Dade's M2000 Review

[Guest Dade]

Im using a Belkin WiFi access point in my office and at home. I really cant possibly fault the WiFi connection, its very quick.

As for the Yellow tint, well its there is you want to look hard enough for it. Its like all these things if someone tells you about it and you look you'll see it but wether you would have noticed it on your own is another matter. Its doesnt spoil my M2000 and I've had 6 now.

Follow up to the review in a few weeks I think.

[Guest MPJ]

In the review you say

"Something new to SE is the ability to change the Windows font size. This is useful as you can make the font nice and small so that you can cram a lot of text on screen at once"

I would actually like to make the font as big as possible as I have poor vision. What fonts can actually be changed? For instance, would the contacts fonts change and other text within programmes (such as Java midlets) change, or is it just menus etc.

ALso, does the SE come with picture ID software (shows a picture when a call comes in)?

Thanks

[Guest Dade]

Hi, Im glad someone is reading the review!

You can make the font size larger and it affects all the Windows, menus and Today screen. Its also makes the font larger on the Messages application (Email and SMS) but I don't have my M2000 to hand to tell you about the contacts screen - Ill get back to you on that. I doubt that it would change the Java Midlets.

The M2000 does come with photo contacts - I use that myself!

[Guest theanarch1st]

:) indded it does change the size of the contacts font

and dade yeh t'was ok to move the thread seemin as tho it is a costly bug :(

hope it gets fixed soon

[Guest egghead101]

:) Dade

This could tempt me back to a Microsoft phone. I have the SE900 at the mo.

What is the keyboard like? One of my biggest gripes is emailing on phones. I use email a lot for work and the SE900 is useless for that.

Is it pocketable? Having all that fun stuff is great but putting it in a jeans pocket may be a no no.

Battery life is crucial and that is why I was looking at the nokia 9500. When running the m2000 did you use it a lot i.e. wifi, multimedia, calls and games

I have my fingers crossed the answers are right?

[Guest philgriffiths]

This could tempt me back to a Microsoft phone. I have the SE900 at the mo.

What is the keyboard like? One of my biggest gripes is emailing on phones. I use email a lot for work and the SE900 is useless for that.

The keys on the keyboard are quite small but i for one am suprised at how easy it is to use them. each key has a raised 'pimple' in the middle and if you hold the device in both hands and keypress with your thumbs it really is a sinch to use!

Is it pocketable? Having all that fun stuff is great but putting it in a jeans pocket may be a no no.

Depends on the size of your pockets! :wink: Seriously tho it is a fairly large device roughly speaking i would say its about the same thickness of the E200 and roughly double the width. You could fit it in your pocket but their would be much room for anything else. Still saying all that mine is sitting in my pocket quite comfortably now!

Battery life is crucial and that is why I was looking at the nokia 9500. When running the m2000 did you use it a lot i.e. wifi, multimedia, calls and games

I found the battery life fairly good, been using it quite intesivley and not had any problems. Dade would be better equiped to give a more informative answer here as i have only had my M2000 a few days. Dont forget you get two batteries in the box with the phone, used together these should give a pretty decent usage time. Personally if my phone lasts 2 days battery life isnt a concern for me since i would never actually be away from a plug socket for more than this.

I have my fingers crossed the answers are right?

Hope that was helpful to you! :)

[Guest Dade]

I think the battery life is very good really, especially if you take that big backlit screen into account!

I suppose Im getting about 6-7 hours use out of it, thats with a combination of talk, video playback, wifi and gprs use.

Standby time is about 5 days, and IF you swich it to flight mode and use as a PDA the standby time is phenomenal!

[Guest egghead101]

Thanks for this great info.

I was upset when I got rid of my SPVe200 to get the SEp900. I like the Microsoft phones.

Weighing up the Nokia 9500 against the M2000 at the moment and I am torn. Nokia is really stable but boring apps. Microsoft is exciting but not so great battery times.

It really comes down to size, keyboard and battery life!!!!

I am pulling my hair out on what to buy.....

[Guest Dade]

Go for the M2000 and if you dont like it (unlikely) then just back it to Orange!

[Guest egghead101]

Yes you are right Dade. I can just return it or worst case sell it if I don't like it.....

Is 6-7 hours to battery dead time or usage a day?

Thanks

oh and whats the repect.rar file I can't open it?

[Guest Dade]

Ignore the attachment - its a bug thats turned up in the forum. Working on it!

[Guest mandeep]

Im a bit dissapointed in this review that u havn't covered some crucial things. ie. on the m1000 theres a really terrible point of if the device is ever allowed to turn off, everything is reset and you have to re customize and re install all your apps again.

im dissapointed that this wasnt mentioned on the m2000, does anyone know if this has the same problem?

