Black Battery Cover (rear panel) available for c. £10.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/OEM-Battery-BACK-Cov...Q2em118Q2el1247

(Still think a thick black permanent marker, might do a satisfactory and much cheaper job )

At that price, I just had to order one (will be good for testing out ROMs and as a backup phone).

Does anyone know how to remove the front pink panel???
(hopefully some sort of black paint can be applied to this and the battery cover!!)

DEZ :>
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Not sure if this is related at all but...

I have what is almost certainly a hardware fault with my Orange SPV E650 whereby the backlight seems to turn off when pressing certain keys and the screen image corrupts (goes a funny half-monotone colour).

It's been quite intermittent, even getting better for a while before getting worse again, but it makes the phone extremely hard to use.

I've notified Orange by email and they have told me to call 150. I would do except that I'm working in Denmark at the moment and won't be back in the UK until October

I'll hopefully be able to get my phone replaced as soon as I'm back in the UK.

If you think you have hardware faults it is probably worth contacting your suppliers to see if you can get replacements!

Cheers, DEZ :>
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Thanks to everyone for there comments/votes so far.

And thanks to Illum for his notes on Li-Ion batteries. I've heard about this before, just find it hard sometimes to break out of the old habbits of full-discharge then charge I developed with my early Ni-Cad batteries

Could I ask that when people Comment (and if Voting only leave a brief comment!) that they state which Version and Country of the device they have (e.g. Dutch E650 or German S710) so that we can build up an accurate idea of the different devices as possible!

Thanks again and I'll be checking this thread daily for updates!

Cheers, Derek
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Hi there,

Below I have written lots of details about my issues with poor battery life on my E650. If you have a moment, I would really appreciate it if you would answer the above poll and write your comments about the sort of battery life you get from your E650/S710/VOX and any thoughts/suggestions you may have?

Thanks in advance for your help...

-

I got my Orange SPV E650 (HTC S710/Vox) from an Orange shop on Oxford Street at the end of June 2007. I was moving up from my increasingly decrepit SPV C500 and apart from the slight increase in weight I thought it would be a great move.

I have been using (I should say persevering with) my E650 for several weeks now and I generally like the phone, apart from one HUGE issue. The battery life on my device sucks massively

- If I leave the phone on my desk all day and do basically nothing with it (maybe a couple of texts/reminders) I get approximately 20 hours use before the battery dies.
- If I use the phone like I want to (5-10 texts, 5-10 mins of calls, 5-10 mins of Bluetooth ActiveSync, around 90mins of Music via headphones) I get approximately 10-12 hours (

I have read through the whole of the VOX board and have seen several topics refering to bad battery life but also several that say people are getting 2-3 days of usage. I have experimented with ACB Power Meter but not there is nothing which seems to be using more than expected (it peaks for Bluetooth/Calls/Texts) and I'm not sure of the validity of this tool anyway!

I have reduced all the power management to the minimum settings and my backlight does go off correctly. I do not use Bluetooth for anything apart from the few minutes of ActiveSync and do not normally use WiFi at all (it dies in about 1-2 hours if I do!).

I have quite a few custom programs installed but usually have all apps not running except for the few I use the most: SBSH Papyrus v11317, TCPMP v071 or WMP10 (wondered if one may be more bettery effificient but didn't seem so). I use the STEAM homescreen.

I bought a second battery off of Ebay (from HK) and this seems to give me around 90% battery life as the Orange original one (which is about what I'd expect from a 3rd Party Chinese battery!).

Important Detail: When I bought the phone the first 3-4 charging cycles were performed at my home in the UK. I normally live in Denmark though, so ever since then I have been charging it using the UK charger but with an adapter to 2-pin Euro Plug.
I even briefly tried the charger from my old C500 (they seem to be rated almost identically) and it gave basically the same results

I have tried charging it for 10-12 hours overnight, with the power on and off while charging. I have charged it from flat many times and from half full many times.


My E650 Version Numbers
------------------------------
CE OS 5.2.1235 (build 17740.0.2.0)
Radio Version: 4.1.13.37_02.83.90
RIL Version: 2.002

--

So - what do people think?
- 2 duff batteries?
- UK Charger not working?
- UK Charger not working as it is being used in Denmark?
- Problems with charging components inside phone?

Thanks again to everyone that answers the poll and comments below!

Cheers, Derek
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Following on from Awi's and FonZi's posts - are you going to be incorporating Danish and Swedish into this Language Pack?

Cheers, DEZ
-

Interesting topic this I thought

I've had my E650/Vox for a couple of weeks now and am pretty happy with it (except for some annoying battery issues) after coming from my aging C500.

To put things in context I mainly use it for texts and calls and accessing my outlook information. I don't do very much in the way of Emails, Web Browsing, IMS (although it is nice to have this available if I need it in an emergency).

So personally I don't use the keyboard very much. I've tried to force myself to use it for texts a few times and always go back to front keypad entry (although still getting used to xT9).

If there was a version of the Vox without the keyboard which weighed 20-30g or more lighter, then I definitely would have gone for that instead (not sure if HTC have any plans for this sort of device!)

