News

Orange releases SPV music version, C550 - in shops this week

The HTC "Amadeus" smartphone (Windows Mobile) has finally appeared in its Orange livery, as the SPV C550 - shipping into the UK at least this week.

It's the same phone as the T-Mobile SDA Music which has been briefly reviewed by Mobile Gazette, which managed to make it sound more exciting this time. The original preview was quite a put-down: "...good handsets, but you're going to have to forgive us if we don't dwell on them" - but at the same time, the spec has improved since then. The expected VGA resolution camera is now the 2005 standard of 1.3 megapixels, from Orange at least.

It's a let-down for all the snobs who had the silver C500; this one is the same colour. And the main change is the row of four music control buttons just below the display for play, rewind, fast forward and so on - and the joystick, which has always been a point of frustrating failure for SPV users, has gone back from being a bar, to being a dot.

For comparison, you might look at the Sony Ericsson W800i, Nokia N91 and Samsung SGH-I300  phones.