msmobiles.com/f

msmobiles.com_robot · Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 16777215

Well, Orange SPV C500 is a fantastic phone - it's tiny, very fast, with good quality of voice phone calls and generally, so apart from the lack of GSM850 band (that is used anyway only in USA), it seems to be perfe...

Read more at http://msmobiles.com/news.php/2984.html

The PocketTV Team · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 51 Location: San Francisco, CA

Well apparently the good news is that Orange is aware of the problem and working on a fix.

The bad news is that the fix will probably require a firmware upgrade (I doubt they will be able to fix that OTA with provisionning).

OTA = Over The Air (i.e. remotely, without any user interaction)

provisionning = some "magic" XML code used to change the configuration of Smartphones remotely

schriss · Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 93 Location: Poland

OK, they will fix GAPI, but cursor keys that are hardly usable for gaming AND SD card hidden under the battery (eliminating hot swap, something I do all the time, swapping SD between Mio8390 and Axim X30) disqualifies this phone in my eyes.

The PocketTV Team · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 51 Location: San Francisco, CA

schriss · Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 93 Location: Poland

YES, this is insane but true. See for yourself:
http://www.coolsmartphone.com/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=339

"The battery is made by Samsung and is a tiny little thing. It slots in easy enough and covers the MiniSD and SIM card." Confused

Someone was even praising this solution "you can't loose your SD this way" Confused

And here:
http://msmobiles.com/news.php/2944.html
"That's right, it's Mini SD, so get ready to throw away your current SD cards, and take off the battery when you want to change card!"

TANKERx · Joined: 10 Aug 2004 Posts: 76

Oh dear oh dear! That was kept nice and quiet wasn't it! And after Nokia getting absolutely slated for making such a dumb decision, no wonder the Microsoft Village wanted to keep it quiet.

Says it all really.

Rolling Eyes

_________________
________________________

HELLO KITTY!

The PocketTV Team · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 51 Location: San Francisco, CA

> Someone was even praising this solution "you can't loose your SD this way" Confused

Then a clever little lock would have been a better idea!

iraqigeek · Joined: 15 Aug 2004 Posts: 3

When are the people in this site going to make their minds???

First, the MPx220 was the smartphone to buy, then the C500 was the one, and now the C500 the first item on your "not to buy" list.

Can the writers for this site make their minds, or stop making such allegations???

Since when was a buggy firmware (for which a fix is a work in progress) a primary factor on which to decide which phone to buy? The AT&T MPx200 had firmware problems, but that didn't seem to matter to a lot of people when deciding which phone to use.

I don't know how you people think. All the specifications and capabilites (like camera resolution, screen type/quality/size, expandability, other integrated features like bluetooth) of a given device don't seem to make a difference, only the tiny meaning less things seem to be the major factors when deciding which product is better than which.

The MPx220 was disqualified from your list because of the flashROM it used, even though that wouldn't mean any noticable difference in real life (did anyone on this site made a benchmark, real test on which the C500 was noticably faster than the C500? I doubt they did). The C500 was not the smartphone to buy because of some bugs in its GAPIs (Even though the phone has been released just about one week ago).

As long as the manufacturer or operator/distributor is aware of the problem, and publicly statng that they are working on a fix, I don't see where the big problem is. Also, is it an Orange specific problem? or a problem in the generic HTC firmware of smartphone OS? No one seems to mention that Confused

The PocketTV Team · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 51 Location: San Francisco, CA

Even if they comeup with a firmware fix, how many users will install it ? 3% ? 5% ? at best...

If they already have zillion devices in boxes that have been chipped, you can bet that the vast majority of them won't get the fix.

The fix will improve things when they start shipping a new batch with the fixed firmware.

Only a few hackers, gamers, and power-users will install the fix, unless the bug is a total show-stopper.

schriss · Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 93 Location: Poland

Agree. By the way, I'm not associated with msmobiles.

and who's talking about ROM? I said: "they will fix GAPI" because I believe they will, sooner or later, just like it was possible to fix GAPI for Mio8390 and it will be up to the user - install or not.

I personally don't like C500 because of its hardly usable cursor keys and SD slot hidden under the battery.
Not to mention I prefer clamshell design, especially silver Laughing

The PocketTV Team · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 51 Location: San Francisco, CA

> I personally don't like C500 because of its hardly usable cursor keys and SD slot hidden under the battery.

Not SD. Mini-SD!

schriss · Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 93 Location: Poland

> Not SD. Mini-SD!
Yes, I know. It makes it even worse. Like AGP 8x - useless, just to make us throw more money away.

By the way, SPV C500 users could evaluate usefulness of Picard's GAPI2GDI wrapper... might be temporary solution for C500 as well.

The PocketTV Team · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 51 Location: San Francisco, CA

schriss · Joined: 07 Apr 2004 Posts: 93 Location: Poland

Cool.
Now if only someone cares to make a gx.dll that does that on the fly for existing software... Very Happy

Or still, GAPI2GDI could be used for not patched, existing software.
This is crazy, special ver for Mio, special ver for C500...
where is this all heading?? Nobody learns on Mitac's mistakes... Laughing

Lets hope the C500 is the last Smartphone with broken GAPI.

The PocketTV Team · Joined: 28 Mar 2004 Posts: 51 Location: San Francisco, CA