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Display and Multimedia The 240 x 320 screen is bright and easy to read indoors; outdoors, it is much more difficult to see. The 2.8" screen supports landscape mode, although you have to change it from the Quick Bar since there’s no accelerometer. The FM radio works only with the headset, which acts as the antenna. The user interface is not obvious, and it took me a while to figure out how to tune a station, partially because it worked best on the European band, not the U.S. band (I'm in Florida). You can turn the screen off while listening to the radio to save the battery. Once I tuned in to a station, the reception and sound quality were good.
The US 3G unlocked GSM HTC Touch Diamond and the Glofiish X610. Windows Media Player handles MP3 playback along with WMA and protected WMA files. Sound quality was good through the included stereo headset. Sound quality through the speakers was, as expected, fairly tinny. Video that was encoded at 466 kbps looked good, with only a little choppiness. In Windows Media Player Mobile on the device, tapping the button for a full-screen image rotated the screen and filled the screen with the video. It still looked pretty good, except that you have to look at the screen straight on; if it is tilted at any angle, it becomes much harder to see. Playing other video types with TCPMP was considerably less successful. I tried a 240 x 320 pixel MPEG4 that was encoded at 832 kbps, and it was like watching a slideshow - most of the video frames were dropped. Admittedly, that’s a higher bitrate than most Windows Mobile devices can handle. In general, TCPMP and recent E-TEN phones don’t play well together.
Camera The X610 has a 2 megapixel camera, fixed focus, with a maximum 1600 x 1200 resolution: several lesser resolutions are available. There's also a JPEG with EXIF data mode that includes latitude and longitude courtesy of the GPS. A GPS icon in the viewfinder flashes red and turns white once the Glofiish has acquired a signal. It has modes for both still pictures and for video (3GP) and some options for those who like a little more control over their pictures. There are two completely separate camera applications: one that launches from the camera button on the side of the device, and one that launches from the Pictures and Video application. I used the one that launches from the camera button. Images are OK by 2MP standards, with decent colors and sharpness, though sharpness falls off at the edges and there's white-out in bright or high contrast settings. Bluetooth The X610 has Bluetooth v2.0, Class 2 + EDR. Pairing with a headset is easy, although it takes a little while to discover the headset. DUN and PAN connections are cranky and we couldn’t get tethering up and running. But with EDGE speeds, tethering isn’t a great temptation. WiFi WiFi 802.11b/g worked well with every access point I tried. The range was good, and it stayed connected very well. Battery Life Battery life is disappointing, though our unit might have problems since EDGE Glofiish phones with similar battery capacity usually have decent battery life. The X610 comes with a removable 1530 mAh battery, but I had trouble getting through a full day on a charge. The phone starts popping up warnings when 30% of the battery capacity is left, and the warnings become increasingly persistent after that. I was disconnected several times on a phone call when the battery was at 20%, and I think that the phone was disconnecting the call because the battery was low. Another time, I started with a fully-charged battery at 7:00 AM and was unable to use the GPS (it wouldn't turn on) at 1:00 PM because the battery was below 20%. Maybe I'm unusual, but I expect a phone to keep working until the battery completely dies. I appreciate some warning when it gets close to dying (maybe 5% of capacity), but I don't like having to dismiss low battery warnings every time I try to do something with several hours' life left on the battery. The battery issues made this phone impractical as my daily phone.
The phone uses the same 5v, 1 amp charger as prior Glofiish phones, and it also works with recent HTC phone chargers that are the same amperage/voltage and use the same connector. Software For me, the X610's software was confusing. For example, there are two Today screens and a pop-up launcher: when you hit the red hard button, you get a today screen with the Start icon at the top left, with icons for wireless modes, SIM card, audio level, and battery status at the top right. Below these, you have the time and date, wireless connection information, owner information, message information, today's tasks and events, icons for recently-used applications, and soft buttons for contacts (or Speed Dial, if it's installed) and the Spb Shell. Tapping the Spb Shell button leads to a second today screen: this one has battery status at the top left (no Start icon to access programs), weather, information about text messages, e-mail, and voicemail, and an icon to change the volume. Below that you see the current time and today's calendar. At the bottom, there are four icons for the four pages of the Spb Shell. You can also access these pages by swiping left-to-right or right-to-left across the screen. The other two pages are for applications (icons for the most-recently-used and folder-type icons that bring up groups of applications) and contacts (a screen of assignable buttons to access frequently-used contacts). The fourth icon at the bottom of the Today screen takes you back to the first today screen. It took me a while to figure out how to reliably get to a screen that has a Start icon for accessing applications. A hardware button brings up the Quick Bar launcher with 9 on-screen buttons. Some are pre-assigned, while others can be assigned by the user. These are great for apps you want to get to often. One hardware button is dedicated to the GPS; with so few buttons, this seems like a waste of a button. Contacts are also confusing because there are several different interfaces, and it takes some practice to figure out how to get to the specific one you want. Conclusion Pros: Slim and relatively light, very good call quality, good RF, strong WiFi with good companion software. Cons: Battery life, slow camera, confusing software, lack of hardware buttons, video playback is just OK. I wanted to like this phone because I really like the size and shape - it feels good in the hand. But there are just too many problems for me to use it as my primary phone. Unfortunately, it doesn't compete well with the many Windows Mobile phones available in the US from importers and carriers. It's not particularly cheap and for the same money you could get the unlocked GSM Samsung Omnia i900 or the US 3G unlocked GSM HTC Touch Diamond-- both are more exciting and are thin as well. Price: approximately $550 Web site: www.glofiish.com
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