You thought I had enough gadgets? C’mon, you should know me better than that! This time it’s a super gadget – an Eten M600 Windows Mobile Phone. It did not only lighten my materialisti conscience, it also lightened my wallet – or account, quite dramatically. (I payed 4800 HKD for the phone including a 1GB SD-card).
I was chosing between this device and the O2 Xda Atom or Dopod 818 Pro. In the end I chose Eten for it’s good price, good reviews and fast processor. The cons I already knew about, compared to the two other devices, was that the Eten is slightly larger and heavier, lacks EDGE (fast GRPS data transfer) and it also didn’t have an FM radio as the Atom or a 2MP camera as both the Atom and the Dopod had. The camera was a minor interest for me though as no PDA cameras are good enough for serious photography, no matter if they are 1.3MP or 2MP.
Now my Eten is up ‘n running – what can I say about it? Well, it is fast (except the restarting of the device, which is very slow). It is very cool. The screen is really good and so is the general build quality of the device. The basic phone functionality works as it should and the sound is apparently good. What have gone wrong then? I had a lot of trouble setting up the WiFi and it is still not running as smooth as I wanted (might have to find a 3rd part application for that). However, the problems is not in performance of the wireless but in getting it to connect in the first place – which I solved after doing everything step by step from the manual.
The biggest trouble, however, is that my Eten somehow triggered an avalanche of general computer problems. Synchronisation failed sometimes, my USB Hub behaved strange, I couldn’t connect my old Motorola E1 ROKR and Windows started locking up for no reason at all. A few strange application crashes has happened on the Eten, but nothing catastrophic. At the moment though most problems seem to have vanished or stabilized so I just have to wait and see – they might just have been freak errors.
My concern right now is to find good software for Windows Mobile 5.0. I though I just had to search Google, but I was mistaken. The web is cluttered with sites proclaiming freeware Pocket PC (PPC) software which is actually shareware or stupid themes. In the end, it seems most PPC software, no matter how unneccesary it might be, will cost me. And I don’t like paying for software. I found a few programs, none of which I have been able to try out seriously, but sooner or later I might compile a list of good, trustable PPC freeware just because of the apparent lack of such lists online. Maybe you know any good freeware?
A couple of sites of interest for Eten users or speculants:
2 thoughts on “Mobile gadgeteer – Eten M600”