Dopod 565, 575, 585: What's the difference?

[Guest Nachohat]

I live in Taiwan and I'm interested in buying a Dopod 565, 575 or 585. I am really excited about the music and mutlimedia capabilities of these phones but I can't figure in what way they are different. They all seem to be the same model with a different cosmetic apperance. Only the 585 has a 1.3Mp camera and dedicated music buttons (hardly worth spending an extra 5000NT, about 150US).

I am most interested in buying the Dopod 575 (aka O2 XPhone II). This model seem identical to the Dopod 565 (aka Audiovox 5600, C500) but IMHO it looks a lot better.

I have a few questions:

1) How are these phones different? Is the camera in the Dopod 585 any good?

2) I cannot type in Bopomofo. Can I set the input to Hanyu Pinyin and use Traditional Characters like in desktop Windows?

3) How good is this phone as a music device? I plan to put a 512-1Gig Mini SD in there and buy the Dopod 2.5cm headphones.

4) Are firmware updates easy to use? What about upgrading to Windows Mobile 2005 in a year or so, will that be possible?

Thanks for the help 8)

[Guest mupwangle]

1) As far as I know tell the 565 (c500, AV5600) and the 575(imate SP3i and t_mobile SDA) are essentially the same internally. The 585 is the orange C550 which has a higher resolution display and a better camera. The 565 has a rocker control and the 575 has a joystick.

2) no idea.

3) They have their faults (I've got a c500). There is an audio bug that gives a tss noise every few seconds. Despite knowing about it I hadn't heard it for a few months. Once you notice it it is really annoying. The headphone socket is 2.5mm instead of 3.5mm. Windows Media Player 9 is rubbish. WMP10 is OK. Betaplayer is quite good. It is handy for casual use but my iPod is much better.

4) Don't know about dopod. the orange ones for the c500 are OK to use (when they release them!). Don't know if you'll be able to get WM2005 on them. Technically I think they can take it but it isn't known if they'll release a rom.

Anyone - feel free to correct any completely obvious errors in the above. ;-)