QTek 8500 continues to drop in price - a Christmas bargain?

[Guest pete_at_raspberry]

I would love to have one.

However, I can't justify spending that sort of money on a phone just cos I want it. I have a small company deal with Orange, and so if Orange did it I would get an upgrade to it. But Orange (UK) don't do it, for whatever reason, and so I won't.

Its just so strange. When I went to the MEDC event a few months ago, there were a few of these handsets kicking about, some of them even in use by the Orange guys. And yet, Orange have decided against them.

It makes no sense to me at all. True, there are other devices which offer better battery life, and more memory, and better cameras, but I want a clamshell WM5 phone. I don't care if its slightly short in other areas. Surely I'm not so rare in this point of view?

Oh well.

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

What's particularly weird is that Orange launched it in the Netherlands, but not their other territories.

Bizarre :)

P

[Guest wwaveydave]

I had one, used it for a couple of months as a going out phone.

Ditched it because:-

Signal strength was poor compared to any other HTC device I've owned.

Keyboard is tough to use when drunk.

It's pretty slippery when opening in a hurry.

Battery usage is excellent when in standby but poor when using with push.

Now using a JAMin as a going out phone, apart from those hardcore evenings when the old faithful c500 comes out.......

[Guest roma0803]

Well, most of it is said allready.

Battery life, internal storage and the weird mini-connector are my main points. My 8500 is RMA since the internal part of the connector came loose and was unable to sync or charge anymore. It's a weak part. Also A2DP sound is lousy and set to 40kbit sound. You need to tweak it to get better sound and also need OmapClock to make the phone handle it at a higher CPU speed.

Besides those points it's a decent phone with a great screen, the fastest Smartphone so far and the looks are good enough. I like it very much, but like more, I'd have better bought the Cingular version because of better internal memory and battery. Call quality is good, it's light anb build quality is decent (apart from the connector). I think it's my final Smartphone before I make the jump to PPC-Phone.... but that's what I said when I got my SP5m...

[Guest wwaveydave]

Battery life, internal storage and the weird mini-connector are my main points. My 8500 is RMA since the internal part of the connector came loose and was unable to sync or charge anymore. It's a weak part. Also A2DP sound is lousy and set to 40kbit sound. You need to tweak it to get better sound and also need OmapClock to make the phone handle it at a higher CPU speed.

If you think the A2DP sound is poor you not going to want to buy a Hermes!

Compared to most WM devices I thought the 8500 was actually the best A2DP experience I've had!

[Guest peekie]

The biggest problem i see with my orange version is no rom updates will come , cant see them developing one just for the dutch orange , the phone here is selling well which is good , but why no other orange network got it seems strange . i do not use mine and can see it going the ebay way very soon , as i prefer the M3100 :)

[Guest Metoo]

Pretty much concur with what's been said already. Niggles about memory etc aside, the form factor is very pocket friendly and it's performed fine as my day to day out and about / down the pub no frills phone. The big keyboard is much easier to using for texting etc than the fiddly keys on C500/C500s I had previously.

As for the lack of traffic on the forum (and in xda-dev), I guess that's because HTC have not been forthcoming with any of the promised ROM updates or fixes, so there's just no hacking or tweaks to talk about anymore. The bugs and limitations are well known, so with no support in sight, people will have got rid, or carried on using it without fuss (as I have).

I've had an ebay sourced Martin Fields style Ultraclear screen protector on the screen, outer screen and camera lens since new, and the phone has stood up very well to the daily knocks. The only permanent marks so far are on the metal battery cover, which does tend to scratch and dent very easily.

As I said, it's ideal for situations when you don't want to carry your expensive PPC around, but have the same Outlook data etc at hand. I've also found the battery pretty good when used as a basic phone too, without BT etc I can easily get 2-3 days use.

Edited November 28, 2006 by Metoo

[Guest simon211175]

Okay, I've had mine for a couple of months now, and I have to say that paholman's review above is pretty spot on with how I feel about mine.

I had a C500, before changing to a Motorola A780 (I cannot apologise enough for this - it had built in GPS and the Mio A701 wasn't out then). I hated that, and after only 8 months changed to the 8500. This is my best phone ever, and believe me I've had lots of them.

I have no real gripes about the functionality of the phone, the GPRS disconnect "feature" through comm manager is the only real trouble, but it's not a problem and certainly not an 8500 feature.

here's my only real annoyance with this phone - again though I cannot say if this is an 8500 problem or a WM5 problem. As a seasoned themer, I expected to be able to theme all screens in this phone - in much the same way as on my C500. I cannot. The contacts screen and incall screens being the major issues. The contacts screen refuses to display an image, and the incall screen is hard coded to only display \windows\cprogback.png, so to change it needs this file overwriting. HTC and Microsoft both deny responsibility for these issues, so I guess I have to live with it. As a themer this is a big issue for me, but if you don't much care for a fully themed phone, then it's not going to affect the performance of the phone.

I would recommend this phone to anyone - I used to hate clamshells until I got this one, and my girlfriend hated WM phones until she saw this one.

[Guest Zim]

i soo want one of these.. i think they rock.. tired of my c600.. this would make a cool replacement..

/me ebays

Zim

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

A2DP in general = rubbish on everything!

P

[Guest Zim]

bah all £200 may wait till the new year.. zune will keep me going till then

[Guest roma0803]

A2DP in general = rubbish on everything!

P

Ah, I didn't know that. Good to know. Though the unofficial A2DP patch for Tornado devices is pretty satisfactory.

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

I mean compared to good wired headphones...

P

[Guest paholman]

Apologies for putting this in this post,aswell as the StrTrk area but all us owners of QTEK 8500 are disappointed with the slow reaction of the Camera, but I thought this was well worth sharing

I've just tried SpeedBooster from http://www.teksoftco.com/index.php?section=speedbooster

Free Trial for 16 days

After installing SpeedBooster, I loaded the Camera, then opened SpeedBooster, cranked up the level for the Camera to "Time Critical", then pressed the Action button to load the Camera. Took a pciture and the reaction of the Camera appeared to be instant.

I'm at work at the moment, so perhaps my tests are inconclusive (or I'm completely naive), but if anyone else is willing to give it a try and see if their results are the same, go for it and report back on this post here http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=248958

:)

Edited November 29, 2006 by paholman