Now That Users Have C500 - Questions and Opinions on it?

[Guest Sonicr360]

Hi everyone

Found an orange shop with the phone.... however no Orange Trainer was able to demonstrate or tell me much about the phone! So seeing as some people have it, would it be possible to answer these questions if you happen to know.

1) Your overall opinion on the C500, compared to the E100 (I own this)

2) Does Bluetooth with with a Pocket PC IPAQ using GPRS? Or if possible, could you make it work on a Laptop? What would I need of Laptop does not support bluetooth?

3) Quality of sound and voice calls.

4) The so called Loud Speaker on the E100 in my mind was not good. What is the C500 like? My sister has a Nokia 6100 and its boooming and brilliant as a hands free

5) Any criticism on the purchase?

Thanks. I am sorry to ask, but these are questions I did try to put to the orange shop, who told me to come back at the weekend when their "expert" would be in.

Simon

[Guest cyrilthefish]

Hi everyone

Found an orange shop with the phone.... however no Orange Trainer was able to demonstrate or tell me much about the phone! So seeing as some people have it, would it be possible to answer these questions if you happen to know.

1) Your overall opinion on the C500, compared to the E100 (I own this)

I too upgraded from an e100, trust me when i say it's a monumental improvement :D

Things you'll notice (probably in order)

1. general speed of the OS - a huge improvement, menus open straight away usually, within one second at most even straight after a reboot. forget the waiting 3-4+ seconds for menus you get on an e100 at times.

2. battery life - worth the upgrade for this alone, lasts a good 2-3x longer than an e100 at least

3. camera - now actually usuable and still quite good quality, no longer takes 5+ seconds after pressing the shutter button for the picture to actually be taken :)

4. T9 predictive text - huge overhaul, takes a few mins to get used to if you're used to an e100, but easy to pick up and not only saves custom words after a reboot, but also makes it far easier to add custom words :) (ie' i've added things such as my email address as a custom word :P )

and a load of other things, like multiple email accounts, ~28mb internal storage space instead of ~8mb, nicer screen...

2) Does Bluetooth with with a Pocket PC IPAQ using GPRS? Or if possible, could you make it work on a Laptop? What would I need of Laptop does not support bluetooth?

i don't have a ipaq, but it works fine with my laptop via the USB bluetooth dongle from the orange shop.

3) Quality of sound and voice calls.

can't comment much because i rarely make voice calls :$ (average £2-3 worth a month) can't say i've noticed any difference to my e100

4) The so called Loud Speaker on the E100 in my mind was not good. What is the C500 like? My sister has a Nokia 6100 and its boooming and brilliant as a hands free

again i can't help much, i haven't used handsfree.... but it sounds much better playing MP3s through the loudspeaker :D

5) Any criticism on the purchase?

only one is the games bug so far, and a couple very minor niggly things (such as the screen going into power-save mode even if you tell it not to)

but nothing that would stop me reccomending the phone, as they'll be fixed in an update soon :D

[Guest Sonicr360]

HI

First thank you very much for your help...

Looking at the orange site, I cannot see the orange dongle. What price did you pay for it?

Thanks, Simon

[Guest Dr Who]

1) Great phone. Is vastly improved from the E100 and seems to contain most functions you need straight out of the box (other than a GPRS counter, grrrr).

2) Not sure about the IPAQ but works with my laptop (integrated bluetooth). I am sure almost any bluetooth dongle will work, they are pretty cheap (£10-20)

3) Voice calls are good. Occassional very slight hiss but timbre of the phone is very natural. Less crisp than E100 or E200 but still very, very clear.

4) Not used, so can't say.

5) None. Yet. There a couple of things in the OS that are not quite intuitive but these are very few.

If you are thinking of getting one, then do. I am very pleased with my 'purchase' (free upgrade).

[Guest Sonicr360]

Dr

Thanks for the info. Did you get teh Black phone or the silver phone?

[Guest cosmoOo]

2) laptop works fine with epox bluetooth dongle.

pocketpc (dell, socket cf bluetooth card, wm2003) doens't work, at least I cannot get a connection.

[Guest Twain]

Just to add i use an msi bluetooth dongle through my pc and can do everything with that i.e. browse the net transfer files, also got it linked with my xda 2 and again is working fine.

