I'm totaly sick of the "battery" excuse - and that's all it is. --Chris

me too! people keep making BS excuess VGA kills battery faster than QVGA! i have a Eten x800 with 500mzh and VGA and HTC tytn with 400mzh and QVGA, i dont notice any shorter battery life on x800!

How do you like your x800? I am really looking forward to going to a converged device (right now I use a Sprint cell phone and an Axim x50v) but I have decided that I am not willing to give up a VGA screen.

I see people raving about the HTC Tilt, but I can''t get past that QVGA screen. I think the E-Ten x800 or x650 might be the way to go for me. My hesitation is that I don't know how reliable and well-supported E-Ten's hardware is. Also, not sure how to get one in the US.

[cab124]

What are the key differences between the x800 and the x650?

[cgavula]

The two big differences I see are the x800 has 3G (they call it 3.5G) where the x650 does not, and the x800 has GPS which the 650 does not.

I suspect there are other differences, but those two stand out from the specs listed on the glofiish website.

--Chris

edit - I stand corrected the 650 DOES have GPS.

[cab124]

I guess that would mean that the major key difference between the two models is 3G. Would most people argue that 3G is worth the price difference?

I kinda like the styling on the 650 better. Its much cleaner.

[netboy]

I guess that would mean that the major key difference between the two models is 3G. Would most people argue that 3G is worth the price difference?

I kinda like the styling on the 650 better. Its much cleaner.

Eten x800 advertised as 3.5G hsdpa, but all u get is 3G umts around 380k!
Edge phones is about 180k.
my only complain about X800 is that it only do 3G umts speed!
i just bought a Imate 6150 which should arrive later today.
Imate 6150 does 3.5G hsdpa around 860k but no build in GPS.

[ianl]

The SAMSUNG CPU SC32442 (circa 2003) that Eten uses in its current line-up of devices (including the X650) has the capacity to address only 64Mb RAM. Wishing for 128Mb+ RAM in these devices is pointless.

If you want more RAM, choose another device.

The lack of 3G in the X650 puts it in the brain-dead category for today's market. Addition of VGA without a dedicated video processor slows it to a crawl (see the X800 forum).

I have an X500, amongst other PDA's, which I love for its SirfII GPS.

[mmidgley]

I think the X650 form does look better than the X800 (although I briefly learned to be ok with the bloody-eye X800's appearance). I tried out the X800 and overall had a bad experience: couldn't make 2G phone calls(!!) on att or tmobile, 3G voice calls worked somewhat; joystick was terrible (hard to use and sticks out beyond the device's profile making it hard to fit in a case); battery cover design was terrible (it cracked); gps was great; cpu was ok; screen was excellent (for 16bit color depth); ram was too limiting (see below); no official microSDHC (i own a Sandisk 8GB microSDHC card and it hurts that the X800 couldn't use it). I hope the things that plagued the X800 don't show in the X650.

I doubt I got a lemon because I actually bought three X800's and all behaved the same (but yes they'd all be from the same production run...) I worked with eten support as best I could, but finally returned them within mobileplanet's return policy.

My "real-life" X800 test was to have TomTom compute a cross-country route from Utah to New York. The X800 worked on it for several minutes and finally failed. To compare, the MSM7200 400MHz+128MB Tilt computed the route successfully in about 42 seconds. The X800 failed the test. This experience will probably prevent me from even trying another eten. Besides if the 650 lacks the ram and gps I'd skip it anyway. Even if they could prove that the 500MHz Samsung can actually handle a vga system better (of which I am not fully convinced) than the MSM7200, I still couldn't be attracted to the x650.

If the Tilt was VGA i'd own one already. As it is I'm waiting for the mystic Ultimate 9502 0X, which may not be the best looking according to our average opinion, but its specs and unique video out ability make it interesting.

m.

[Darius Wey]

I kinda like the styling on the 650 better. Its much cleaner.

Actually, I'd really like to stress this point. I think the form factor (both build quality and styling) of the X600/X650 is well ahead of the X800. It's also a lot easier swapping a microSD card out of the X600/X650 than the X800. I'll be covering these points in the review.

[midtoad]

Is it possible to get this in US? Which carrier would support it?

Since it's GSM, it will run on the same networks as the iPhone, namely AT&amp;T and T-Mobile in the US, and on Rogers in Canada.

