Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone w/ Bluetooth (I-Mate SP3 - SIM FREE) £97.95

mcwarre

talkshop wrote:

Absolutely useless as a mobile phone though

These SPV's have a terrible reputation. They are very unreliable and keep crashing all the time.

Absolute rubbish on both points. Is it experience speaking or are you just starting ill-informed rumours???

They are great phones and I have had windows smartphones since they have been released. This one has never crashed on me.

johnk

mcwarre wrote:

They are great phones and I have had windows smartphones since they have been released. This one has never crashed on me.

Agreed. Gave away several upgrades and still hold my C500 - the smallest smartphone. The only problem with it is the famous dust problem. But I think I have got used to it...

cashman_2

ordered 1 this morning for del on tuesday morning will leave a bit of feedback here i have bought it for the sat nav feature so i hpe its good,cheers cash.

ollyk

Cashman I hope you know you will need a GPS dongle for the TomTom?

talkshop

mcwarre wrote:

Absolute rubbish on both points. Is it experience speaking or are you just starting ill-informed rumours???

They are great phones and I have had windows smartphones since they have been released. This one has never crashed on me.

I work for the phone network that first brought these HTC manufactured things into the UK. At first many technical people bought one, but then regretted it after the many faults they were plagued with it. We now all have Nokia phones !

Maybe this model is OK? But I am talking from experience in general on this range of MS Smartphones.

My main gripe was the keypad was hopeless for serious texting.

RufusA

talkshop wrote:

I work for the phone network that first brought these HTC manufactured things into the UK. At first many technical people bought one, but then regretted it after the many faults they were plagued with it. We now all have Nokia phones !

Maybe this model is OK? But I am talking from experience in general on this range of MS Smartphones.

My main gripe was the keypad was hopeless for serious texting.

The Original SPV, and the E100 had the reputation you describe. Slow, unreliable buggy etc. By the E200 they'd sorted most of the problems out, and the C500 I think is pretty universally known as a reliable workhorse (albeit with bad battery life).

My C550 has been 200% more reliable than my SE P800 ever was (10 secs to reboot). I was very much in the Symbian camp and believed all the horror stories about Windows mobile phones. Now I own one, and have for nearly a year I can say that the rumours are mostly ill-informedrubbish. My C550 is a much better phone than the P800, then only thing lacking is the pen input. Roll on the HTC Hermes!

HTH - Rufus.

gazbert_2

While the 1st of the SPV's were pants. Everything from the C500 has been excellent.

Since my 1st C500 I have never used anything other than a Windows Mobile phone. I've toyed with Nokia's & Sony Ericssons, but they couldn't match up in terms of flexibility, useability and reliability.

They've been exceptionally reliable, great for calls and texts and a whole range of other functions you just don't get with other phones. Plus they're endlessly customisable so they can take on no end of additional functions.

It integrates seamlessly with Outlook so even if I lost my phone, I'd never lose my contacts. It plays full length divx movies, it does sat nav, it plays loads of games, it reminds me of all my birthdays and keeps me organised, it browses the internet (the full internet, not that WAP crap), all in one pocket size package.

Little_John

Talkshop I think your reviews are based on the early models, the software wasnt perfect and unreliable on what were SPV, SPV E100 and the joystick was prone to failure on both the E100 and the E200 but that is a common fault on any phone using a joystick. when the moved away from a stick to a button that would rock it was better, they then redesigned the stick for the c550 and c600 and they have been fine.

Ive had most of the range at some point the eary ones were replaced regularly with faults but even my mate who is death to mobiles took 11 months to break his c500 I belive he was the reason orrange stoped the incusive insurence on their phones he killed so many of them. Im now using an M500 and waiting for the m600 to return to stock.

cashman_2

ollyk wrote:

Cashman I hope you know you will need a GPS dongle for the TomTom?

no i didn't know that, where would i get 1 from and what would i expect to pay for it cheers cash.

ollyk

cashman wrote:

no i didn't know that, where would i get 1 from and what would i expect to pay for it cheers cash.

Not sure, goto Modaco.com and ask there. any new spv owner should check that site out!