Review I’m going to go out on a limb here: the SPV M600 from Orange is the best Windows Mobile smart phone I have ever used. It’s not perfect - that would be an overstatement - but if you’re after a smart phone with PDA functionality, the SPV M600 is the one to get. It’s way ahead of Orange's SPV M500 when it comes to functionality, and the upgrade to Windows Mobile 5 has made a huge improvement too...

The combination of the new operating system and the new control design makes the SPV M600 much easier to navigate without a stylus or using the touch screen than previous devices. This is mainly due to the addition of four new buttons: two soft keys, a Start menu button and an OK button. Hardly rocket science, but it has taken some time to finally get a decent navigation system, which has so far been one of the biggest flaws with the Windows Mobile handsets.

In standby mode, the two soft keys give you access to the calendar and your contacts, although this can be reconfigured in the settings. But it’s the OK button that has really made it easier to navigate with one hand, finally allowing you to close windows and applications once you’ve finished with them. Sure, you can use the end call button to take you back to the Today view, but this isn’t always where you want to go back to. The navigation pad isn’t ideal - I prefer a side-mounted scroll-wheel or jog-dial to a front-fitted five-way navigation control.

On the left-hand side are three controls: the top one starts the camera application, the middle is the volume rocker - nudge it up or down to adjust the sound level accordingly - and finally there’s a new button that launches the Comm Manager if pressed briefly or the voice recorder if held in for about three seconds. The Comm Manager allows you to set the phone to flight mode, enable the Wi-Fi radio, enable silent mode, turn Bluetooth on and off, and enable the sync applications. For those with a push email account – which Orange will offer on the SPV M600 – this is where you can switch it off if you don’t want to download all your email, when you’re abroad, say.

Speaking of push email, Orange is charging £6.50 for the basic email package that gives you 10MB of email, while £12 will give you 30MB, £25 200MB and finally £55 for “unlimited” data transfers, albeit with a fair usage policy. This doesn’t include an email server - it’s just the data service as this is a business-only offering, at least for now.

On the top of the SPV M600 is a slot for a standard-size SD card – the slot also supports SD IO cards – while on the right-hand side you’ll find the stylus – which is very comfortable to use, by the way - the power button and the infra-red window. At the bottom of the handset sits a 2.5mm audio jack and a mini USB 2.0 port. The camera at the rear has been upgraded from the one on the M500 - it’s now sporting two-megapixel resolution and a macro mode, but still no flash. There’s also one of those little self portrait mirrors and a loud speaker.

The processor is a Texas Instruments OMAP 850 clocked at a fairly slow 195MHz. Considering that the SPV M500 used a 416MHz Intel Xscale chip, this is quite disappointing and is a problem if you want to use Skype, although there are already reports of it being overclockable by about 45MHz, which makes Skype run more smoothly. The Flash memory has been increased from the M500's 64MB to 128MB. The RAM hasn’t been upgraded and is still set at 64MB, although a 512MB or even a 1GB SD card is cheap enough these days. I tested the SPV M600 with a SanDisk 1GB SD card and there didn’t seem to be any slowdown launching applications from this compared to the internal memory.

The phone sports a quad-band GSM radio, and the M600 also supports EDGE for faster GPRS data transfers. The M600 has Bluetooth 2.0 on board - handy for faster wireless data synchronisation and back-up if you're computer also supports that version - and it supports the 54Mbps variety of Wi-Fi, 802.11g - despite Orange's claim that the phone only provides slower 802.11b wireless networking.

The screen is still a 2.8in, 240 x 320 LCD. However, Windows Mobile 5 lets you flip the display into landscape mode, which works better with certain applications, websites and, in particular, the phone's camera application. The screen seems to collect a lot of dust and because it's slightly recessed, it’s quite awkward to clean.

The screen is nonetheless very easy to read in most lighting conditions bar direct sunlight, although you can compensate by increasing the backlight, at the cost of a reduced battery life. During the time I used the M600, the battery's charge seemed to last well and, unless you use it excessively, you should get three or four days usage out of a single charge.

Making a call has been made much easier on the M600 that it was on M500 thanks to a revamped and vastly improved phone application. The virtual buttons could still be made bigger, but you can at least use your fingers, something that wasn’t really possible on the M500.

At 10.8 x 5. 8 x 1.8cm, the M600 isn’t any smaller than its predecessor, but the rounded corners and the smooth, black finish makes it much more comfortable to hold than the M500 was. At 150g it’s not too heavy either, although it still weighs about 50g more than your average mobile phone.

The accessories in the box consist of a USB-to-mini-USB cable, a charger, a carry case and a stereo headset with microphone. The headset is different to those provided with previous SPV devices as the cable is sheathed in braided nylon, which makes it quite stiff, but hopefully more durable. A small square piece of plastic houses the volume control, the answer button and the microphone, and the earphones can be clipped behind your neck.

There are a couple of minor flaws with the M600. The main gripe is the tinny sound you get from the speaker, but using the headset eliminates this problem. The second issue was that the review sample locked up a couple of times during testing, though a soft reset always solved this. However, this is unlikely to be an issue on retail models as my unit used a pre-production version of the operating system.

Considering that you can get the M600 for free on a £40-a-month tariff, it’s affordable, although for anyone looking at a cheaper contract, expect to fork out £99. The i-mate JAMin, a version of the M600 that's not tied to any specific network, would set you back £425 without a contract.

Verdict

The Orange SPV M600 is an affordable, fully featured Windows Mobile 5 smart phone at a bargain price. It lacks 3G support, but with EDGE you still get fairly decent download speeds and, if you need faster access,the built-in Wi-Fi support gives you the option to access hotspots and other wireless internet links. ®