[virain]

1) Maybe I don't understand something, but according to official website X650 does have GPS. http://www.glofiish.com/index4.htm?no=x650
2) History repeat itself, same lame battery excuse we've have pleasure to read about a year ago that time a subject to provoke it was 200 mHz TI OMAP, excuses are word for word, I wander if that were the same people to complane? :roll: Now that OMAP almost instinct from WM market, I believe only HTC Tourture uses it, but this one is pretty much a dinosaur, some OMAP devices s.a. Mio A702 didn't even hit the market.
These people find another reason to complane. It's too much RAM :twisted:

[Gerard]

Seems to be a wonderfully well-equipped device... but as with a few others here, I'm hesitant to get much excited about 64MB of RAM. My current phone, an Atom O2 XDA, also has 64MB, and the OS is constantly slamming programs shut in the background if I leave more than 2 or 3 applications running. And I'm not talking about running DOOM, nor even a video. I mean basic stuff, like Tillanosoft pNotepad, nPOPuk (really, really easy on the RAM), and Pocket IE. Just those three open is enough to make whichever is running furthest in the background to shut down within half a minute.

I've installed almost everything to a mini-SD card or the extended ROM, so it's not a matter of cramming everything into main memory... and besides, WM6 has programs installed to flash anyway, not to RAM. The problem is that the way WM6 seems to work, the whole OS gets dumped into RAM on startup, leaving me with barely more than 20MB of RAM left to run applications. And as any experienced PPC users from back in the day know, anything less than about 15MB of RAM means slowdowns, lockups, and Microsoft's memory allocation scheme shutting stuff without asking. Running 2 or 3 programs drops RAM below 15MB.

Now, on my Toshiba e830 with the stock 1320mAh battery, a VGA screen, and 128MB of RAM, I typically maintain over 90MB of free RAM. The OS loading doesn't erode that further; that's what's left after my having installed lots to main memory, and lots else to SD card. I can run the e830 all day, with 10 or more programs active, and never once see anything close by itself. When I say 'all day' of course I mean with lots of off and on cycles... the battery is actually good for about 3 to 4 hours of use, with Wi-Fi on most of the time.

My O2 Atom? Stock battery is about the same as the Toshiba, but it only goes for 2.5hours, with Wi-Fi on about half the time and Bluetooth off. That's a 64MB device, with a QVGA screen (and a tiny one at that), with the backlight turned down near the lowest level. So where's the big advantage in battery life from 64MB of RAM, or from using 1/4 as many pixels for that matter? I don't see it being such an obvious, direct relationship. My suspicion is that there's a lot else in play here, particularly the manufacturer's choices of parts and their expertise in designing the way they go together.

I recently bought a 3200mAh battery for the O2. How's battery life so far? Gosh, wish I could say it was amazing, but I'm seeing only about 4 hours of normal operation with this clunker, about half the time using Wi-Fi, and not that many phone calls. Like the Toshiba before it, I'm using the phone more for browsing and email.

So yeah, I'll watch with some interest how the reviews come in on the Eten, paying particular attention to performance stability when reviewers actually bother to test with more than one application running at a time. 64MB of RAM was great back in the old days, when it came out on my iPAQ 3835 for example, but I didn't run TextMaker back then, nor multiple Pocket IE windows. Surely by now, almost 6 years later, doubling the RAM should be standard. Toshiba did it very successfully with the e800 and e830, both getting decent battery life. This simply isn't acceptable any more. It's cheaping out.

[pocketpcadmirer]

Is the eten allergic to 128MB ram :?:

lack of skills and expertise to handle 128MB chips

No,it requires little modification of the current ROM to make it support the 128MB ram. So,it is eten unwillingness to put in 128MB ram chips

[Cybrid]

Second - isn't it funny how Apple has managed to get 8 hours+ of life out of a device with a 620MHz processor and 128MB RAM and still managed double the resolution of a standard QVGA device with a higher color depth (252K, vs the WM standard of 64K).

That's 8+ hours of talk* time from a 1400 mAh 3.7V (http://www.ipodbatteryfaq.com/ipodbatteryandpower.html) whereas the Touch has a 1100mAh battery with 5 hours (GSM to GSM).
*talk time dependent on various factors such as the screen being off (nifty design that accelerometer) and wifi being off....etc etc...
As they say...Actual usage may vary.

Tested against other devices (http://www.wirelessinfo.com/content/Apple-iPhone-Cell-Phone-Review/Battery-Life.htm) Nuttin special or magical there.