Windows Phone Thoughts: E-TEN Goes QWERTY: Glofiish M700 Reviewed

Figure 8: When extended, the M700's stylus measures 91 millimetres or 3.58 inches.

With the Glofiish series, E-TEN says "no" to proprietary connectors. The M700's Mini-USB connector acts as a dual-purpose sync/charge connector, so with the included USB synchronization cable, you can sync and charge simultaneously. With the included AC charger, you can only charge, but it is considerably faster.

Finally, it's all eyes on the bottom-loading stylus. The M700's is almost a clone of the X500's. It's lightweight, telescopic, and measures a slightly smaller 65 millimetres (2.56 inches) in its compact form and 91 millimetres (3.58 inches) when extended.


Figure 9: Hello QWERTY - (1) left soft key, (2) right soft key, and (3) volume controls and voice command button.


Figure 10: The same QWERTY keyboard with the backlight off.

Of course, what's an M700 review without a look at the QWERTY keyboard? The M700's contains 41 keys (soft keys included) and slides out to the left. Some notable inclusions are the OK and Start buttons (yes, they're not on the front of the device, but they're certainly on the QWERTY keyboard), and the numeric keypad, which sports a shade of grey and is assigned to the secondary function of a set of keys located in the right-half of the keyboard. The keyboard itself features a blue backlight that illuminates the primary function of the keys as well as the gaps between the keys in a U-shaped fashion for a fixed period of twenty seconds. Unfortunately, it fails to illuminate the secondary function of the keys and the soft keys, so anyone who doesn't have the keyboard layout confined to memory will undoubtedly be left in the dark (so to speak).

Each key measures 8.5mm x 7mm (except the Space bar, which is double the length), possesses a slight bulge, and offers a good amount of tactile feedback. The only exception is the Q key, which without reason, seems to offer a little less feedback. That aside, the typing experience is very reasonable. However, I admit to being a fast typer, and on very rare occasions, the M700 would fail to register a pressed key. I've yet to nail this down to a software or hardware issue, but it doesn't bother me enough to warrant further investigation.

A major shortcoming of the M700 is its lack of Fn and Shift/Caps Lock indicators, both on the hardware side and software side. This forces any user to become increasingly aware of the number of times he/she has pressed the Fn key or Shift key as a double press in succession will switch it to a locked mode, which can lead to odd results during typing.


Figure 11: It just keeps on glowing...


Figure 12: ... and glowing.

The sliding mechanism of the keyboard is very solid. It'll lock the keyboard in place when extended or retracted, and automatically modify the orientation of the display to match the position of the keyboard.