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With the undoubted success of the Orange SPV M500/I-Mate Jam and other derivatives it was inevitable that Orange would release a replacement for the M500 in time, no guesses what they’ve called it either, introducing our review of the Orange SPV M600.
NOTE: Scroll to the bottom for a bit of interactive fun (thanks nedge!)
Hardware
The first thing that you’ll immediately notice is its colour; deep black with chrome accents which really works, the device looks like a quality product and with a rubber insert around the centre of the edges and tight joins, the M600 feels as good as it looks. Based on the HTC Prophet design, the phone’s outer casing is made out of a soft touch coated plastic and has more rounded corners than the M500; this makes it easier to hold and offers a slightly smaller footprint. The front of the device houses the earpiece which also contains two status LEDs to alert you to things like power, and connectivity, the touch screen which is 320x240 pixel and displays 65k colours and function keys at the bottom which include the telephony keys (dial and hang-up), a Windows key to open the “Start Menu”, an “OK” key to hide/close the current window, a circular joypad with the action key in its centre and two soft keys for use with the Windows Mobile 5 operating system. All of the buttons are well positioned and easy to use; some of them share the same physical button but are far enough away from each other so as to not interfere with each other.
The left hand side of the device houses shortcut buttons for launching the camera application, volume control and the communications manager (the latter of which also offers a long press function mapped to the voice recorder as standard). There is also a lanyard loop on the left hand side should you wish to use one.
The top of the M600 houses the memory card slot (SD/MMC) in a recess so that the card remains in place securely and isn’t too easy to remove as you would wish.
The right hand side of the device houses the stylus, the power button and the infra-red port, all located where you would expect them and all perfectly fine.
The base of the M600 houses the microphone, mini-USB port, 2.5mm headphone/hands-free socket and the reset switch which can be activated using the tip of the stylus, again, no complaints here apart from the fact that I wish that more devices used the more standard 3.5mm headphone socket so that I could use my regular headphones for listening to music without having to use a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor.
The rear of the M600 houses the external aerial plug, loudspeaker vent, self-portrait mirror and camera lens as well as a new addition, a rotating macro lens selector around the camera lens that allows you to switch the camera to macro mode and take detailed photos of objects under 20cm from the lens, what’s more, it works and it works well, more on that later.
The M600 comes with a few accessories, there’s the mandatory battery which is a 1200mAh Li-Ion Polymer, 2 styluses, a set of stereo headphones which double as a hands-free kit, a USB sync cable and a mains charger as you would expect. The spare stylus is a nice touch as losing one is quite possible and potentially very frustrating!
Having fairly recently reviewed the SPV M5000, I’m spoilt when it comes to screens, as such the 320x240 pixel screen on the M600 is acceptable as the standard for Pocket PCs but is fast becoming an expiring standard as 640x480 pixel screens become the norm, perhaps it is unfair for me to request such a thing on a device that aims to be small and as such has a smaller screen physically however it is a slight blemish on an otherwise very impressive list of features.
I think that it’s fair to say that the cameras on recent HTC manufactured devices have been less than impressive, the M500 falling foul to such complaints, step forward the M600 with its 2 Mega Pixel camera and macro lens, there is no doubt that HTC have listened to the consumer on this issue and delivered a far superior camera in the M600 when compared to previous devices. I could talk for a paragraph or two about the specific improvements but I don’t see the point when what would really prove the point would be to show you some example photographs so here goes! (Click here to download a zip file of the original photos - 3.18MB)
Orange SPV C600 taken using macro lens
White Hart Lane, the home of Tottenham Hotspur (image resized to 400 pixels wide, download the zip file to see the original)
Using "Sport" mode on the camera I took these photos at the recent Spurs win over West Brom!
The M600 has an integrated WiFi adaptor like its bigger brother the M5000 (click here for our M5000 review), this means that if you’re in range of a WiFi hotspot then you can surf the Internet for far cheaper and normally at far greater speed than would be the case were you using a GPRS connection. The WiFi in the M600 isn’t the strongest but is functional which is I guess a sign of the trade off between battery life and WiFi range, if WiFi killed the battery in 10 minutes then we’d all be very unhappy so the slight reduction in range is something that is happily given up in place of another, more important feature.
The loudspeaker on the M600 is, as always, a nice touch allowing you to make and receive calls and listen to music etc. It is no replacement for the headphones which offer a far superior experience but serves its purpose very well, producing a clear output, if somewhat lacking in bass and real volume.
As with all Pocket PC Phone Editions that I have reviewed, the earpiece volume seems a little quiet, not too quiet, just not deafening which can sometimes be useful when walking alongside a busy road for example. Having said that, once in a call I’ve had no problems hearing what is being said on the other end of the line, voice clarity is good. Perhaps I’m being a little overly critical, it’s more of an observation than a hindrance, as I’ve said, I have never had any problems as a result of this.
The M600 comes with a 200MHz OMAP CPU which, on the face of it sounds a little disappointing and is no doubt another compromise with the aim of increasing battery life; however, in the real world the 200MHz seems to punch a little above its weight, with minimal sign of the egg timer and decent loading times. Flux Challenge by PDAMill (Alpha release news here – it’s now a full release, see here), a very resource hungry game with a 3D engine plays just fine for example. As a side note, it should be pointed out that the processor in the M600 can also be overclocked should the user so desire, something which would boost the speed of the device even further, if at the expense of the battery life. It sometimes makes me wonder how, if a 200MHz processor can perform this well, why some 400MHz processors are so slow?
