Orange Spv M700 Co-pilot Review

By Author: Jerry Smith
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Orange rebadged HTC's P3600 and rolled it out as its own Orange SPV M700. This is a Windows Mobile pocket PC / smartphone that fully supports the Co-pilot GPS sat nav software. The Orange SPV M700 Co-pilot therefore has all the functionalities of a hand held Windows Mobile Device equipped wit GPS capability.

So if you are familiar with the HTC P3600, then you will have a comfortable experience with the SPV M700. The two are similar in terms of design, features and some functionality. The device also takes off from the SPV M600 so there are also some features that would be very familiar.

Design and Physical Features

Orange designed two colour schemes to attract to business users and the younger market segment as gloss black and gloss white. Both versions have shiny and solid plastic casing. The black model has some colour tweaks such as the silver highlights for the call and end buttons and for the navigation keys. The plastic casing is scratch resistant but is fingerprints prone.

The SPV M700 brought back the scrolling wheel which has been discarded by other Windows Mobile devices. The wheel ...
... has a press to select feature with back and OK button thus providing capability for one-handed navigation. Which will of course minimize the use of the stylus pen.

SPV M700 is taller and a bit heavier than other PDA/smartphones. However, it can easily fit in your breast pocket just like any mobile device. To compensate or the extra bulk, the SPV M700 sports a 16m colour display with 2.8 inches screen. It has a screen resolution of 240 x 320 pixels.

The handset sports a belt clip carrying case, an extra stylus, car charger, mini headset with USB connector and USB cable for PC connection. Of course, a power charger and two sets of manuals are also included in the entire package.

Technical Specs

Orange SPV M700 has a Samsung 400 MHz central processing unit with preinstalled 64 MB RAM and 128 MB ROM. Its memory capacity can be expanded using the provided mini-SD cards. It runs on Windows Mobile version 5.0 and is compatible with Windows Exchange Server service pack 2.

M700 fully supports 3G and HSDPA and has capability for fast data transfers of up to 1.8 megabytes per second. Other connectivity options that includes WiFi, Bluetooth, and infrared.

The very feature that distinguish the Orange SPV M700 from the HTC P3600 is the built in GPS functionality. Orange uses the SiRFStar III GPS receiver and fully supports Co-pilot sat nave software of ALK.

SPV M700 comes with a complete range of productivity applications such as Mobile Word, Excel, Power Point presentation, Adobe PDF reader and WinZip. Business users will find this handset extremely useful.

Although the SPV M700 has full GPS capability, Co-pilot GPS functionality of this hand held device however is not well advertised. In fact, it is not mentioned in the specs originally released by Orange.

Multimedia and Business Applications

Orange SPV M700 sports a 2 megapixel camera designed for normal shot. It has no flash but the lens is auto focus. It cannot match the quality of image taken by dedicated digital cameras. But it will surely satisfy your normal use.

It has video and audio playback using Windows Media Player. You can arrange your media files into the WMP library or store them on a separate folder.

Overall, Orange SPV M700 is a highly functional mobile gadget with superior features and classy design.
Jerry Smith, the editor of http://www.mobilephoneonly.co.uk. An expert on mobile phone and an observer of UK telecommunication market. He writes reviews on latest mobile phones, and also suggests promotional deals and special offers from mobile phone retailers in UK.