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C550 - Some good/some bad points


Guest Simon Desser

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Guest Simon Desser

Firstly, hi eveyone - long time no speak!

I got a c550 on Friday, and there's a couple of good things, (and a couple of bad things) I've not seen mentioned elsewhere (apologies if I've missed them, but I don't get much time to browse MoDaCo lately!)

Some good stuff:-

There's a new button on top of the volume keys which launches Internet Explorer which is handy :)

They've included a new version of "Multimedia Album" which has an "Edit" function tucked away in there. This means that at last you can do a bit of basic picture editing on your phone, including brightness, contrast, cropping and re-sizing :D

Orange have at last decided to use the Arcsoft MMS client, which allows you to add sound to an MMS (a function that didn't work on the c500) :D

And now some annoying stuff!

The power management settings don't seem to work, it seems that whatever setting you apply to the backlight, also gets used for the screen timeout. So if you have the backlight set to go off after 15 seconds, then your screen goes blank too! :?:

For some reason, most of my videos shot on other HTC smartphones (C500, T-Mobile SDA, Dopod 585 etc.) won't playback on my C550! :cry: Neither in Multimedia Album nor WMPlayer, however, they ALL playback perfectly in TCPMP (Beta Player) so all's not lost!

When using T9 to compose a message, it now puts a capital letter after every apostrophe, so you get something that looks like this:-

....I'Ll check if they'Re all going to be there..... :?:

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Guest spacerace
When using T9 to compose a message, it now puts a capital letter after every apostrophe, so you get something that looks like this:-

....I'Ll check if they'Re all going to be there.....  :?:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

mine doesn't do this.

e.g. 4817 comes out as "it's" prefectly for me.

Edited by spacerace
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Guest morpheus2702

Every video I coded for my E100 works fine on my C550, albeit not full-screen. Generally I've found AV playback great. The screen is the first I've seen on a mobile that doesn't look noticably 'pixelly'.

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Guest Simon Desser
mine doesn't do this.

e.g. 4817 comes out as "it's" prefectly for me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh yeah, it works using the "1" key, but I (out of habit) use the "#" key to bring up the symbols page, and if I select the apostrophe from there, then it always puts a capital straight after it. (I'll try and get used to using the 1 key, and it is quicker too :) )

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Guest Simon Desser
Every video I coded for my E100 works fine on my C550, albeit not full-screen.  Generally I've found AV playback great.  The screen is the first I've seen on a mobile that doesn't look noticably 'pixelly'.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't mean videos encoded for the phone, I mean videos SHOT with my other phones. Don't forget Beta Player will play your vids full screen even on a C550 if you change the video driver to GDI instead of GAPI :)

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Guest Pondrew
Every video I coded for my E100 works fine on my C550, albeit not full-screen.  Generally I've found AV playback great.  The screen is the first I've seen on a mobile that doesn't look noticably 'pixelly'.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You bit the bullet and went for the C550 eh Morpheus?

Pleased with the choice? If I was upgrading it's what I'd be getting...

Oh, and welcome back Simon! :)

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Guest spacerace
Oh yeah, it works using the "1" key, but I (out of habit) use the "#" key to bring up the symbols page, and if I select the apostrophe from there, then it always puts a capital straight after it. (I'll try and get used to using the 1 key, and it is quicker too  :)  )

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

ahh right, no I don't do it that way, as you say it's a bit slower. Using the 1 instead is an old Nokia trait, luckily it just worked on smartphones aswell !

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Guest morpheus2702
You bit the bullet and went for the C550 eh Morpheus?

Pleased with the choice? If I was upgrading it's what I'd be getting...

Oh, and welcome back Simon!  :)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So far so good - I missed out the evolutionary step of the C500, so forgive me coming across as a bit gushing. I'm still pinching myself that this phone is made by HTC.

In comparison to my previous Nokia 6600, the only downside is that web browsing and e-mail retrieval is still a bit slower that the equivalent Symbian applications. But that is easily offset with the ability to connect to my PC again! No hassle and a first-time, no-hassle Bluetooth ActiveSync. Try that with Nokia's PC Suite! :D

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Guest incognitolad

One thing no one has mentioned yet is the new T9 settings menu when you're composing a text, (Hold down the * key). Give you some useful features such as turning off next word prediction and auto word completion. Also has a built in custom word editor so you can now delete the strange words you sometimes get when your using T9 without having to lose all your custom words! Nice feature!

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Guest drblow

Welcome back Simon! :)

Has anybody had a go with the C550 homescreen yet? Does anybody know if the 3rd party plugins like RJtime, smartmonitor etc work on the new screen rez?

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Guest drblow

Welcome back Simon! :)

Has anybody had a go with the C550 homescreen yet? Does anybody know if the 3rd party plugins like RJtime, smartmonitor etc work on the new screen rez?

EDIT - hmm ... sorry about the double post there. Damn BT connection ...

