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New Toy… Again…

Gavin
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Heh… after all my prattling about the E-Ten M700, I’ve bitten the bullet and bought… something else.

What?

Oh… yeah. OK… so I was really sold on the idea of the M700; a slick device with a fast CPU, WM5 and an integrated GPS. The cool factor was definitely there. So what happened? Did the luster fade so fast?

No, not really. I still love the M700, but I’ve been following posts on the E-Ten Users Forum show it to be rather buggy with a rather crappy camera. OK, I don’t use a camera phone much… but if it’s going to have a 2MegaPixel camera, then it needs to at least take passable shots. The shots I’ve seen from the M700 are not good; drab colors and an almost pervasive “scan line” problem. E-Ten doesn’t seem intent to fix it, instead focusing on selling their device through other providers. I waited… and waited… and I can wait no more.

My MPX220 has started having problems lately. It randomly reboots… sometimes when I’m on a call. Not good. I suspect a short in the battery, but replacement batteries are tough to buy for a device that really didn’t sell well. Hmmm. So I was holding out, but needed to replace my phone.

Today I came across an awesome deal; a Cingular 8525 Smart Phone for 2/3 the price of the M700… and less for what I could get it for through Cingular / AT&T. Oh, and unlocked. Sorry… no links… there was only one left! After a bit of research, I snapped it up.

For those who are somewhat familiar with the smartphone business, the 8525 is a Cingular-branded version of the HTC TyTN, just lacking the front camera (for video calls… meh!). Nice, sweet, cute device!

OK, so no GPS… but it has everything the M700 has; the 400Mhz Samsung CPU, 128MB of RAM, 64MB of ROM, MicroSD slot… the works. But in addition to the M700, it’s 3G (UMTS only, though apparently HSDPA is available in the hardware and can be hacked to enabled!!!!). And as of today, apparently I can install a hack of Windows Mobile 6 on the device, so I can truly be on the bleeding edge. Again. Typical.

OK, so I’m an incessant geek 🙂 But this was too good a deal to pass up, and having had my phone reboot 5 times today (twice while on a call), I had finally had enough. I’ll probably keep the MPX220 and see if I can pick up a battery for it. At the very least, it’ll make a nice spare to keep around. Plus, the TyTN has become an extremely popular device, which has translated to an awesome after-market for cradles and accessories. The Cingular 8125 was a roaring success, based on the HTC Wizard (the predecessor to the TyTN) and it has I think really gotten Cingular to take their Windows Mobile customers seriously. When I got the MPX220 they sort of treated us as a gimmick.

So why didn’t I go with something completely different? Well, frankly at this point moving to another platform would be a lot of work. I have a lot of 3rd-party software that I’ve installed on my MPX220; much of it has been for-charge (a lot is just freebies). To re-buy these apps would be a pain… so for now I’ll stick with a platform I can work with.

Anyway… I’ll tell you more when I receive it!

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