m5000 Real Life Review

[Guest Will]

Orange SPV M5000

Real Life Trial: - Unit loaned for Duration of ‘Orange Code Camp – Opio France’

Scenario: - I am a self employed IT Consultant, providing on site and remote support to small businesses throughout the UK. Would I be able to both report on the event, and still provide support to my clients, without resorting to booting up my laptop?

After receiving the M5000 and installing my private certificate from an SD card, I was able to wirelessly sync up to my SBS2003 server, to add my contacts, events and email to the device, using a clients WIFI connection (WEP or WPA-PSK connected fine). Later during the testing I was able to update my server to Exchange Service Pack 2, which allows contact photos and tasks sync too!

Travelling back home on the train, I popped in my 3G Usim, and was able to synchronise mail quickly and without any problems, I never noticed if I was using 3g or GPRS, as it seamlessly connected, and swapped between the two.

At home I was able to use my WIFI surf the net, stream some music, and download a couple of podcasts to listen too whilst waiting in the airport, a 3.5mm headset jack is a great addition! No more 2.5-3.5mm adapters needed!

Yes this device is ‘larger’ than my m2000, but the supplied slip case means it is secure in a jeans pocket, or jacket. I’m not sure I’d take it out on a night on the town, but certainly small enough to bring along if I was having a quick drink.

Battery life has been completely as I expect, I was able to ‘use’ the device all day, large WIFI or Bluetooth would be obvious battery drainers, but then, with miniUSB, you can charge it pretty much anywhere even from a laptop.

The screen is lovely, clear and although the rotation when you ‘flip’ the screen is quite slow, it’s a nice little feature, and well implimented. The hinge that allows you to ‘flip’ is well made, I had no fears this would break with normal usage. The metal body and the fact the screen is ‘inside’ when you close it up, means this device should survive well, especially if you store it in the padded slip case.

The stylus is moulded to fit into the base of the device, and is perfectly adequate for quick jots, if you use a PDA stylus a lot you may find It a little short, but then you’ve probably already got a pen/pencil/stylus combo already.

Note Taking:

FAIL: Like most ‘stylus’ writer devices, they are great for the odd note, but not really for writing long streams of text, even using the ‘freehand note pad’. The keyboard is fine for typing, but too small to allow touch typing, I tended to use either 4 fingers or 2 thumbs depending on if I had to hold the phone.

RESOLUTION: Pen and Paper wins here!

NOTES: This is not a criticism of the device, just that I personally cannot get on with the electronic ink systems and the keyboard is too small for speedy touch typing, even tablet PC’s are slower to use than paper…

Wasting Time:

PASS: With MSN messenger, media player, podcasts and wifi, the idea of quietly surfing or chatting, without running up data costs, is fantastic, I used the keyboard to type a few emails and even texts - more of a phone call person. I also played a few rounds of Soduko to kill a few minutes at the airport.

RESOLUTION: None

NOTES: The wifi is an absolute godsend, combined with a useable keyboard, and nice large screen mean this device can do all the ‘time wasting’ you desire, Solitaire is nice too!

Remote Support:

PASS: Terminal services client working at 640x480! Wow! Useable for extended periods! – I had several sessions connected into client servers, and never one issue, I may as well forget dragging the laptop out…

Google, experts exchange and the Microsoft sites are all perfectly useable.

I also watched another user, who will remain nameless, perform the Exchange SP2 update, remotely via 3g to a server located in the USA, and then spend 20 minutes troubleshooting an issue, all on the m5000.

RESOLUTION: None

NOTES: Basically my usual ‘urgent requests’ such as changing a user password, or checking out a problem were all performed using the m5000. And with my Office PC available via remote desktop, I was able to even correct a line of code in an application, recompile and email it over. Then remote desktop back to the client and install the patch worked fine.

Voice/Call Quality:

Unfortunately the Usim I used was data only, so I could not try out many calls, but a call to 150 to try to get voice added to the Usim was perfectly clear.

If your company employs out of hours support staff who don’t want to drag a laptop everywhere when they leave the house, this device is ideal, with a certain degree of preparation in your own IT setup, you can fully support any eventuality!

If you’re a corporate power user, the fact that the ‘Microsoft Security Features Pack’ is not yet released will be a disappointment, but I’m sure an upgrade will appear around the New Year! – push email, remote delete or kill of a device and all the other goodies will have to wait, but tasks and contact photo sync, combined with the implementation of compression for activesync will justify it.

Conclusion:

I was gutted to give it back, and later that day when I was waiting for a train, I was cursing as I balanced my laptop on my lap to dial into a client, wishing I still had the m5000. Overall I’d give this device 8.5/10, loosing points for the apparent ‘slow’ moments when the OS just sat on the spinny wheel, the fact that wifi connectivity was sometimes inconsistent and the fact I could not be impressed by video calling to another 3G user!