Windows Mobile 6 (WM6) and SPV E650 on Orange

It arrived and well, I hate it.

Having been used to the kinky M3100 this handset is a great step back from it. Mainly because of the move down from being used to the feature rich Mobile 5 PDA AKU3.1 software down to Mobile 6 Standard Edition (Smartphone) version 1.

Apart from the lack of features and the smaller screen...

• Wireless isn't as seamless to use as the WM5 (Mobile 5) / M3100. It randomly decides it doesn’t like certain access points
• Exchange 2003 connectivity: it keeps losing the server configuration - emails are there but the setting's not
• Connect it to Vista Windows Mobile Device Center and if you have a Lock password on it then a after a few seconds delay a prompt appears on the handset, and unless you type it within a few seconds then the prompt disappears and connection's lost - no obvious way to change that: "Your device is currently locked. To connect to or synchronize with this PC, please authenticate on your device." is what you get on Vista while the phone's waiting for input.
• A lot of times the Vista Windows Mobile Device Centre goes from "Not Connected" to "Error" - restart the phone and all is fine
• "No Homescreen layouts can be found" - seen that one before?? - set up a lock code pin and that's what you get when you try to go to the homescreen. So go to settings to refresh the home screen setup. Mad.

Why do I HAVE to use this handset? It's one of only two SPV handsets that supports Orange Line 2. The other one is the pancake-impersonator SPV E600 which runs WM5 Smartphone Edition which may trigger suicide.

Verdict: Better than any Smartphone WM5, not as good as the M3100, unless you need it now... wait for a Windows Mobile 6 Professional Device running on something like the M3100.