Rushed phones...

[Guest nCoder]

I don't know how the rest of you feel but I am tired of buying sub standard hardware because the manufacturers are rushing the handsets out before they are really ready and relying on software fixes for bugs.

For a long time Microsoft sympathises have excused the vast number of updates and bug fixes in Windows due to it's need to comply with a vast array of different hardware and standards, however the Smartphone is based on a standard hardware schema and there is no real excuse for major bugs either hardware or software to make to into final production models. The way I see it is as follows.

Original SPV:

Poor build quality and a substandard version of the SmartPhone operating system. Released in the run up to Christmas as this is traditionally the main consumer phone buying period. While it was adopted by quite a lot of people (me included) it left a bit of a bad taste in the mouths of those early adopters. If it wasn't for the initial unlimited GPRS offer I, along with many other people may have returned the phone.

E100:

What the original SPV should have been, a good, honest, decent reliable SmartPhone. The initial bugs mostly fixed :roll: , but they had the E200 waiting in the wings.

E200:

Again released in the run up to Christmas, and again feels as though it is a product which hasn't had full quality control done. While the build quality isn't really a problem because it is pretty much an adaptation of the E100 the inclusion of Bluetooth should have been delayed until they sorted the battery life out. The joystick if it does turn out to be a hardware constraint is unforgivable.

MPx200:

Originally was meant to be with the 2k3 operating system (dropped due to bugs), camera (dropped due to performance) and bluetooth (dropped due to battery life). Motorola dropped all three and decided to release a stable phone based on 2k2, probably a wise move as they aren't really in the same position as Orange trying to deflect criticism onto HTC. While I think this was a wise move, it is still basically an interim phone while they sort out the successor to include these features.

I think Orange may end up shooting themself in the foot with respect to the SmartPhone platform with the SPV range. Other networks just carry the MPx200 which, for a first experience of a SmartPhone is excellent. They gave an excellent web portal with the pages designed for SmartPhone which they have now withdrawn.

If you got this far well done, I didn't intend to write this much but I am just a bit annoyed at the whole situation. :lol:

[Guest spacecowboy6982]

Good points made there m8- thats what I was trying to some up ine two sentances in another thread somewhere :lol: In all fairness, its a fairly new OS so theres bound to be problems. Has anyone ever thought that HTC have released these phones knowingly full well that these bugs exist :shock: ?!

spacecowboy

[Guest nCoder]

I was a bit wordy :lol:

I don't know whether the joystick issue is actually an oversight or whether it was a misguided attempt to address the problem of the moving the joystick or pad left or right often resulted in down or up being registered as well by the phone (bound to happen when you consider your thumb is operating the device at an unnatural angle anyway).

At the end of the day though Orange has to sign for the finished phones and release them into the public domain, if they are not up to standard then the blame lies solely with Orange. Particularly with major issues such as the dust under the screen on the Original SPV and the battery life on the E200 under bluetooth.

Minor OS bugs are always going to crop up, and I don't have a problem with those...but some of the bugs have been pretty major and invasive into the day to day operation of the phones.

;)

[Guest spacecowboy6982]

Yeh, call quality and battery sticking out as the main culprits. Its a business phone remember so a complex control system wouldnt be to clever, and personally I think the "4way" is a great addition. (Theres still a flippin' mark on my thumb from my E-100's joystick :shock:)

Christmas is coming too and I can see from a business perspective that its lucrative to get your products out, sometime before the 25th. Another possible reason theres so many obvious bugs out there. At present I am confident in Orange and Microsofts abilities to handle the pressure. Afterall, they're not number 1 in their fields for nothing are they :roll: ?

spacecowboy

[Guest goinnuts]

well said.. well said.

[Guest gspot2207]

I agree. I really do !!!