[Guest Dade]

This is the nature of the Pocket PC platform. Its not a bug. There is a facility to backup the device data using xbackup or activesync backup but I'm sure that everyone will be doing this as it'd be daft not to.

You will find that all Pocket PC based devices will exhibit this and the M2000 is no different.

You are right, its not in the review but if thats all that disapoints you then I guess Im 99% there.

[Guest mandeep]

This is the nature of the Pocket PC platform. Its not a bug. There is a facility to backup the device data using xbackup or activesync backup but I'm sure that everyone will be doing this as it'd be daft not to.

I see, so using the xbackup facility i will be able to restore everything to the way it was exactly should the power go off.

You will find that all Pocket PC based devices will exhibit this and the M2000 is no different.

wow thats really poor, my c500 spv im lucky retains all the programs at least.

You are right, its not in the review but if thats all that disapoints you then I guess Im 99% there.

im sorry, i didnt mean to cause offense, i was just thinking out loud rather than accusing you of anything. as too often you see really good reviews that miss out some real crucial minor things that really distinguish a good product from a bad one. i always think the ppl that do that are in the pocket of the manufacturers product they are reviewing. e.g. tomh/w reviews i find are especially doing that lol e.g. sound blaster products always get good praise however they neglect neglect to mention seriously cool features that get removed on the newer versions.

i just find that misleadingly disgustin...

neway sorry if i said nefink offensive.

[Guest tceditor]

You were more helpful than ANY high street shop i have visited!! Your review is great - thanks.

I was told by orange the M2000 would cost me £99 on an upgrade to a 400 min tariff, but after 'chatting up Orange staff at HQ', i told them i was leaving and managed to get 500 mins every month, FREE M2000 for only £25 per month.

Perhaps i should'nt be telling everyone this :roll: . Looking forward to getting the handset soon.

Thanks again

Paul

www.thechauffeur.com

[Guest Dade]

No offence taken. You raise a good point.

Xbackup is an app thats comes with the phone and allows you to backup to an SD Card or to the non volatile part of the internal memory. I use this and it works a treat.

I always carry a fully charged spare battery with me and have never (touch wood!) lost the data on my M1000 or M2000.

I should point out that the review is in no-way endorsed by Orange and its totally off my own back. I hope that it comes across with the basic information people need and in a well balanced maner.

If there is anything that anyone needs clarified about the M2000 (or any device for that matter) post up a question and I feel sure that someone will be there with the answers!

[Guest Microsoft]

Hi, does this phone support line 2?

Shaks

"Its also worth mentioning that Line 2 is not supported on the M2000. If you try and use Line 2 calls will ring in on both numbers but you will only beable to dial out of Line 1. I suppose this may suit some people but its a shame that its missing from the handset. I can see that this would put off some business costomers that use Line 2 for personal use. "

hum??

[Guest ventmore]

Weighing up the Nokia 9500 against the M2000 at the moment and I am torn. Nokia is really stable but boring apps. Microsoft is exciting but not so great battery times.

It really comes down to size, keyboard and battery life!!!!

I am pulling my hair out on what to buy.....

I have a 9500 which I've had for 4 days, and it's going back tomorrow, as I've just ordered an M2000. There wasn't one big problem with it, just a lot of little niggles. Mainly:

No vibrating alert

No automatic email retrieval (You have to manually check)

Very slow response times between menus and loading apps

Wi-Fi is extremely slow. I have a 1.5 meg connection at home, and the 9500 was taking around 30-45 secs to load a page, and even then it wasn't fully loaded, even when returning to a page where the images should have been cached. Some of my fave pages wouldn't even load.

@Dade

I know there is a bluetooth problem with the PDA2K. Is it present on the M2000, or have Orange sorted it? If it is, will the patch on the imate website fix it?

BTW, this is my first post, so hi to all, and congrats on a great review...really helped in my buying decision.

Cheers

ventmore

[Guest philgriffiths]

Just thought i'd put up a post as I managed to give my M2000 a proper road test over the weekend while i was away visting friends. While i admit it was too big to slip into my pocket when i went out on the town i found so many advantages over my old phone (an E200) While my E200 could do all the things i used the M2000 for over the weekend (calling, texting, appointment and contact entry, checking my emails, and using MSN, cheating at the pub quiz :wink: ) i felt the M2000 did all these things much better than my last phone, and i got a few remarks of how cool it was into the bargain. Battery life was pretty admirable too. took it off the charger Friday night, and it had a brief charge on saturday afternoon, but apart from that it has coped with a weekend of fairly heavy use (for some reason everyone wants to try handwriting recognition) i only recieved a warning of a low battery as i pulled onto my driveway at 7 oclock this evening (monday).

