I have been lucky enough to lay my hands on the brilliant, but yet to be released E-TEN Glofiish V900 that comes with a built in digital TV tuner, FM radio, Sirf III built in GPS, an FM transmitter and a 3.0MP camera with flash and auto focus amongst many other things.
The V900 is around the same size as the Polaris and packs an amazing amount of technology, backed up with a 533mhz power packed Samsung processor that is completely new and handles video and graphics with ease. There isn't much else you could really want in a device of this type!
The E-TEN Glofiish V900 came boxed with a quality in ear headset with different size in ear pieces to enable a comfortable fit, a mains charger and a USB cable and of course instructions. I have heard that a screen protector will be included once it goes on sale.
The V900 feels very nice to handle and has a high quality solid feel and great form factor, I like it! The beautiful 640x480 VGA screen is a flush fit in the case and it has a mini USB for charging, TV out, and a mini headphone socket instead of the dreaded USB. It also has a Micro SD slot and a joystick which makes a pleasant change.
It comes pre-installed with the latest SPB Shell which performs admirably, and provides an easy interface to navigate around the abundance of provided applications, or you can of course use the standard Today screen, the weather application is also provided by SPB so there is no problem getting the exact forecast for your locality.
E-TEN Glofiish V900 Specifications:-
DVB-H / DVB-T / T-DMB / DAB
HSDPA / UMTS / (2100 / 1900 / 850 MHz)
Quad-Band GSM : 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
GPRS class 10 / EDGE class 10
Bluetooth v2.0 class 2 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
WiFi iEEE802.11b/g Certificated
Processor: Samsung S3C 6400 533 MHz
Memory: 256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM
Display: 2.8", 640 x 480 (VGA), 65,536 colours, TFT-LCD
GPS: Embedded SiRF Star III chipset
Camera: Built-in Auto-Focus 3.0 Mega Pixels camera, up to 2048 x 1536 resolution & VGA resolution Fixed-Focus CMOS camera for video calling
TV-Out support
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Dimensions: 106 x 60.5 x 17 mm
The
Digital TV tuner is easy to use and gives you the options of choosing from a default list of countries and cities or you can scan and tune it in manually for your locality, the picture quality is fantastic and I didn't see any dropped frames at all, you can even plug it into a monitor, or another TV and view full screen with the V900's built in TV out, or listen to it through your bluetooth stereo headphones, luxury, and no more missing Sky Sports News when I am on the move now!
The
FM radio is another great boon as far as I am concerned, you can tune in to your favourite stations and name them without any problems,
but the best thing is you do not need to use a headset to listen, it just plays through the V900 itself which is something I am not used to after using HTC devices! Again the sound quality is excellent.
Now onto the built in
Sirf StarIII GPS, I used Tomtom 6 as my default navigation software and it ran smoothly and without any hiccups at all, but the biggest surprise was the signal I am able to get using the built in Sirf Star III receiver, I could get eight, yes eight, strong locked on signal bars sitting indoors which I find totally amazing, and the lock on time after starting the satnav software is only 10 seconds or less.
The built in
3.0MP camera comes with auto focus and a very bright flash which performs admirably, and is one of the better built in cameras I have seen in a handheld device. Your taken snaps can be viewed with the camera album application. The video footage I have shot looks great and plays back well in Windows Media Player.
Picture taken with the V900 on a cloudy day under trees in dappled light!
Another new piece of kit installed on the V900 is the
Gravity Sensor, this reads when the device is turned and twisted so it is easy to switch from landscape and portrait mode and is similar to HTC's variation, but the advantage with E-TEN's version is that you can configure which applications you want to switch to landscape when turning the device by ticking exceptions in the Gravity Sensors settings. It is also adjustable for sensitivity which is very handy.
All the screenshots below relate to the built in applications and settings and are self explanatory in most cases, if you have any questions about any of them please ask me.
Overall I think the E-TEN Glofiish V900 is an excellent device and I am thoroughly enjoying it, it makes a refreshing change from the current crop of devices that are around at the moment.
There is one thing for sure, and that is this will be a hard act to follow for some manufacturers as it is running one of the latest top spec Samsung processors, and the amount of hardware and software crammed into a device of this size is really quite amazing.
Size wise it won't be to everyones taste (but it isn't any bigger than an HTC Polaris), but I can forgive it that for all the amazing attributes the E-TEN Glofiish V900 has.
Hands on Youtube video, sorry it isn't in English, but it does show how it performs!
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