E-TEN glofiish X800 review

Typical price: £385

What is it: Smart phone packed with connectivity features

What we think: It's attractive and well-built but it lacks some oomph

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E-TEN glofiish X800 Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 5 February 2008

For users who want loads of features crammed into a smart phone, the E-TEN glofiish X800 packs everything but the kitchen sink. While E-TEN is the new kid on the block, the company is making itself a home in a neighbourhood ruled by Nokia and HTC. Is the X800 ready to rule the roost or should it just stay indoors? We pounded the pavement with this handset to test its strengths.

The X800 is available for £385 SIM-free.

Design
Relative to most phones, the X800 cuts a chunky profile. Still, if you sized it up next to the similarly featured HTC TyTN II and Nokia N95, it would be punching in welterweight. Although tall, the X800 stays slim and trim and we didn't have too much trouble slipping it into our pockets.

The X800's VGA screen is noticeably sharper than other non-VGA displays

The X800 has a solid and well-built feeling, and in an accidental drop, you probably wouldn't find it on the floor in pieces. E-TEN has added red rings around the VGA (0.3-megapixel) camera on the front and the 2-megapixel camera on the back. It's not a revolutionary design point, but it's a nice touch.

While relatively small to the size of the handset, you'll find the touchscreen large enough to comfortably press with the provided stylus. But if you'd rather not dirty the screen with your tapping, you can use the joystick, and we found this fairly effective. When using our fingers, we noticed the screen's border does get in the way of navigation. We also yearned for a scroll wheel, particularly when reading long emails.

Features
The X800's 640x480-pixel (VGA) display looks noticeably sharp, as E-TEN is keen to rave about on its Web site. All the Windows Mobile icons are noticeably less fuzzy and pictures look that much more detailed.

You can connect to practically anything, including Wi-Fi, HSDPA and GPS, and we managed this with relative ease. While there was no sat-nav software on the X800, we couldn't test out navigation, but it picked up satellites well.