Edited by drblow
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Guest mavisdavis

Bad point found > Joystick not 9 way. I loaded up Eclipse and its no way diagonal compatible :) I feel the M500 coming up. Its just not the phone I hoped it would be

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Guest nedge2k
Welcome back Simon!  :D

Has anybody had a go with the C550 homescreen yet?  Does anybody know if the 3rd party plugins like RJtime, smartmonitor etc work on the new screen rez?

EDIT - hmm ... sorry about the double post there. Damn BT connection ...

RJHTML worked but as with all 176x200 'screens, you'll need to fiddle :)

I dont see why all other plugins wont work either, it is still 2003 after all.

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Guest pd.ryder

I'm pretty impressed so far. The screen res is causing me a multitude of headaches - most 3rd party apps won't go full screen :-

PocketMusic - daft postage-stamp drawn in top left with a big white border bottom and right, :cry:

Eclipse First Wave - postage stamp but at least it's in the middle with black borders all around, :cry:

SP Task Manager EN - grapgical errors all over the place, especially when viewing Sys Status, :cry:

Smart Explorer - drawn to left hand edge :cry:

The list is endless and I've uninstalled most of them through frustration. TCPMP 0.66 is a total loss as I need to reboot between video files and WMV won't load at all. Works ok with 0.5 stable, but no WMV support.

It would be nice if media players other than Orange's download based MusicPlayer and WMP could map the media keys - they just state if I try to map etc to either PocketMusic or Betaplayer. They could be available within the 'Buttons Settings' menu - a registry hack anyone?

On the plus side, I like the full hands free via BT with voice dialling - works a treat. Joystick and keypad are very positive and 'nicey-feeley' and the battery life seems soooo much better than my E200.

I find the T9 a breeze to use and various hidden delights, like image editing within Media Album, and audio files on MMS are a rare treat.

Can anyone shed any light on what pvPlayer is all about. I know its a packet video player, but which packets will it play :shock: Nothing I have on the phone seems to want to load.

On the whole, I'm impressed. It's taking a little getting used to, probably because I missed an evolutionary step due to the hateful rocker switch on the C500 :)

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Guest drblow
RJHTML worked but as with all 176x200 'screens, you'll need to fiddle :)

I dont see why all other plugins wont work either, it is still 2003 after all.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sorry to be picky - but could you give me a bit of details about what 'fiddling' was required? How does the code need adjusted?

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Guest spacerace
It would be nice if media players other than Orange's download based MusicPlayer and WMP could map the media keys - they just state if I try to map etc to either PocketMusic or Betaplayer. They could be available within the 'Buttons Settings' menu - a registry hack anyone?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm less concerned about the software, most of it it still functions ok and I figure it's only a matter of time until updates are released that make things look nice again.

The button mapping it something I would love to sort though. Especially as WMP doesn't remember playing location if it's closed or you reboot the phone. This feature is vital if listening to podcasts where you don't catch the whole thing in one sitting. Pocket Music is fantastic at this and probably the most important software I have loaded...

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Guest mikey1234
Can anyone shed any light on what pvPlayer is all about. I know its a packet video player, but which packets will it play :shock:  Nothing I have on the phone seems to want to load.

On the whole, I'm impressed. It's taking a little getting used to, probably because I missed an evolutionary step due to the hateful rocker switch on the C500 :)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

pv player is 3gp player

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Guest confused and hungover

i'm dying to make some homescreens for this phone but i don't have one!!! does anyone want to send me a kind of template then test the screens i can make?

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Guest WakJak

pd.ryder wrote

"On the plus side, I like the full hands free via BT with voice dialling - works a treat."

This sounds very useful. How do you get the C550 to wake up to accept voice activated dialling via a bluetooth headset?

cheers Kev

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Guest pd.ryder

Kev - I just press the button on the BT headset, wait for the audio prompt (beep) from the phone, and say the audio tag. Dialling normally follows unless there's too much background noise.

I have had a few glitches where the BT/phone connection will not drop following a call. This sends the flashing panel on my Moto HS810 wild and all audio from the phone's system sounds gets fed through the headset. Awesome!

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Guest pd.ryder

Kev - never noticed - welcome to the forum!!

The C550 displays a 'headset' icon on the top row whenever the BT is , so I guess it's always in some form of dialogue with the headset.

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Guest WakJak
Kev - never noticed - welcome to the forum!!

The C550 displays a 'headset' icon on the top row whenever the BT is , so I guess it's always in some form of dialogue with the headset.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks, it works a treat - this is going to drive my wife nuts, trying to guess how on earth I am making calls with the phone in a drawer :)

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Guest nedge2k
Sorry to be picky - but could you give me a bit of details about what 'fiddling' was required?  How does the code need adjusted?

On classic Smartphone, the display is 200 pixels tall, with a 20 pixel area for the soft key buttons. On QVGA Smartphone, the soft key area is expanded to 27 pixels, which leaves 293 vertical pixels for the Home Screen. Therefore, you need to resize your background images to 240 x 293 pixels in order to target QVGA Smartphone.

In addition to re-authoring your background image, you need to add the following attributes to the Default tag in the Home Screen XML file:

<default target-width="240" target-height="320">

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