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Orange M2000 |
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Written by beersoft
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Tuesday, 05 April 2005 |
Quote from review: Bottom line – some things it does very well, others it could do with some work on, if you’re a PDA power user, and need a PDA and a phone in one easy to carry package then this is the device for you..!
As Orange where nice enough to lend us a M2000 for review, I thought, best review it, then thought “hmmm how do I do something new with my review, everyone has read Dade's review on MoDaCo, and that explains the phone quite well, I know I’ll miss out all the “how to use a ppc device” and get straight to the juicy bits
The M2000 as a Phone
Ok, so this pda is a phone, so we made some calls, and the quality was good, felt stupid using the phone because of its size, but the sound quality was good..
This is where I upset some people, I found the dialler app to be rubbish, if I wanted to phone the office I had to load the contacts, tap the 'I' tab, scroll down to the iptelecoms entry, tap that and then tap select dial on the number, which is a long winded process compared to the smartphone which is unlock > dial 4873 then green button to dial > talk. Something else that was not to great was the ring volume on the phone seems a bit low, as I missed a few calls due to the phone being in my coat pocket and it not being totally silent in the room. Calls using speakerphone were clear at both ends, which is very good, as you do look a bit silly with this next to your head.
The supplied wired headset is almost the same as the C500 one, ie uncomfortable to wear and tinny, but useable.
The M2000 as a PDA
WIFI
Ok, so the first thought you have when the M2000 has charged is “WIFI”, which works in a random fashion, it kinda didn’t like my network setup which is a bit of a bummer, so a quick re-config of the network and it connected with ease which was good news.
So i'm connected to the net using wifi and begin to wonder what would be cool to try, so before I installed anything else I gave remote desktop a go followed by a bit of streaming audio and some MSN chat, all very nice and useable, the next bit of wifi fun to be had was some VOIP (Voice Over IP) happiness.
As you may or may not know, I work for the nice people at www.iptelecoms.com (who sell a very nice VOIP solution) so I downloaded a collection of h323 clients (sjphone and pocketbone), sjphone didnÂ’t work which was a bummer as itÂ’s a nice client but bone worked in a roundabout sort of way, the phone struggled with calls, so either it is slower than the M1000 with the SanDisk WiFi card (using the same software) or it was something else?
So after getting bored and quite angry with the delays VOIP had with the integrated WiFi I tried streaming some divx videos, this did work, and I found it worked best with media that was encoded for ppc (low video bit rate and low sound bit rate) as would be expected; playing files from the SD card it played everything I threw at it, which was good news!
The Slide out Keyboard
Ok, so you have all seen the slide out thumb-board on the phone, its surprisingly useful, there is a nice tactile feedback on the keys, and they have a nice raised feel to them so you can stumble around in the dark typing slowly. The only problem is (when using it in the dark) that the backlight timeout settings are “none” and “10 seconds” which when your doing some bedtime msn'ing or drunken irc'ing in the nightclub (EDIT by Brody: IRC in a nightclub Owen!?) it gets a little annoying
Messaging
Emails and messaging is something the phone does very well, Microsoft Exchange server emails and imap weren't a problem (yes IMAP is still broken, and itÂ’s a Microsoft problem, so donÂ’t moan at Orange about it), texting is nice and easy with the thumb board or using the onscreen keyboard or transcriber.
I never tried photo messaging because IÂ’m cheap but Brody tells me it works fine!
 Camera
I would rate the camera about 7/10 for a VGA option, the update speed is better than the C500, but not as fast as a dedicated camera, the photos in daylight where good (about 8/10), but indoors or in the dark itÂ’s a 6/10 on a good day.
The video camera is more usable than the C500 one, as it does get the 15fps at the higher resolutions which is probably do to its superior processor.
Cool things
One of the most obvious things Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition (for Pocket PC) has that previous versions didnÂ’t is the screen rotate, which is very useful once its been assigned to a hardware button (I use voice notes). Some of the bundled applications are nice, Xbackup is a life saver (a data backup tool that saves your data locally, on your SD card for example, as opposed to Orange Backup which saves your data to the Orange servers) and the ClearVue suite is now becoming essential for business use (for the viewing of Office documents and PDF files).
Pros
- Good voice quality
- Great bundled apps
- There are lots of very good applications for the PocketPC platform so showing off in the pub is easy (Tomb Raider in all its 3D glory in the pub on your phone is cool)
Not Quite Pro, Not Quite Con
- Connectivity could be better, its not that easy to get a VPN connection, it took a few days to find the settings and then make it work over the wifi
- Slideout keypad: its a good alternative but the backlight timeout needs extending and the onscreen options are quicker to use
- Wifi: Wifi is a great feature, I know itÂ’s a balance between speed and power, but everywhere in my house the best signal I can get is 70%, and thatÂ’s when the pda is sitting on the access point, and the networking is a bit hit and miss if it gets a dhcp address.
- Bluetooth: could be easier to setup and use, it's also hit and miss to know if your pc/gps/c500 is connected and if you can do anything with it when it is
- It's not that “chunky”, its maybe a bit wide in the hand but its comfortable to use as a PDA and not that bad to use as a phone, the wired headset is an essential item though
- It's not a major thing but every application that you install says “this application isn’t compatible with this version of Windows Mobile, it might not display correctly” or some such message, I only found 2 applications that didn’t work though (sjphone and something else I can't remember) so its not really a problem
Cons
- Battery life: its about 8 hours if you use it as your main phone so 2 batteries and a car charger are essential
- Speed: you see the spinning “please wait” quite a lot, and in my tests against my Toshiba e310 doing the same thing on each device the Toshiba is faster every time
- Lockups and other annoyances: just so you know, to hard reset the device you push the reset button and hold the power on at the same time, this I did quite a lot, so there may be some stability issues, remember xbackup is your friend!
Conclusion
Would I use this over my Orange SPV C500? No I wouldnÂ’t. Would I upgrade my M1000 to this, probably not, its more of an evolution than a revolution in my eyes (EDIT Brody: Isn't that a quote from Alan Partridge?!)
So you're thinking “Owen, you seem down on this device, who would you recommend it for”? I think this phone is ideal for people who are in the market for upgrading there PPC and phone at the same time, the M2000 is a great device that fits perfectly into the term convergence, whether it pulls of every one of its functions perfectly remains to be seen but it does most very well, you'll have to look hard to find another device that does more!
After spending 3 weeks with the phone, I have a special place in my heart for it, I have focused on some of the things that I found annoying, but you didn’t want to read a review that said “this phone is the greatest phone ever”. Comparing it to the other pocket pc phones I have used (trium mondo, xda, m1000) and to my other pda, this is the best so far, it is 128 meg of ram is enough for most things, the battery is ok, as long as you have a charger at your desk, and you do have to try quite hard to make it lock up and need a hard reset (and yes I can almost do it on command, but that’s one of my superpowers)
The keyboard is more of a gimmick than a benefit, its ok, but the onscreen keyboard is easier to use in the dark.
Over all, I would give it 7/10 - its cool, but I found that my C500 could manage just about everything this could do, and the battery lasted longer
Bottom line – some things it does very well, others it could do with some work on, if you’re a PDA power user, and need a PDA and a phone in one easy to carry package then this is the device for you..!
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