Features
Windows Mobile Smartphones all share a similar user interface, with a home screen providing quick access to contacts, call history, messaging, calendar, the camera and the Internet via a set of icons through which you scroll, in this case using the joystick. The left softkey is marked Start, and selecting it scrolls you through the full gamut of the built-in applications and settings tools.
The SPV C550 has a 240x320-pixel screen where other Windows Mobile Smartphones to date have coped with 220x176. The extra pixels make this handset's display very sharp and bright, and the fact that its 65K colours are a bit behind the times is a secondary consideration.
Without the ability to change the order of applications in the scrollable listing, it can take a while to get to what you want -- even without any third-party software installed, the listing extends to two-and-a-half screens' worth of options. It is handy for music fans that one of the four dedicated buttons starts the music software. By default, this runs Orange's own Music Player, designed to manage music you've downloaded, but hidden away in the settings area is an option to set it to launch the Windows Media Player instead.
The music-playing feature has good and bad points. Tunes cut out and resume automatically for voice calls, and the shortcut buttons on the front of the SPV C550 are very good for managing sound -- it is great to be able to easily stop and start songs at will. Sound output through the provided headset is pretty good, and inline volume control means you don't have to fiddle with the handset too much.
But the 2.5mm headset connector means you can't switch to a better alternative without a converter to 3.5mm, and there isn't much memory for your tunes. The 128MB miniSD card Orange provides adds considerably to the available memory on the handset, but if you find yourself needing more and investing in additional cards, swapping them may become irritating as they live under the battery, requiring a power-down.
The camera shoots snaps at resolutions up to 1,280x1,024, and the quality is fine for sharing via email. As it lacks a flash, close-up night-time shots are out of the question, but there are several ambiance settings and manual adjustment for brightness, gamma, hue and saturation to play with. Video can also be shot, with a separate setting for MMS video.
With both Bluetooth and infrared on board you can use the SPV C550 as a modem with a PDA or notebook computer.
Performance
One of the things you need from a music-playing handset is good battery life. We decided to run an MP3 test, and looped music for as long as the SPV C550 would allow. We forced the screen to stay on, to really push it to the limit, and got more than six hours of music. On a real-world test, we managed a weekend without charging, with some voice calls, some Web browsing and some music listening.
Call quality was good, and it is easy to adjust volume with the side-mounted rocker.
Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Nick Hide
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Simon Scott 26 February 2007
Good: The screen and sound quality
Bad: Everything else
Comment: I got this phone as part of my monthly contract exactly 12 months ago and I'm about to get a new phone and all I can say is, thank god.
I had originally looked at this phone because a friend had recommended it, and because I'm into I.T. I liked the idea of having a hugely functional phone.
I checked all the reviews and compared the phones, and I actually went in to get a Sony or Samsung one at the Orange store. But while I was there, the lad in the shop showed me this one and I was intrigued and his sales pitch was good enough to persuade me.
I went home quite happy and expecting great things. Now I have to admit I was very impressed at first, the screen size and quality is astounding. The best I've seen on any phone. The sound quality is good too, I have no complaints about that.
Even playing back music is easy enough to do using the knocked-down version of media player.
But that's kinda of where the fun ends....
If you're not an IT expert or experienced in using Windows then you will hate this phone. The menu system is intended to be as similar to Windows as it can be. With the use of a start menu, and lists of programs to select. This works fine to an extent, until you find yourself absolutely confused and unsure of what menu system your in.
There is also the issue of transfering information to and from the phone. Sharing contacts between a PC and the mobile phone is easy, but sharing music and videos and anything else is complicated.
You have to understand directories and files. There is no automatic system, its all manual copy and paste.
This really is intended for IT experts.
But that aside, the phone has other, even more annoying issues...
When you recieve an SMS update about your message, telling you whether it has been sent. You will recieve a message stating "The SMS message was sent..." but it doesnt include the mobile phone number which it was sent to.
If you have sent an SMS to around 10 people in a short time and you get 5 back saying it worked and 5 back saying it failed, you have way of knowing which are which.
There is also the response time from the joystick and the system.
There are times when you can tell that the phone is trying to handle far more then it can. The entire phone will freeze for a good 30-60 seconds. You can be moving down a list of contacts, or words and it just stops. Then wakes up and continues.
There are times when the joystick simply doesn't respond, no matter how hard you move it.
Then you have the menu system again. It doesn't matter what menu you are on, or action you're doing. If you jump back to the main menu and then go to do anything, it will take you directly back to the last action you were doing.
For instance, if you were composing a new SMS and you want to cancel and just exit that. On most phones you just jump back to the main menu. If you do that on this phone, and then go to read your SMS texts again, it will take you back to the half complete SMS message you were writing.
Plus the inbox and outbox menus for the SMS message is meant to mimic Outlook on the PC. But the menu system doesn't work very well, because you're continually moving in and out of menus to the point that you end up lost.
There was also a point where the desktop of the phone broke and I had to resort to using a different one. I've not been able to retrieve that original one back as it seems to have deleted itself.
The bottom line is......
1) This phone is intended for heavily IT-literate people.
2) The menu system is awful, and tries to mimic Windows badly.
3) The response times from the joystick and the system is awful at times and the phone clearly can't handle half the stuff it's trying to do.
4) Adding media to the phone is far more complicated than it should be.
5) There isn't anything more special on this phone, then you can get on a normal mobile phone.
6) Its size is just cumbersome compared to all these slim line ones which exist now.
Paul Lanyon 26 January 2007
Good: Expandable memory, sound quality, screen
Bad: Vulnerable large screen, no FM radio, glitchy software
Comment: A good all round smartphone running Windows Mobile with impressive battery life. Easy to link to a PC and swap files/install new software. Good as a music player if you stick a 512MB SD card in it. The only problem is the screen; it breaks as soon as look at it, but if you can live with that it is a useful, well built phone. It isn't the best signal receiver I have had if you live in a weak strength area. Also, the software can lock up occasionally, particularly when using Bluetooth search/sync functions.
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