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SPV Vs E200 Usability and Features (not 56k friendly)


Guest stu_lowe2003

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Guest stu_lowe2003

Hello again everyone

From the comments I received it seems that many people found the comparison review I did between the SPV and the Treo 600 useful.

See at:

http://smartphone.modaco.com/viewtopic.php?t=95003

Some people wanted to see an E200 comparison. Following deliberation I have decided to do a comparison between the SPV and the E200. As this will be a logical step for most MS smartphone users.

The E200 I have is a retail Orange unit, and an interesting unit it is too. Many revisions and some new features, many have been discussed already, but I thought it would be nice to gather together some of the queries raised and actually look at how the unit compares to the original SPV, looking at both for the usability and functionality.

I hope to show what can be done on both devices without massive modification, what can the average joe do with it?

Lets look at what’s in the box then:

e200box.JPG

spvbox.JPG

erm… is just about the same as the SPV, slightly different cradle (very slightly). No crappy case this time, although my girlfriend informs me over my shoulder that the case did stop scratches and stopped that dust (you know the stuff, Orange will tell you how wear and tear causes it to diffuse through the screen) getting in.

So lets get down to it. The first thing to look at is the actual size and shape of the unit. The picture below shows the two units side by side.

sidebyside200.JPG

topview200.JPG

As you can see the E200 is slightly longer, not massively bigger. Although aesthetically it looks just like an E100, it is still a smart looking device.

Holding the E200 it feels very light, much less than the SPV. The upside of this is obvious that it doesn’t pull your trousers down. It does, however, make it feel a little plastic, but only a minor issue.

From the side you can see that the E200 is actually a little thicker than the original SPV, again not by much.

On the left side the same on/off, record and volume buttons remain.

leftside200.JPG

And the SD card slot is still on the left.

rightside200.JPG

The back again shows very similar features between the units, the obvious difference being the camera with mirror positioned underneath.

cameras200.JPG

And they both have an almost identical cradle, shown below. Check out the bluetooth light flashing on the E200!!

spvcradle200.JPG

bluetooth200.JPG

The E200 (well the one I got) comes with the same SD card as the original SPV. Apparently this might be different when it hits the shops.

sdcard200.JPG

So where to start with the actual features ‘n’ stuff. Lets start up them both and see what happens.

startup200.JPG

Those blue lights look great.

The new start screen on the E200 is the new orange screen (same as the Treo as it goes). And then the fancy new Windows Mobile start up.

homescreen200.JPG

The new homescreen layout on the E200 is functional but in my eyes not too attractive, looks a little basic. Although the icons along the bottom are nice. It shows the recent used progs, the icons along the top remain the same whilst the bottom ones change. This is a nice built in feature, although I am quite sure custom skins for the SPV could probably do

this.

Obvious change next is that ‘Programs’ is now ‘Start’. No actual difference in the function of this button, just a windows branding thing I guess.

I tend to use the internet on my mobile devices quite often so I thought to look at IE first on the software side of things.

google200.JPG

This pic shows the two units in their default setting. Looks the same, but then the E200 comes into its own when you use the new column mode. The advantage of this is that it assembles web pages vertically for you. HA! No more annoying side scrolling, a big plus for the E200 if you use mobile internet.

Here is ebay.co.uk on both devices, the E200 using the column mode.

column200.JPG

columnb200.JPG

As far as connecting goes the E200 no longer has the GPRS dialing problem it goes straight on to connecting. This on the other hand seems pretty slow still to get started, tends to sit on the connecting screen for a little. But is quicker than the SPV.

Next to look at is the multimedia features on the two.

Both come with windows media player built in. The E200 having the ability to play windows media 9 vids. So lets have a look at the advantages of the new player.

Here are both of them playing the same vid file, one encoded in windows video 9.

movie200.JPG

I have to say the video on the E200 looks loads better, partly because of the improved screen. But also as it plays in a slightly larger size and has a more refined encode from win vid 9. Obviuosly other playback options are available. PocketTV works very well on the E200, I had difficulty getting pocketMVP to play files but I am sure this will be working soon.