So, any complaints about the hardware of the device itself or of that included in the box? Well no, not really, the only other potential feature that I haven’t mentioned at this point is the fact that the M600 does not have a slide-out keyboard which is a feature that is open to debate in terms of necessity. I personally like the tactile feel of using real keys for data input however the reduction in the depth of the M600 as a result of not housing a slide-out keyboard outweighs its inclusion on a device that is aiming to be ‘pocketable’ in my opinion, as such I’m happy that the device doesn’t have one if it would mean increasing its depth to accommodate it.
Software
The M600 comes with Windows Mobile 5 pre-installed, this is the latest operating system for Pocket PCs from Microsoft and it performs well and looks great. The software allows for the use of soft keys much like the Smartphones, this helps to make the M600 a little more ergonomic with one-handed use possible on more tasks. As part of Windows Mobile 5 there is a program called the Communications Manager which allows the user to toggle WiFi, Bluetooth, telephony functions, ActiveSync, data connections, email and toggle between having the phone vibrate on calls or make play an audible ringtone. This is a great application that keeps these menial tasks quick and easy to perform and at the touch of a button as the program is tied to a hardware button on the left-hand-side of the device.
The default camera software provides a full screen viewfinder and allows you to swap between taking photographs, videos, and bursts of photographs over a short period of time - great for capturing sporting moments which perhaps explains its name “Sport” (for 10 photos taken in a short burst, there is also a continuous “Burst” mode that will continue to take photographs while the user holds the camera button). As you have already seen, the photographs taken by the M600 are great for a camera phone. At 2 Mega Pixels the physical size of the shots is more than adequate however the quality is what stands out here, the clarity of the photographs is a real step forward in terms of sharpness and colour depth. The macro mode on the camera is another great tough and again works really well, we can’t help but be impressed with this! It’s a shame that the M600 doesn’t have a flash, that’s all that’s lacking in reality.
Video recording isn’t the best to be honest, refresh rate is never going to provide anything more than a way to capture the odd clip however this is all that camera phones are used for when referring to video recording at this time, no doubt this will change in the future as convergence continues to improve.
As we mentioned here the M600 comes without MSN Messenger installed as standard, this is a shame however it is fixable, see here!
Orange has set up the ROM to install some software as part of their customisation, the most obvious of which is the Orange Today Screen. In much the same way that most Orange phones come with a similar homescreen the M600 is no exception, it offers the typical Orange left navigation with a stack of icons that offer access to your messaging, call registers, programs that require regular use and other settings. As such this plugin allows the user to access many features that would otherwise require the user to delve deeper into the operating system, as such the Orange Today Screen does its job very well. In fact my only issue with the plugin is that it stops the user form being able to lock the device, a feature that is possible when using regular Today Screens. This is because regular Today Screens allow you to customise which plugins you wish to display however when you select the Orange plugin it disables all others as it takes up the whole screen, unfortunately this means that you can’t easily lock your device which is a pretty important feature for most users.
You can hit the power switch and put the M600 into standby mode where it will happily sit until it needs to wake up were you to receive a call or message etc. To give you an example of why this is a less than ideal solution though consider this example, when listening to music using Windows Media Player the music stops if you press the standby button, as such if you cannot lock the M600 then you have to pocket the device unlocked to continue to listen to music, something which is less than ideal. The locking function that is enabled by the relevant Today Screen plugin solves this issue so you can see why the Orange plugin disabling this feature is an issue. I guess this is only an issue if you have a problem with placing the M600 into standby mode, something that is of personal preference.
Unfortunately the M600 is yet to offer A2DP (the use of Bluetooth to listen to stereo audio), Orange have spoken of offering this in the future but it is not available yet so if you need this function immediately then the M600 may not be the device for you just yet but if you are willing to wait then keep on reading!
Conclusion
The Orange SPV M600 is a great trade off in terms of size versus function; with a feature packed list of specifications that actually delivers on most counts it will keep the vast majority of its customers more than happy. With WiFi, Bluetooth, a decent screen (bright and clear although not as high resolution as we’d have liked), a CPU that runs at a speed faster than you would expect and all of the usual features that you would expect from a Windows Mobile Pocket PC such as Internet browsing, audio and video playback, full POP and IMAP email support, and the ability to be able to install a huge range of third party applications, the M600 is a very powerful device that fits in the palm of your hand. It can be used for the most part using one hand if you’re willing to make the odd selection with your fingernail, otherwise you’ll find yourself pulling out the stylus quite a lot. Couple this with the obvious advantages of synchronising PIM with Outlook (contacts, calendar, inbox, tasks etc) and you’ll find yourself potentially replacing your diary, address book, telephone and PDA with this one device, I guess that’s the whole point of a Pocket PC Phone Edition after all!
The Orange SPV M600 is available from Orange retail stores, click here to read more from Orange themselves.
Click and drag the image below to rotate the M600!
im on my third i cannot send or recieve picture messages on this peice of junk its non practical and constanly crashes. im bored of speaking to orange customer service when you finally get through to them.
Windows Mobile Reviews 
im on my third i cannot send or recieve picture messages on this peice of junk its non practical and constanly crashes. im bored of speaking to orange customer service when you finally get through to them. 
