Orange UK touts SPV M500 music phone

Rock me, HTC 'Amadeus'

By Tony Smith, 7th July 2005

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UK mobile network Orange is to offer a version of HTC's ultra-compact PDA phone, 'Magician', as the SPV M500.

Orange SPV M500 Unlike other versions of the HTC handset, which has been rebadged by T-Mobile, O2 and i-Mate, among others, the Orange incarnation sports a black shell and a slightly modified case design.

The internals appear the same as other versions, however. Orange hasn't posted a detailed specification, but HTC says the unit contains 64MB of RAM and 64MB of ROM, along with a 240 x 320, 64,000-colour LCD. The M500 incorporates a 1.3-megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom. Expansion comes courtesy of an external MMC/SD IO slot.

The handheld is a tri-band (900/1800/1900) GSM/GPRS phone and offers Bluetooth wireless connectivity for headsets and PC connectivity. Orange simply said the phone would run the PocketPC operating system - it did not reveal which version of Windows Mobile would ship with the device.

The M500 measures a PDA-sized 10.8 x 5.8 x 1.8cm and weighs 150g. Orange quotes a talk time of five hours, and a stand-by time of 7.5 days.

Orange also updated its UK web site with the anticipated SPV C550 music phone - again based on an HTC model, this time 'Amadeus', which has four dedicated music playback buttons. The tri-band unit is expected to ship with a 176 x 220, 64,000-colour screen, a VGA camera with 4x digital zoom, Bluetooth support, 32MB of RAM, 64MB of ROM and a MiniSD slot for expansion.

Orange did not say when the C550 or the M500 will ship. ®