E200 get's decent review in Personal Computer World

[Guest kyrkesmith]

The April 2004 [sic] issue of Personal Computer World magazine arrived on my doorstep today, and includes a review of "One of our favourite smartphones, Orange's SPV E200". It picks up a Great Value award. It's probably a copyright breach to post a scan of the whole review, so I've just included the Details box. Personal Computer World is Britain's best selling computer monthly.

[Guest Smoovey]

Yay! :)

I got my copy today too - haven't looked at it yet thus far. Actually I was thinking of cancelling it soon and moving over to PC Plus instead. However, I might just stay with the magazine now :wink:

[Guest lutzh]

to be honest, folks: every review of the e200 that ends up better than 50 % of the possible points is crap. sounds like they want to sell something, hm?

lets face it: the e200 is a unfinished device. it would never have passed any quality management controls of a german provider! see, the specs say, battery lasts up to 100 hours. the way htc handles this it would mean, that even one hour standby fits that.

if you enable bluetooth, have a sd card in it, connect yourself to msn messenger and do 3 calls at about 5 minutes lenght - your battery is off after 12 hours. or maybe 15. dont lie to yourself! thats why i switched back to a smartphone 2002 device (motorola mpx200), since battery standby is a basic need. my first mobile fone, the nokia 1011 back in 1991 had nearly the same standby like the htc voyager (e200) in 2003. because i cant use all the beautiful features of the e200 for the lack of battery it has the same features as the nokia 1011 at the end of the day... :-)

i am done with htc. i'll never buy a htc smartphone again. there are at least two manufacturer who do a much better job: motorola and mitac...

cheers, lutz

[Guest kyrkesmith]

I think in fact the review is a fair one (although, I thought you might be able to get the "record" button to be a camera shortcut, but maybe I'm mistaken). The problem with all reviews is that the reviewer really never gets enough time with the product. It's only after being with a device for weeks that you get to know its faults and quirks properly, in my experience.

I think they're definately right to give it a Value for money award, because, cosidering the features, the phone is offered at a good price.

[Guest lutzh]

you are absolutly right with the time-argument!

cheers, lutz

[Guest Smoovey]

It really depends on what you want out of the device :)

Incidently, the record button when pressed briefly does go into Camera mode and enables you to take photos primarily. However, if you hold it for an extended period, the dication recording-notes mode does come up instead. The reviewer probably didn't realise this; which is a fair factor to take into account.

I never used to carry around the camera component for my original SPV. That was always a hassle. However, since getting the E200 I have used the camera component more times in any given day since than with the snap-on module.

I'm not saying the E200 is perfect and not beyond excuses. Just it is a really clever little device and the pros, in my own situation and view, outweigh the negatives. Had I paid £179 for the handset, yes I might be annoyed. Getting it for virtually nothing though, I cannot complain. It is a great upgrade :wink:

[Guest lutzh]

smoovey, you are right too! the technology is great. just the product is poor. but if you can live with the lack of battery then you have a great phone in your pockets....

cheers, lutz

[Guest peekie]

the e200 does have its problems and so does the motorola over 40% have been returned to shops in holland and is now temporarly off the market seems there are now newer versions out ( with better software ) what might be usefull for upcoming motorola owners is like the buzzing saga from the e200 a thread with batch numbers that have problems as this would help.i think it is a shame that bad softwared phones hit the market its not just smartphones look at the exploding nokias too quality is really gone look at the old vcr ( ok the picture was not that good in the start ) but the build was better now everything is plastic and cheap same now goes for a mobile phone as if you dropped the old ones on the street they worked ok with a scratch on it drop an e200 or a moto and you can kiss um good bye ( unless you are lucky that is ) :wink: :wink: :wink:

[Guest Smoovey]

Totally off topic...

But Lutz, your face reminds me of Francis from Malcolm in the Middle! :D Everytime I look at it, you remind me of him :)

cheers, lutz

[Guest Smoovey]

Just in case anyone is interested...

If you goto http://www.subscription.co.uk/pcw you can subscribe to PCW for £21.99 a year and get a free 32mb USB pen thingie using code P014 and code V014 for the DVD version, which is £29.99 instead. Good value and the USB pen is a good bonus for either subscription :)

[Guest kyrkesmith]

Yeah, I must add that I think PCW is an excellent read. I started reading it in January 2000 issue (which was probably some time in 1998 :)) and recently it's got even better, after a small blip when they attempted to rename it from Personal Computer World to PCW and failed. I know that Guy Kewney who writes the Hand On Mobile Computing column and they "Kewney @ Large" column is an SPV owner.

[Guest lutzh]

Francis from Malcolm in the Middle....

well disco stu said i look like midge ure (he must be 100 years old was my answer). now i look like francis? who am i the hell...

:-)

cheers, lutz