One of the E200s new hardware features is the built in camera, the SPV has its clip on camera. The resolution on the two cameras is identical at 640 x 480. So lets have a look at some photos taken on the two.

Here is a picture taken first on the SPV out the back of my girlfriends house

treespv.jpg

And the same pic with the E200

treee200.jpg

hmm... spv looks a little better for this one, lets try another.

Firstly on the SPV

fieldspv.jpg

And now the E200

fielde200.jpg

Lets try something a little less green

On the SPV

carspv.jpg

And the E200

care200.jpg

Ok, thats plenty enough photos. It seems that the E200 does exactly the same as the Treo did on its intergrated camera. It adds far too much blue to a picture. The result is pics that just don't look true to life.

Bit of a shame that, although in defence of the camera it is now integrated, a big plus.

Lets see how the two are for IM. Both have msn messenger built in. The pic below shows them in action.

msn200.JPG

msnproblem200.JPG

hmmmm….. I hope this gets fixed for release. The e200 is currently saying that the service is not available at this time. I have been trying this continually for 3 days. ‘Trying again later’ is not working. I am assuming this is because it is still pre-15th Novemeber, lets hope. SPV fails on this category again, what with it not working and all.

Alright then, lets look at some other features. Recieving e-mail has improved plenty on the E200. Gone is the unified inbox from the SPV and we now have the option to set up multiple accounts. See below the new selection screen for accounts on the E200 compared to the old folder approach on the SPV.

email200.JPG

Extra e-mail accounts can be added to the list, great!

The calender feature is exactly the same as the SPV on the E200, this is no bad thing as it worked well before.

calender200.JPG

And then just quickly looking at the menu screen, the screen is similar, a folder now exists on the E200 for all the orange features, such as backup, update, etc.

Ok, so we have looked at what the E200 has had in comparison with the SPV. Now to look at the new features of the E200. All new features.

Firstly the E200 now has a video recording feature through the camera. Something was written saying this wasn't that good. I would disagree, the vid files look good and it records sound as well.

vidrecord200.JPG

vidrecord200b.JPG

Two other folders of new stuff now exist on the menus. One contains configuration options for setting up bluetooth, gprs and csd. Very useful. Wish I had found these before I did it all manually.

config200.JPG

Also there are some new accessories for the phone. IA album is on their from the start menu, although this was in later SPV roms. And a task manager is now on the phone.

accessories200.JPG

Right, one great new thing is the bluetooth facilities. I will hold my hands up and say that I never thought this would be useful, but it is.

I purchased a £12 bluetooth dongle for my pc to test this out.

dongle200.JPG

Using the config program I am sure this is easy to set up. I did it the hard way and it took over an hour of fiddling.

In settings their is now an option for bluetooth.

bluetoothmenu.JPG

And then some options within this to set it on/off or on discoverable.

bluetoothoptions.JPG

Then activesync on the phone can be set to use the blutooth option.

bluetoothconnects.JPG

Then the phone can be synched from your desk or pocket or even a different room. This is very useful when installing software as it means you don't keep having to put the unit in its cradle and re-synch it.

activesync200.JPG

The phone also has the facility to install unsigned apps, finally!! You are prompted with an option to say that the software is unsigned, you accept this and it then installs fine.

The first time you run the app you will be warned about the lack of signature and then all will run fine.

The phone has 32mb ram this time round and so has lots of room on it. The pic below shows an app installing. 16mb free at the moment, that is with a number of things already installed. I believe it was about 25MB when I got it.

appinstall.JPG

Of note also is the ability to use WMA audio files as ringtones, this means that files are far smaller and easier to encode. Apparently they can run from the sd card as well. I couldn't get this to work, so was sticking them in the sounds folder on the phone.

SO......

How does the E200 measure up next to the year old SPV.

I think the E200 is an excellent device. As a phone it does everything you would expect from a modern mobile phone. As a multimedia device it has great new video features, an integrated camera (although not as good quality as the SPV) and the facility to record video. The bluetooth is great and very useful and the new e-mail client makes recieving and sorting e-mails far easier.

