[Glossman]

Well, the Glofiish M700 showed up on Saturday, and I've spent the last couple of days getting it setup (been busy with a new baby!).

The first thing you notice is how slim this thing is. Even with a slider, it is noticeably thinner than a 6700. It's slightly longer, too...About the length of a 6700 if you include it's antenna. Of course, the M700 has internal antennas.

Build quality seems superior to our Apaches, and the plastics appear to be higher quality. Buttons are firm to the finger when pressed, and the slider moves firmly through it's travel and locks positively into place with a single click. I will be curious to see how tight this device is with some use, say, after 6 months.

Out of the box, WM5 performance was very fast...at least as fast as the latest Unified ROM on an Apache. So, I did the OEM WM6 upgrade. It seemed to slow the device down quite a bit. I did the Apache registry hacks, and it seemed restore most of the performance.

I did a restore from backup for my contacts and files and began re-installing my software. The only compatibility issue I ran into was with WeatherPanel, which keeps giving me a .dll error, even though the program itself works.

Call sound quality is good, with both the handset speaker and the speakerphone having good volume. The former being a refreshing change when compared to the PPC-6700.

So far, I've had no dropped calls and not much distortion in the time I've had to make calls.

As for data, the device is hampered by Cingular (now AT&T) EDGE connectivity. It's every bit as slow as advertised ,with it taking 20-30 seconds to download a half-dozen <10 kb e-mails. Also, WM6 has a bug in which the data connection has to be manually reassigned to the cellular modem after each soft reset. Fortunately, the device has not required soft resets, so I can probably get by until a fix comes out for this.

The on-board GPS is the FREAKING BOMB. It acquires quickly and seems to be very sensitive. The M700 includes a couple of GPS apps to give you coordinates and staellite locations, which, while not particularly useful, is neat to look at it. As soon as my microSD card shows up, I'll be testing it with TOMTOM.

Battery seems very average. The phone comes standard with a 1530 mAH battery. With light data and no GPS, I got through Sunday with about 50% battery remaining. This was with the screen brightness at 3/4 of maximum. A neat feature of WM6 is an automatic backlight adjustment based on battery life. When selected, the device will automatically reduce the brightness of the screen as the battery drains so it's life can be extended.

On the subject of the sceen, the clarity and brightness of the M700 is superb, putting our Apaches to shame. The colors are vibrant and the fonts are sharp. The M700 is truly a wonder to look at.

Usability. This is the other place where I have some gripes. While M700 is nicely styled, it has some very real usability issues:

While the D-pad is very functional and easy to use, the front of the device lacks the Windows and OK keys found on our Apaches. This makes one handed navigation without the screen VERY difficult. It does have the two softkeys, but I have not yet figued out how to reassign them. There is a Today Screen button at the upper right of the device, as well as a GPS button on the upper left. I will be reassiging those to the Windows functions that are missing, but they are still ill-placed for easy use.

I have not yet tested Bluetooth capabilities yet, but I'll report back when I do.

So, the verdict is, this is a quality device, but not without drawbacks.

The weak data support is a real drawback, and I'm not how long I can live with that. Battery life can be addressed with an extended battery, but that ruins the slim profile of the unit.

I suppose I can get used the the quirky button interface, but it does make me appreciate the 6700's simplicity.

In the end, the lack of 3G data support will force me to move on to another device. The upcoming Glofiish X800 will be 3G-enabled and have the bonus of a VGA screen. It does lack the keybaord of the M700, but I think I can trade the keyboard for some good high-speed 3G data and VGA.

Oh, and BTW..I do have the WM6 ROM file for the M700. If any of you would like it for tinkering, I'll gladly provide it. There are some real nice ETEN apps that could be packaged for future Apache ROM kitchens.