On a side note, Xbackup is very straight forward to use, it does take a little while to do a full backup, but depending on how often you want to backup your settings, messages, etc i really don't see the problem in just clicking xbackup on over night while my little baby sits in her cradle!

[Guest kevwright]

Hi Guys,

Can I just ask, is the M2000 sorted with regard to the apparling Bluetooh problems with the PDA2K?

I want one of these but sent the i-mate back as it was effectively unusable.

Can one of you (or all of you!) tell me two things.

1. using a BT headset (Jabra 250 here), can you make calls and then turn off M2000, turn it back on and receive/make calls again using the headset?

2. Can you use a BT headset and a BT GPS unit at the same time?

Cheers

Kev

[Guest Chimpanzee]

The M2000 will ships with a slightly different headset to the M1000 and the other SPV's do but the supplied headset does work in stereo.

Its just that most of us prefer to use our own decent headphones!

I'm using an E200 at the mo. what are the headphones like compared to the ones shipped with my phone. i find them perfectly acceptable for everyday use.

[Guest Dade]

They are pretty much the same as the ones that shipped with all the other SPV devices. I think they are terrible for audio quality.

[Guest matd]

Hi,

Just come up to my 12 monthly renewal period with Orange and decided to go from an E200 to a C500, but..... hmmm.... its nice and compact, a little faster, but it still has the crappy quality camera - why don't they put a decent 1.3mp cam in like Samsung have with the D500 - thats even got a flash! There's a few other little niggles too, hardly any ringtones compared to the e200, no great software additions either. Very tempted to send the C500 back and wait for the M2000 to come back into stock - Orange tell me January as they have struggled to meet demand.

I'd say the only good things about the C500 are the smaller size, comprised by mini-sd inconvenience though! full screen video playback and speed, not much of an improvement to get me to keep it until my next upgrade in 12 months i think..

Just wondering how portable and practicle the M2000 is compared to the E200 & C500? ie. would you or do you take it with you on a night out to pubs / clubs?

Do any of you use the carry case and how ergonomic is it? is it like having a lunch box taped to your waist!?

The size of it looks a little daunting and to be honest. I've been tempted to leave the E200 at home sometimes as its been a little on the bulky side...

The other thing is making and receiving calls. It doesn't look like the kind of thing you could just pick up and make a call with it holding it to the side of your ear! ;-) I expect its pretty difficult to keep the screen clean too if your holding it next to your face all day or do most users use Bluetooth or the handsfree?

Despite its size i'm swaying towards the M2000 as i already have a 1GB SD Card and i'm reluctant to wait for the 1GB Mini SD to arrive and have to buy one of those too. I really can't see why the makers couldn't keep the standard SD as its not that much bigger, just means more expense for most of us that keep up with the Smartphones...

Its the size of the screen, hidden keyboard and wireless that got me interested.

Any other ex E200 owners out there convince me to make the move? :-)

[Guest philgriffiths]

I upgraded from an E200 for an M2000. If the size of the e200 put you off taking it out to the pub the size of the M2000 almost certainly will. (tis handy for the pub quiz tho :wink: ) Saying that it is obviously going to be bigger than your curent phone it actually isn't as large as i thought it was going to be. Its around the same thickness of your E200 and i reckon around roughly 1.5 times the width.

The carry case is fairly basic, but adequate to give your phone some basic protection from bumps and spills at that pub quiz i was talking about. I dont tend to use mine, but thats more to do with the fact that i just dont like carrying my phone on my belt. Out of the case it does slip into your jeans okay. it does give a bulge in the pocket but i dont find it uncomfortable to have in my pocket when i'm out and about

Making calls is fairly straight forward. The dialler is brought up by presing the green handset key and you can then search for and call contacts. The phone lacks the predictive contact search of your E200 which has annoyed some users. But this can be rectified by installing intellipad and intelli dialler if you so choose. Personally i find that just using speed dials suits my needs.

The screen does get a little smudged and grimey, but i havent found this to have affect on its sensitivity and you can fit a screen protecter on there to give it some extra proctection against marks and knocks.

Hope that helps you....

[Guest jezza1]

I'm another E200 upgrader and agree with everything that phil has said. The handset is OK (just) for holding to your head - it's well worth the compromise for the keyboard, wifi, storage, touchscreen etc etc. A bluetooth headset will be a useful add-on.

I have kept my E200 and use it for going out in the evenings - just a case of swapping the SIM - best of both worlds! The E200 is likely to remain current (except for the camera) for quite a while longer, so you are pretty well covered with the E200 / M2000 combination!

jezza1