Toshiba Portege G500 : Anyone got one?

[Guest paholman]

Anyone got one of these and care to do a review on it?

Paul has done a preview on a pre-production model, but I'm wondering whether any of the bad things that were labeled are actually in the prod unit.

Can someone who owns one give a quick overview on good/bad things about it, including battery life, signal/call quality, wifi, 3G, weight etc

Thanks in advance

[Guest paholman]

Anyone got one of these and care to do a review on it?

Paul has done a preview on a pre-production model, but I'm wondering whether any of the bad things that were labeled are actually in the prod unit.

Can someone who owns one give a quick overview on good/bad things about it, including battery life, signal/call quality, wifi, 3G, weight etc

Thanks in advance

Popular phone then....

[Guest iRiKi]

it's a great phone !!!

.. on paper. Seems it suffers A LOT from SoD's, and worse, the soft reset is located right next to the battery, which makes you remove the back panel for a normal reset ;)

Edited October 12, 2007 by iRiKi

[Guest Betocchi]

Good phone. Battery life is better than my previous phone (I know this is not saying much): on a weekend out of town I don't need to carry the charger. Call quality is good to me, but I'm not very picky. As for signal, mixed feelings: for voice is excellent, but not for data. The phone always tries to get 3G (UMTS) signal, so in an area where GPRS is strong and 3G is not, it goes for the latter and the connection cannot be established. WiFi is excellent. The software lacks a task manager, much needed. I guess that's about it.

[Guest paholman]

Many thanks for all your replies.

Edited October 22, 2007 by paholman

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

I had a production one, and it was AWFUL IMHO.

Keypad basically unusable...

P

[Guest markhammill]

I've got one.

Only had it for a week so far.

I almost sent it back but I'm glad I have hung on to it.

I only paid £85 deliverd for mine from Expansys which is another reason I have stuck with it.

Things I like:

The spec.

The connection manager, which actually works like you expect it to. No IP settings needed for either of my static networks and the manager easity allows you to use 3G or wifi.

Really simple setup to use as a USB or Wifi modem.

Network settings included in cab files for O2, Orange, Tmobile and Vodaphone.

Almost all of the software I had on my last phone work and the ones that don't are mostly cheap games.

Battery life is better then my Qtek 8500.

Build quality is great although a little chubby.

No one else has one (almost).

Things I had to solve:

There is no brodit holder for this phone which is annoying but I modified my Qtek 8500 one and it fits perfectly (25 minutes).

Tomtom dosen't work, but Garmin XT does and is on £50 so I think I'm, going to treat myself to a copy.

The camera loses it's settings but the defaults can me easily modified in the registry.

There is no active slide function - Yes there is, just enable any key answering.

Things I can live with:

It's a bit fat, who cares, it's cool. If I got a more expensive thinner one I'd have to keep it in a case. I broke my last two Qtek 8500s and have never broken a pda or smartphone before.

Keypad is a bit clumbsy. It takes a firm press which messes up quick typing but that's about it.

There is no dedicated Modaco section.

Toshiba tech support. I don't think I'm going to need to call them again though as everything I wanted to get working is now working.

No updates, but I don't have the time for updating the software more often then my phone upgrades. It always takes to long to find out what has stopped working and try and find fixes.

Edited November 5, 2007 by markhammill

[Guest markhammill]

The mic is a bit echoy but I don't care.

The only time I need a really clear mic is in the car and I have a handsfree kit for that.

[Guest paholman]

The mic is a bit echoy but I don't care.

The only time I need a really clear mic is in the car and I have a handsfree kit for that.

I had one for a week, but sold it, not coz I didn't like it though, but got a company phone, so don't need 3 handsets.

The short time I had it, my 1st impressions were:-

• Good
  
• lots of storage space on phone
  
• very very quick (400mhz processor)
  
• I like slide phones
  
  Bad
  
• Only seemed to be half the WM5 icons/programs I've seen on other WM5 devices
  
• Fingerprint scanner was cr*p
  
• TomTom didn't work, crashed with gwes.exe error, as did CamerAware
  
• SmartMonitor plugin doesn't work for the battery monitor, so none of my homescreens worked properly (those which use this plugin)
  
• phoneAlarm doesn't work for Wifi on/off due to the diff CommManager so none of my homescreens worked properly (those that use this plugin)
  

Aside from the above, it was ok, but not a patch on my SPV E650 (VOX)

[Guest ov_darkness]

Hi Everyone!

This is my first post, so please don't ban me, if it's in wrong place. :(

One of the operators in PL (Play to be precise) had recently added G500 to their offer.

It's VERY cheap compared to other phones (about 50Euros), and (on paper) it has everything I need from smartphone.

I went to Play's salepoint, and played a while with G500. It seems perfect in terms of size, speed, keypad(the best I've seen in the phone), and functions.

Only thing that is keeping me from buying is fact, that theres no WM6 for this phone.

I know, that Toshiba will not release WM6 for this device. Is it possible to take WM6 from other PXA27x powered smartphone, and put it on G500?

I'm willing to buy g500 just to have a try (I must wait till 25.02 because of switching number between operators).

Is there a risk to brick the device?

Thanks in advance for your aanswers!

[Guest Juan Kuzov]

one thing i hate about this phone is it cant use its wifi and 3g at the same time, so you cant connect an ipod touch via wifi hack and browse via broadband speeds :)

[Guest ShaunC193]

Besides the problem mentioned in a thread I created, I love the device.