Cheers, DEZ :>
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Not sure if this is really Modaco topic stuff but didn't know where else to turn

I've just bought a nice shiny new MDA Vario with a T-Mobile U-Fix 15 contract (so far so good... At least thats what I thought :?: )

I was speaking to their customer services to get my voicemail working before I start travelling in Europe for work, when they mentioned that I will get charged if people leave me messages!

I'm used to Orange Voicemail where (like all the other mobile companies I thought) you only get charged for making/receiving calls/txts.

There solution was to disable the voicemail while abroad. This is unacceptable to me (at least in part due to the fact that you have to phone Customer Services to do this [it can't be done through the interactive voicemail menus] and that you can't enable a message to be left saying you are out of the country but then not accept messages [again a la Oragne])


What I really don't understand, is how they can charge you for a call which is not under your direct control??? If someone chose to make malicious calls to my mobile voicemail while I was abroad they could rack up huge bills that I wouldn't be aware of :evil:
- Is this legal??


Anyway, much as I like my new HTC Wizard, I have contacted the supplier to ask for a refund under the the Distance Selling Regulations.

I've told T-Mobile of this and they said that I would not be able to have a refund of the £20 Credit that I placed on their system yesterday

Oh well, I am not sure what this teaches me, apart from the difficulty in finding one UK Mobile company who provides a good and reasonably priced service!

Dez :x
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Hej all,

After getting increasingly annoyed with Orange in the last few months (not very competitive tarrifs, not releasing good handsets quick enough or at all & average/poor customer service ) I've just bitten the bullet and got my PAC number and ordered an MDA Vario.

I went with the U-Fix 15 from http://www.scancom.co.uk

Scancom phoned me back to say it'd probably be deliverd tomorrow and Tom on the phone was really helpful with all my questions!

Handset inc Vat and Delivery is £99.27 and the 12months contract will be £180 so a total for the year of c. £280
(although I'm going to look into what "Tomahawk" said about paying annually and reducing the bill, although I thought T-Mobile had stopped doing this!)

Ironically I'm going to be spending most of next year in Copenhagen (moving there to be with my girlfriend ) so may not even use all of my monthly Minutes and Texts. All mobile companies are pretty rubbish on call/txt costs in Europe!! But I thought this was the cheapest way of getting hold of a HTC Wizard.

I just hope that I can get used to the Keyboard and that the phones speed and stability hold out (just looking for a HTC device that doesn't crash when recieving an SMS )


Sorry for the rambling post :roll: but thanks to everyone for making Modaco such a great place to hang out (I've not posted much but been here since near the start (Member No. 550 ) and everyones helped me find out all about the MDA Vario before committing! Wish me luck...

Cheers, DEZ :>
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Also check out: http://www.modaco.com/content/forum/231640/http-www-modaco-com-index-php-showtopic-231640/

DEZ
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http://www.imei-check.co.uk/ now list the MDA Vario. Costs £20 mind you :|

I haven't got personal experience of them. But I've seen good comments in the Modaco forums

I haven't seen a free unlock tool (like for the C500 http://www.spv-developers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=236) unless anyone else has any comments??

Cheers, Dez

Hi Wilky,

Do you mind if I ask where you found out about this??

Cheers, DEZ
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Very Cool Benjymous.

I just set this up in about about 5 mins and have got streaming Audio and my Webcam coming though on my SPV C500 in the lounge, from my laptop in my bedroom

Nice work.

Cheers, Dez
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NiFreaky: The C500 'clear fronted' case by Krussell is listed on the 'Add-Ons World' site (www.addonsworld.com) as availble for "pre-order", available 10th October at 10.99 GBP.

I've only had my C500 a week or so and the screen already has lots of vertical scratch lines on it (v.annoying). But I guess I will be buying a case when they are released to prevent further damage!

Thanks very much Ceri,

I didn't realise my practices were out of date

Cheers, Derek.
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I was wondering if anyone knew of a USB Cable for the C500 which would allow you to sync the phone but does NOT charge at the same time.

Can you buy such a cable from anywhere or modify (snip snip ) an existing one for this purpose.

I've always been a bit paranoid about keeping my battery in good condition. I don't really like the thought of constantly topping the battery up as I sync it several times a day. Or am I just being stupid worrying about topping up the batt this way?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers, DEREK
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[quote="sbsdegb1"]If you still have the adapter a nokia 6210 charger will work.

Can I ask how you know that a Nokia 6210 charger will work (with the adapter or plugged into the cradle)?
- Is this just based upon comparitive output figures or something else?

And does anyone know where to get the little adaptors?

Derek
--

I also find it annoying the way the right-hand soft key responds after receiving Text or Email. On my handset the 'Right Hand' softkey changes to message but when you click on this it takes you into the Pocket Inbox but instead of showing you the new message it shows you the last thing you had open when you were in the Inbox previously. Not exactly intuitative. Can we chalk this up as another SMS/OS bug to be fixed please.

Cheers, Derek
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