Windows Phone Thoughts: Total Convergence: The E-TEN M600 Reviewed

Bundled Applications
E-TEN managed to pack a wealthy collection of applications and plug-ins into the M600, which for the most part, requires manual installation when you first set up the device (courtesy of E-TEN's unified installer, Extra Application Installer - see Figure 30). I'm a huge fan of such a setup because it offers the user the freedom to install only what he/she needs.


Figure 30: E-TEN's 'Extra Application Installer'.

There are a few exceptions: some essential plug-ins are already installed, though it's worth mentioning that you can disable most of these as you see fit.

The first is Quick Link - a Today plug-in that offers quick access to your favourite programs. It supports up to twenty-seven icons with support for multiple lines and a toggle between large and small icons. Another plug-in, known unoriginally as the Battery Meter, sits in the taskbar and displays the state of the battery.


Figure 31: The Today screen, showing Quick Link and the Battery Meter.

Within the Phone application are four plug-ins. Again, these can be disabled if you wish:

• Zoom SMS: It does what it says, and it's great if you're the sort of person who loathes small text. It also includes a set of buttons - Back, Forward, Reply, Call and Delete.
  
• Call Filter: Someone stalking you? This is where Call Filter becomes your best friend. You can add different contacts to an Allow List and/or Block List, as well as assign different functions to each list.
  
• Scenarios: Better known as Profiles, this plug-in sits in the system tray and allows you to enable and configure different profiles - General, Meeting, Outdoor, and Silent. If you use or have used a Nokia phone before, then this will all be very familiar to you.
  
• New Dialer: This enables and disables the E-TEN-customised dialer skin. See Figure 22 for an example.

Figure 32: The Camera application offers more features than you can poke a stick at. Note there is also an indicator which displays the number of pictures that can be stored on the selected medium (main memory or the SD/MMC card).

The Camera button launches the Camera application. Alternatively, you can use the Camera shortcut located in the Multimedia folder in Programs. It's a feature-rich application which offers extensive customisation. The large icons allow you to use your thumb to change the different settings - even more comfortable when using the device in landscape mode.

E-TEN's Camera application is probably one of the better ones I've seen bundled with any Pocket PC. It supports the capturing of photos and the recording of videos. In the camera mode, you can modify the capture settings (normal, timer, and portrait), orientation (portrait or landscape), flash, date, saving path (\My Documents or \SDMMC), wizard mode, special effects (normal, negative, greyness, retrospective, and mirror), frames, format settings (BMP or JPG), dimensions (1280 x 960, 640 x 480, 320 x 240, and 176 x 144), white balance (auto, incandescence, fluorescence, sunshine, shadow, cloudy, and night), self-timer (between three, five, seven, and ten seconds), and continuous shutter. But it doesn't stop there. Switch over to the video mode, and you can again modify the white balance, dimensions (320 x 240, 176 x 144, and 128 x 96), format settings (3GP only), quality settings (high, medium, and low), audio (enable or disable), special effects, saving path, and wizard mode.

Once you capture an image or video, you're presented with the option of deleting it, or linking it to Messaging (to send as an e-mail), Multimedia Manager (for sorting), MMS Composer (to send as an MMS message), Image Maker, and Image Wizard (for further editing). E-TEN has done a good job at integrating all of its services. I'll provide some example pictures taken from the camera later in the review (but to put it simply, the M600 has a standard quality camera (what I'd expect from most camera-enabled Pocket PCs); obviously, it's not designed to replace a dedicated digital camera, but it's still handy to have around for a few quick snapshots here and there).

The M600 also supports 4x digital zoom. Conveniently, the volume slider button controls this.


Figure 33: E-TEN's Image Wizard and Image Maker applications.

Looking at some of the other major applications - namely, the ones that require installation at startup.

• Speed Dial: This is an extended version of the speed dial feature already included in Windows Mobile 5.0, supporting two different modes, Index Dial and Frequency Dial. I hardly ever use this application, primarily because I hardly speed dial in the first place, but for those of you who greatly rely on it, this application will prove invaluable.
  
• SIM Toolkit: My SIM card wasn't compatible with this application, so I wasn't able to test it out. However, to my understanding, it's very similar to other SIM managers included in most other Pocket PC Phone Edition devices.
  
• Image Wizard: This wizard-based application offers a five-step process for quick-editing your images. You can add a frame, text, scribbles, and special effects. If you wish to take it one step further, you can use the more advanced Image Maker.
  
• Image Maker: In many ways, I'd label this a mobile version of Microsoft Paint. All the basic tools are there, but if you're wanting something more advanced, then there are third-party alternatives such as Conduits Pocket Artist.
  
• Multimedia Manager: This is a simple browser supporting thumbnails and slideshows. Figure 34 shows this.
  
• Voice Commander: This is based on Voice Commander by Cyberon - it's a good package offering similar features to Microsoft Voice Command, and it even works well with my Australian accent. The options page allows you to further train the voice recognition as you see fit.
  
• M-Desk: As E-TEN's all-in-one program launcher, M-Desk supports theme-enhanced tabs, multiple system indicators, quick shortcuts for modifying the screen orientation, and a lot more. If you're not happy with Windows Mobile's default Programs interface, then M-Desk offers a very good alternative. With this installed, the M600 automatically assigns M-Desk to the Home button. If you wish to use that button for something else, you can always open up Windows Mobile's Settings page and reassign it.

Figure 34: E-TEN's Multimedia Manager offers large thumbnails for quick previewing media files.


Figure 35: E-TEN's M-Desk program launcher is a good alternative to the default Programs interface of Windows Mobile.

In addition, there are some minor applets such as Add Ringtone, CSD Type (for modem simulation), and Microphone (for adjusting audio-in settings during phone conversations, voice recordings, and when using Bluetooth headsets).

The M600 also includes Skype, but my particular ROM didn't have it, primarily because there are some stability issues with the current version of Skype and Windows Mobile 5.0. However, the upcoming Skype 1.2 for Pocket PC should be released shortly and will be bundled on all M600 devices. The Samsung S3C2440A 400MHz processor is certainly fast enough to support it.