I am left with the impression that this phone is a far more complete piece of kit than the SPV. Things launch quickly and the menus navigate well, very little egg timer time. My only negative thoughts are that the phone in itself does very little more than the SPV (bluetooth, vid recording and multiple e-mail accounts). So I start to think that this is the phone microsoft should have produced a year ago. Many many people will upgrade to this phone because it works quickly and works well. Surely the SPV should have worked quickly and worked well, are we are happy to have accepted a year as a beta tester?

I guess the hope is that with the improved ram, architecture and the .net framework we will be seeing far better applications for this device. None are integrated, so lets hope that this is possible.

So... if you enjoy using the MS smartphone software then I recommend the upgrade to this device. It is after all a pretty cool piece of hardware. I just start to think how many of the niggles will be ironed out with the 1.6 upgrade? Is the E200 then a worthwhile upgrade?

For me, I love new toys. So i suppose the answer is, yes.

If you have read this far I hope you found this comparison useful.

I will leave you with this pic again, cos it looks so damn cool.

bluetooth200.JPG

Any queries, ask away.

Cheers

Stu

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Guest Simon Desser

Once again Stu, great review :)

The main disappointment seems to be the awful colour cast on the pictures with the E200 :cry:

But it's worth remembering that with literally a couple of clicks on a PC, a colour cast like that can be removed, and it means that lots of pictures WILL now get taken, and edited into half decent pictures, whereas before, most people couldn't be bothered :!:

Stu, are there any options to adjust the camera settings, or any "profiles" like "Auto" "Outdoor" "Indoor" "Nightime" etc :?:

I've used one of your photos to show that the colour cast can very easily be fixed :(

Now if someone could come up with an app to adjust brightness & contrast, resize and rotate, and to adjust Red, Green & Blue levels on the phone, that really would be a cool program :D

E200 cast removed.jpg

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AWESOME review. Cleared up a lot of questions I had. I would love to know more about applications though. Does NES run faster? Is SNES usable? Is that motocross game playable on the e200? Does the eggtimer appear randomly for no reason while youre playing mp3s not letting you stop playback (or anything else for that matter)?

:)

the new camera will serve only one purpose for me, thats taking pictures of my contacts for the AI caller ID = P

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Guest statscat
Hello again everyone

The new start screen on the E200 is the new orange screen (same as the Treo as it goes). And then the fancy new Windows Mobile start up.  

The new http://smartphone.MoDaCo.com/viewtopic.php?t=714>homescreen layout on the E200 is functional but in my eyes not too attractive, looks a little basic. Although the icons along the bottom are nice. It shows the recent used progs, the icons along the top remain the same whilst the bottom ones change. This is a nice built in feature, although I am quite sure custom skins for the SPV could probably do  

this.

Stu

Stu do the plugins alter as you go across the top icons ? If they do are they in the same place on the screen as the carrier plugin and the data time plugin ?

I think they do (I saw screen shots from a french site) in which case its unfair to say this could be acheived by a custom skin because the swopping of plugins would require nothing less than the ability to proxy or host plugins (and so perhaps place two plugins on one row) .....

if this is the case, then its a great step forward I think for homescreen designers.

Could you post some more screen shots of the homescreen ? What plugins are on there ? What do they do ?

(Orange did the shortcut plugin last time so we have more toys)

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Guest spacecowboy6982

Cheers for this review-thats all my questions answered :!: and like Simon said, yes I am dissapointed with the picture quality - i can only hope the video recorder makes up for it :!:

Apart from that its looking hot :twisted: and I will be 100% sure I have bought the right phone when handing over my notes :)

SpaceCowboy

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Guest Pagemakers

Stu, fantastic review.

A few more questions for you...

Do your T9 saved words STAY remembered?

Can you connect to your PC via Bluetooth and use your PC's broadband connection to browse the internet?

How's the battery life?

Has it locked up on you yet?

Does email have "delete all"?

Do all of the menus have auto-generated numbered shortcuts?

How did you get the phone????

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Stu,

Any NEW opinions on what you like/dislike between the E200 and Treo?

I don't want to get off topic and have people start ranting about the Treo, I would just like to hear Stu's opinions on the E200 vs the Treo now that he has used both...

