My Orange SPV E650 SUCKS!!!!
May 21, 2007
I had to replace my cell-phone last week after my trusty SPV C600 died; Orange don’t stock the C600 anymore, so I was given an SPV E650 as a free upgrade - now, I know what you’re thinking, “Dude, it was free, stop complaining!!!!”.
Even though I knew I would have to replace my existing 2gb mini-SD with a micro-SD card; that I’d have yet another power adapter to add to the collection; that my FM transmitter would be rendered useless because the E650 doesn’t have “normal” headphone socket; I was expecting the E650 to be a better user experience than my C600. Sadly, despite the free upgrade, this has not been so; to whit:
I’ve yet to have a day without a crash - that includes recoverable errors (the ones that generate an MS error report) from Comm Manager, Calendar, the messaging applet, and non-recoverable errors (which don’t even respond to the power button, so I have to take the battery out). And on one intensely frustrating day, all of the above within about 2 hours.
If that wasn’t enough, I can’t install the GMail Java client (which worked just fine on my C600) because of a certificate error; Efficasoft’s GPRS monitor installs but doesn’t appear on the Home screen, or monitor GPRS usage (and it worked just fine on my C600).
Wireless almost works - I’ve tried it on two APs; one which is wide-open and one which isn’t, and the results were the same. I get an IP address, but can’t browse out so the phone resorts to GPRS.
Application installs take forever - seriously; 25 minutes with the rotating Trivial Pursuit pie-icon.
Sliding the keyboard out and then back in hangs the phone.
This thing is so bad it’s practically unusable. There are so many things wrong, that I’m actually beginning to wonder if I’ve got a faulty unit… Am I alone in my growing hatred of this device? If you’re an Orange customer, and you’ve got an E650, I’d love to hear if your experience has been the same as mine; even better, if your experience was the same and you found a way to fix it, I’d especially love to hear from you.
Technorati Tags: HTC, Vox, , S710, E650, problems, cellphone, mobile, handset
Posted in gadgets, rants, smartphone
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May 22nd, 2007 at 8:02 am
Sounds like you have a dud.
But you’re also complaining of it’s features (like the jack) because you didn’t select the phone, rather it was offered to you.
I have had the phone for over a month and it hasn’t crashed once. I didn’t have any problems installing apps. You can unlock the phone - that may help.
Start off by resetting the phone back to factory default, clear storage and try again. If you don’t sort it out, send it back.
It’s a great phone. Perhaps a better phone if you actually wanted it in the first place.
Cheers, Doug
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Doug - thanks for taking the time to comment. Yeah, I did mix my rant topics; but, it annoys me that phone makers can’t standardise things like AC adapter connections, and headphone socket connections (and I do feel that microSD is kind of pointless - IMHO, someone just wanted to see if they could reduce miniSD). Reading through your blog, and the great experience you’re having with the E650, I think you’re right - my unit is duff; and maybe that’s why I’m so disappointed - the E650 *is* the phone that I wanted to upgrade to. I’ll do what you suggest, and get the phone unlocked, and reset back to the default, and see how I go (how did you get WiFi working, btw?). Cheers, Andrew.
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:30 am
Well I have had my SPV650 for a little over 48 hours and I have had loads of crashes. I am really disapointed with this phone. I was hooked by the reviews but sadly the phone simply does not measure up.
It does not connect to my Windows Vista Business PC. I have installed the latest WMDC software and it still fails to connect. I have tried USB, and Bluetooth.
I am expecting a firmware upgrade soon because there must be plenty of users experiencing the same problems.
As for the wifi, I’m not sure, it seems to connect to my AP using WPA/PSK/TKIP and Mac filtering. But I am not sure that the browser is using this. However it must be because I can view a website on the same intranet. certainly disapointed by the removal of Live Messenger. I use the MSN network and will not be too impressed if the planned client from orange will not allow me to connect to my msn contacts. Plus I have a funny feeling the service will be chargable and probably locked to GSM so they get revenue.
Overall I have to give this a sad 2.5/10
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Paul - I followed Doug’s advice and did a hard reset on the phone; then, before installing any apps I applied the the application unlock from Orange (France)…. Although this seemed to fix the “spinning wheel” problem with app installs, I still can’t use the Gmail mobile Java client; tmail.exe crashes every time I use it; memory management is appalling (I can’t have Splashblog, Media Player and IE running at the same time, but this didn’t see to bother my C600) and I still can’t connect to an AP with any kind of security applied to it. Like you, I’m not at all impressed with the Orange version of this handset… Let’s hope they issue a ROM update soon!
June 9th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Crashes:
My SPV650 crashed about 15 times the first 2 days, and I also experinced the problem that sliding the keyboard back and forth would sometimes either close down the phone or it would hang. I called Orange, got a new phone which I have now had for a week without a single crash. So apparently there are hardware problems with some specimen
June 10th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
I do not use the Gmail Applet. I simply created a new e-mail account it got all my settings for Gmail automatically and that has seemed to work fine.
WiFi - Why this unit loses the WPA key randomly is beyond me. This must be a goosed phone.
Battery Life - With WiFi, Bluetooth on, the battery sucks. A little over a day with about 20 minutes talk time. Turn the WiFi Off, Bluetooth and I get about 3 days.
I also think that the start/call history buttons are a little small. The T9 predictive text takes a little getting used to. especially as it predicts the next word as well. (that can lead to some very strange texts if not checked!!)
Media Player, seemed it can remember when the USB cable has been plugged in, It decided that it would not play sound if the USB cable was plugged in, and removing while the tune was playing did not help, a restart of media player was required.
It seems as though this “orange” version has a few flaws. I simply can not see WM6 being this bad on HTC hardware. So I sit and wait for a rom update.
June 11th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Well, it now seems as though this troublesome E650 has died!! I powered it up this morning, pressed the “Contacts” button to look up a number, and the contacts app crashed and I wasn’t able to power the phone off by using the power button, so I had to remove the battery. When I powered the phone back on, it hung at the Orange logo. Again, the only way to reboot the phone is to remove the battery, but each time it hangs at the Orange logo (but the signal and Bluetooth lights are flashing…!)… I think I’ve reached the end of the line with this handset - the question is, do I go for a replacement E650, or something altogether different?