Orange SPV review

Navigation for all Smartphones is mainly dictated by the OS so all should feature a four-way rocker switch and central selection button. In addition, two shortcut buttons either side pull up extra menus with 0-9 numbered selections for quick access. Dedicated buttons for returning to the home screen or going back to a previous screen are also available. Although customisable to some degree, both Orange and Sendo have chosen to leave the menu and icons as is, following Microsoft's original design. To be honest, it's difficult to see how the extremely straightforward and intuitive original could be improved upon.

A surprising flaw with both the SPV and Z100 is that the four-way rocker switch is too close to other buttons. When playing games or other more active uses, it's far to easy to hit the wrong button.

Both Smartphones expose difficulties when you need to enter rafts of text, numbers and symbols common to web addresses, for instance. Thankfully, you can transfer your Internet Favourites while connected to your PC. The same utility can also be used to set up dial-up connections, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, and an Internet proxy connection, among others. Customisation of certain features, such as the wallpaper and home page options, can also be chosen via dedicated Smartphone versions of operator or manufacturer web sites.

All the configuration is packaged as an XML document, and pushed to the phone either via your USB PC link, or if using the web site, via a text message hyperlink.

Applications

Microsoft has kept the number of applications to the bare minimum. It says this is because of the restricted input on the phone including a lack of touchscreen support. A sensible decision in fact as the design of accurate landing zones for a stylus would reduce the number of navigation selections available for use on such a small screen. Neither is there support for Bluetooth wireless connectivity. It will be possible for third party vendors to add support for both these features through J2ME (Java 2 Mobile Edition) of C++ apps. Sendo already has plans for Bluetooth SD card support by early next year.

Microsoft states that porting standard PPC 2002 apps over to Smartphone is straightforward, taking less than a day in some cases. All apps can be installed, via an SD card, from the PC while connected using the supplied USB desktop docking charger, or even over the air from the service provider.

A new application certification method is likely to cause ructions, however, especially over the ownership privileges. The certificates will be strictly controlled by whoever badges the product, such as Sendo for the Z100 unless it is dual branded by a provider in which case either are in control. The authentication certificate is attached to approved apps, which is then scrutinised by the Smartphone OS before installation. If Orange doesn't give its blessing to an application, for instance, then you can't install it on your SPV.

Specification

A Texas Instruments' OMAP710 processor is used to power both devices with the SPV's running at 120MHz and the Z100's at 132MHz. A total of 48MB of memory is split between flash ROM and RAM with around 8MB available to the user for apps, pictures, music, and so on. However, an SD/MMC expansion slot provides extra storage to the maximum capacity supported with this format which is currently 512MB.

Although TI has optimised a low power design for its mobile-targeted processor, the combined effect of a 176 x 220 pixel TFT screen and split memory architecture has quite an impact on battery life. For instance, the SPV specifies maximum talk and standby times of three and 100 hours respectively. You'll definitely need your charger close to hand if you're travelling.