If the Treo had bluetooth I would consider it...

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Guest stu_lowe2003
Stu, fantastic review.

A few more questions for you...

Do your T9 saved words STAY remembered?

Can you connect to your PC via Bluetooth and use your PC's broadband connection to browse the internet?

How's the battery life?

Has it locked up on you yet?

Does email have "delete all"?

Do all of the menus have auto-generated numbered shortcuts?

How did you get the phone????

In answer to your questions.

Yes, it does remember your T9 words. Even after a reset.

Yes, you can connect to the internet through your pcs broadband using bluetooth.

Battery life is similar to the SPV. Although if you leave bluetooth on it will be dead inside of 8 hours.

It only locked up on me when i tried to set up some funny software on it.

No, the e-mail has no delete all option, one by one i'm afraid.

Yes, all menus have auto generated number shortcuts (my girlfrined tells me, i am too drunk to work out the question) if thats what you mean.

Where did I get it??? hmmmm.... a secret at the moment I'm afraid.

Hope that helps

Stu

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Guest spacecowboy6982

*Ouch *

Stu, question about bluetooth if you will. That "bluetooth dongle" Im guessing connects into the USB port, then you lay ure E-200 by it and it connects up after you've configured it ?

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Guest Simon Desser
*Ouch *

Stu, question about bluetooth if you will.  That "bluetooth dongle" Im guessing connects into the USB port, then you lay ure E-200 by it and it connects up after you've configured it ?

The good thing about bluetooth is that you don't have to "lay by it", it doesn't need any line of sight, and it works up to 10 metres away :)

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Guest spacecowboy6982

That is impressive - so, say I wanted to use GPRS on my E-200 - i coul duse that at broadband speed in a different room so long as Im a maximum of 10 metres away

:shock: ?

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Guest mcwarre
The good thing about bluetooth is that you don't have to "lay by it", it doesn't need any line of sight, and it works up to 10 metres away :)

Or if you get a Class 1 bluetooth dongle (look here) it will work upto 100m. So you can synch from anywhere in the house (unless you live in a mansion!!) :wink: :wink:

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mcwarre, i'm afraid thats not the case as I believe that the E200 is only class 2 so a class 1 dongle would be overkill. 10 metres is the maximum range of the e200 so buy class 2 dongles people!

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Guest stu_lowe2003
mcwarre, i'm afraid thats not the case as I believe that the E200 is only class 2 so a class 1 dongle would be overkill. 10 metres is the maximum range of the e200 so buy class 2 dongles people!

Very true, my laptop is class 1 and it still only manages the same distances. But I find class 2 works fine throughout my whole house and in the garden outside.

Stu

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Guest moo_ski_doo

Could this be the first ever MS operating system to get the spelling of 'favourites' correct?! (No offense to any Americans reading this!) Nice one! Worth getting it for that alone 8)

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Guest stu_lowe2003

Hello again

Someone said something about emulator performance.

Lets start with gnuboy.

For starters the app works fine with the E200. Performance seems to be just about the same as on the SPV/E100. Most GBC roms are still unplayably slow, the standard GB roms are maybe slightly faster (very slight).

gb1.JPG

gb2.JPG

So unfortunately no real improvement in this one.

Next lets look at SmartNES.

This is more pleasing, the games run a little quicker and a little smoother. Sound can still occasionally jump, but not much. Mario seemed far more playable with the sound on. Still far too slow with bilinear filtering or rotation turned on.

nes2.JPG

nes3.JPG

So a little improvement here.

Finally lets have a look at PocketSNES.

This never ran well on the SPV/E100. And it still doesn't. The games do run quicker, but most are still unplayable.

Mario below was far too slow to play properly. Again a shame.

snes1.JPG

snes2.JPG

snes3.JPG

So again no real advantage.

HOWEVER.... it is well worth bearing in mind that these pieces of software are optimised for the SPV/E100 and when they have been fiddled with then the increased amount of ram maybe more useful to them. Afterall the E200 is still the same processor as the SPV.

Hope that answers some more questions

Stu

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