I also went from an E100 to the C500 (via and xda 2!) it is a major improvement much quicker, the call quality is better than what i remember of my E100 and seems slightly better than my xda 2 as well.

Again i've not used the loudspeaker as a handsfree but sounds good for playing music ect.

Overall definately worth an upgrade, with the price being free as well you cant complain.

If orange sort this game bug out soon then all thats there is a couple of tiny problems and most of these are user dependant just to do with your preferances!

[Guest Dr Who]

Black. I wanted silver, but having seen the black it actually looks gorgeous.

[Guest rawly]

RE Ipaq with Bluetooth. Set this up at the weekend on my 3970, and it works fine with no problems.

[Guest Sonicr360]

Rawly

Hey that is GOOD news!!! At last a use for the IPAQ

If I get one, can you give me the details on how you went about setting up GPRS with the IPAQ please?

Simon

[Guest cosmoOo]

I got it to work (pocketpc, bluetooth, gprs)

http://smartphone.modaco.com/viewtopic.php...4290&highlight=

same as the e200.

if anyone has a solution that doesn't involve typing dial strings every time I want to connect, please let me know.

[Guest rawly]

Very similar to how cosmoOo described in his link above, however on my IPAQ 3970 the string is held automatically. Here's what I have:

Obviously the device is bonded and set as Bluetooth modem.

In connections The Internet box is set to my profile for the mobile phone, edited from what I had for me T610. I have two number stored for the mobile. One for my ISP dial-up number (useful in emergencies when no gprs available). My second number is the GPRS dial number of *99#.

The gprs connection is set for Bluetooth dialup Modem, baud rate 115200. Nothing special in advanced. The next screen has the phone number *99#. The next screen has Cancel in 120 seconds enabled and wait for dial tone enabled. The extra dial-string is +cgdcont=1,"ip","internetvpn","",0,0.

You may need to replace your access point to "orangeinternet" instead of "internetvpn". The data people at Orange enabled this for me as they said it was less congested and less restricted than the usual one - which I had problems getting to work when my SIM was changed over at the weekend.

That's another story which I posted I thread for a few pages back! Very odd and still confuses me..... Here's the link:

http://smartphone.modaco.com/viewtopic.php?t=113275

[Guest Sonicr360]

Ok but the main thing is, it DOES seem to work! I was advised about 6 months back that the E200 bluetooth did not work with an Ipaq - An orange trainer advised me of this.....

Do you get the impression these trainers are simply a waste of time?

Simon

[Guest Sonicr360]

Guys

Can someone please advise on teh best dongle I need for a Dell Laptop. There seems to be soooo many, all with varying so called "performance" features!

If I get a faster dongle, not sure how that will speed up GPRS if its a standard smll k connection rate!

Simon

[Guest fozzie]

Ok but the main thing is, it DOES seem to work! I was advised about 6 months back that the E200 bluetooth did not work with an Ipaq - An orange trainer advised me of this.....

Do you get the impression these trainers are simply a waste of time?

Simon

Bad advice - I've been doing it for several months (Ipaq 4150 & E200)!

[Guest Sonicr360]

Fozzie

I tend to agree! In fact, on one of my other posts, I actually explained that I found an Orange shop selling the C500 - However they could NOT show me the phone as they had no idea what it done!

So I was told to come back when their "expert" was around...... in 2 weeks time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely madness, and its service like this that makes me want to really leave orange :evil:

[Guest StillHasSomeHair]

I have the black one - even though i am a premier customer and should have received the silver one (the monkeys in the shop really DO know NOTHING about this phone what it does or what they should do) but thankfully i wanted the black one as it think it looks sexier - and just for the record - the front layer of the phone is METAL - cool in the shade - f'ing hot if the sun has been on it.

Can't make it pair with the motorola bt headset that comes free with the V600 tho (Motorola HS810)

[Guest StillHasSomeHair]

silly me - i had the wrong passcode - now i find that the quality of the headset is useless.

i'd better give it back to the missus and buy a real headset...

[Guest Sonicr360]

I am going back to the Orange shop tomorrow, as they could not recommend a Bluetooth Headset that would work with the C500!!

So, if anyone can recommend one......... I am all ears! So to speak :)

Simon

[Guest fozzie]

Happy with my JABRA BT250.

[Guest Sonicr360]

Any pics??

Simon