Testing an Orange SPV 'Smartphone'

theolein writes "The register has an article discussing the first major phone company's implementation -Orange SPV- of MS Smartphone as well as a common user's experiences with it. More or less confirms what quite a few expected."

Comments

So what's the best implementation?

[saihung]

Smartphones have been available in one form or another for a while. While reviews are (nearly) unanimous that the Stinger isn't it, what's been the best smartphone so far? I love my Zaurus, and I might be interested in a GSM module for it, but I'm not sure that a huge screen on a phone is what I really want. I'm thinking that maybe the Ericsonn T68 is a good compromise. It does a lot, and it offers easy connectivity to just about any computer/pda if you prefer to use a dedicated device for surfing the web/etc.

put it back in the oven

[jptxs]

I think the reviewer says it all:

This is a phone that has shipped before it's finished. Microsoft see their Smartphone OS as a way of stopping Symbian getting a hold of a platform that they don't yet control and for this reason they've rushed it out.

Everything he says and I've heard from other points to this. It's actually nice to see M$ so scared that they're using their clout to scare companies into making bad moves like an early release of something so flawed. If they keep that up it will be all the more easy to watch the monopoly meltdown. not that I want to see them fail completely, but some real competition (read: some real reasons for quality user focused software) would be nice.

Reasons why Sendo dropped their smartphone?

[kawaichan]

I never really believed sendo dropped their phone when it was ready for launch. May be it's a combination of crappy speed, horrible UI that really ticked off the company. It also explains why not that many phone makers are signing up to MS's smartphone platform either.

Also, have you noticed that most of the problems that the guy found in the MS smartphone DID NOT occur in symbian based phones (the SE T800, Nokia 7xxx (don't remember the model name))

At the beginning, I thought MS's smartphone is an excellent idea, but then again, heavy, buggy, slow, horrible UI cannot be possibilly good for something that they have been designing for so damn long.

Guinea Pigs/Bug Testors

[core plexus]

I won't talk trash about people who are the first to rush out and buy the next, newest thing, for a couple of reasons: 1. The "First Buyers" reduce my cost later because they've paid for all the R&D, product launch, executive sweat (hoping that the product/service will fly), etc. etc. and... 2. The product/service will be greatly improved, or perhaps recalled or discarded (think "Beta v. VHS"). I appreciate all those who endure the hardships to bring me a better product/service. And before you whine, believe me brothers and sisters I have been (and still am from time to time) a beta-testor for software, and I feel your pains.

Re:Unsigned Code

[the eric conspiracy]

Just like everything else Microsoft, that sounds good until you really think about it.

In this case there will no doubt be some way to crack this protection - either somebody will get a signing certificate, or find a hole in the implementaion on the phone (gotta be a buffer overflow in there somewhere).

The end result is that the phone will run viruses just fine, but NOT legitimate software.

feature laden pda/phones.. liking it less and less

[merc_sa]

Sound, Picture, Video sounds nice on paper but I can't imagine it would be too useful in practice.
having grainy little pictures on 2 inch screens is just unbearable for any kind of useful application.
The only reason I can think of to put a camera on a phone and email, is to get evidence when you get
in a car crash. It's useless to view on PDA and horrible to be subjected to on a decent computer
screen. Video is just a lame gimmick. Now, sound would seem to be promising.. but given I'm fairly
used to decent quality of sound from cheapo discmans and ok quality from the current
generation of mp3 players, listening to AM/FM quality mp3 on my phone gets less and less
appealing. The only real use I've got out of wireless web at this point is checking short email
messages, and checking movie times for a particular theatre if I overran on time and need
to catch the next showing. It's simply too unpleasant to do too much websurfing on a phone
simply because of the dimensions of the screen.
Don't even get me started on web surfing on your phone savages the battery life.. And if you really
feel the need to drool over porn on the 2" screen, I'd recommend putting yourself out of your misery.

so my new list is down to:

1. smaller dimension (anything bigger than my 270 will be junked, in fact, I wish it was 30% smaller)

2. better sound quality for the phone

3. longer battery life

everything else would be treated like the damn hairclip help in office.. I'll ignore it until
it gets in my way. once it does, it's gone.

Given the average /.'er generally have a terminal case of gadgetitis, the PDA will need to do
everything including cleaning the kitchen sink and run a solar power fusion generator. But I'm
starting to wonder now that if we actually did get everything we wished for in a PDA, would we end up
regretting it.. it's time to realize why the early Palm succeeded and the old Newton failed.
simplicity, usability at a price we're willing to pay..

rubbish

[m.lemur]

Working for a mobile telecoms company, I had a chance to try one of these out last week.

What can I say? The reviewer is correct, even the simplest task (i.e. making a call) is next to impossible and fraught with frustration.

Wait for Symbian, only a sucker would pay for one of these.

In order to secure the market...

[mtec]

it looks like MS FUD has evolved...past empty announcements to empty releases.

Note: I just set up a doctor on a Treo phone and everything works great. Even syncing to a Mac.

the sad truth of it all

[kraksmoka]

People who like the SPV like the implementation of the PocketPC functionality and the added gizmos, but frequently accept that the basic phone functionality lets it down. Which does kind of sound like a classic Microsoft product.

this is actually quite sad. a once decent company has sunk to making devices that behave poorly. how much cash do you think they sunk into this? i'm sure it was a bundle. it really is a loss to the world, of course, today, m$ views that as a gain. oh well.

think i'll find a miamiLuG and get a party together. . . . .

Re:The Economist on Nokia vs. Microsoft

[eduardodude]

Hmm, the link I posted has a space in it so doesn't work.

Try
http://economist.com/printedition/displaySt ory.cfm ?Story_ID=1454300

Their cover story is also related, and is as usual, excellent.

http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.c fm ?Story_ID=1454436

Again, if either of these don't work, make sure there are no spaces when you paste into the browser.

Hard not to be biased

[Chazmati]

As this is Microsoft we're talking about. And although the review sounds pretty awful, I have to say the picture didn't look *that* bad. Out of focus, to be sure, but it sounded as if he tried to get in real close to make the most of the low resolution. Probably operator error, although they probably could have designed in a better minimum focusing distance.

Now the issues with the slow refresh and the delay between the shutter sound and the actual image capture, that would be extremely
annoying, and it doesn't sound like a software update is going to fix the serious lack of processing power.

But how does a product like this even get released? Is it the post-dot-com-bust competition, the "business at the speed of thought" mentality that is responsible for pushing out a product that can't even be a good phone first, and secondly has all these garbage features tacked on? Being a visionary is one thing, and there's a place for that (show us at Comdex or whatever) but delivering on the vision is completely another.

I'm stumped as to how this thing made it out the door. Is it the market researchers? Did they ever put one of these phones in someone's hands? Or did they ask questions like "What would you like in a phone" and then screw up the consumer vision by sacrificing the most fundamental (and implicitly necessary) features?

And does rushing this SPV phone out the door REALLY help them compete against Symbian?