eat2go - User Area::Reviews

Why are smartphones called smart and how smart are they? Well, they're called smart because they're smarter than the average bear, hmmm, phone. And they're pretty smart, considering they're phones. If you belong to the small sliver of people which believes that eat2go is too complicated to use, and you purchased this phone, don't unpack it, refuse delivery, or pack it back up, and send it back to the manufacturer or whomever you bought it from.

Once you unpack it, our advise is, first, check the ROM version of the phone, and immediately proceed to the www.motorola.com and find the download page of ROM's for this phone. Don't try to set it up first, because you will lose all of your settings once you upgrade the ROM. You will not lose your contact list. Also, proceed to www.microsoft.com, and do yourself a favor, and download the newest version of active sync. Also, when you setup active sync, establish a "standard partnership". If you do not do all of this, your experience will be less than pleasant, and you will spend hours trying to get your phone to work without success. Active sync is required to upgrade the ROM. Getting support is going to be a little difficult. You will be shuttled to India via VoIP, and your connections will not be very clear. If you do develop a need for support, make sure you write down the case number once you reach a live person. Your call will be dropped, over and over. If all of your components are just right, and once you upgrade the ROM, you're ready to go, and ready to eat2go.

This phone sports the Windows 2003 Mobile operating system. Basically, it's loaded with lots and lots of power for such a small package. The phone is small and looks very humble and innocuous. But, it's not. Once you plug it into your desktop PC, via the USB cable supplied, the phone is recognized as a device. You will be able to move pics, and files back and forth without any problems. This phone has a camera built-in with a flash. The camera is set to 640x480, but can be set to 1024x768, thus capturing at 1 Megapixels. The results are actually pretty good for a phone. Forget action shots, but then again, this is a phone. Also, forget the flash, it's quite useless. The phone also captures video. Get a Mini-SD card, if you want to do this, or else. It beams through infrared without any problems to other Windows devices, which is really, really cool. And, it's also Bluetooth enabled, which is also very neat. Since the OS is 2003 Mobile, the phone comes with a WAP browser which is very disappointing. But, it works. You will be able to browse any page that is built around standard htm or wml. If you encounter anything complicated, then you're out of luck. The Mpx220 can be gotten for somewhere around $350 to $600. It is an excellent alternative to the IPAQ, or its larger smartphone cousins. This is really a phone with dedicated numerical keys, rather then a qwerty keyboard. So, it's a phone first, and a PDA second, rather than the reverse. Typing is a little annoying, but in time of need and with a little practice can be more that satisfactory. The number "1" key is supplied with all sorts of symbols, like the period, the @ sign, etc., which come handy. There is also an additional symbol table, if some weird character is required.

The Mpx200 is a flip phone a-la Star Trek; beam me up, Scotty. With the HS850 connected, which will be addressed a little later, the setup makes you realize, that we are, the Borg. If you're not a trekkie, well, maybe, you don't get it, and may be you shouldn't really be wasting your time with this phone. The phone has two LCD displays. One display is smaller which is very useful when its shell is closed, and the main display which provides more information and the desktop, when the phone is opened. The resolution is 176x46, but you can scroll around. Since this phone ain't cheap, we dropped it from waist height onto concrete a couple of times just to see how expensive owning this phone could actually get. The phone survived with literally almost no damage, but a few scratches. This phone is very light and solid which is probably why it faired so well.

The HS850 Bluetooth hands-free device, also from Motorola, is an excellent partner for this phone. Oh, please get both in black. Both the phone and HS850 come in silver as well. In silver; however, the whole thing looks like cheap plastic. In black, the whole package will look so cool and mean. The configuration of the HS device will take you seconds. It's very easy. No more wires. The battery life of the HS850 is amazing, not so of the phone; at the end of the day, you're done and need to recharge. And by the way, if you attach it to your desktop PC with the USB cable, you will be juising it up, as well. The HS850 is rated for 30 feet operating distance away from the phone. The combination of the Mpx 220 and this thing actually performs much better, which is amazing. The HS850 is very light and rugged. If you're coming from the wired world of ear pieces, you will thank your lucky starts. $60 to $70 later, no more tangles, and no more wires. And don't worry, it's not heavy and bulky as it may look. You will forget you're wearing it.

You can switch from ear to ear by snapping and rotating the ring that goes around your ear. And you can put this thing on, with one hand, with no trouble at all. It is designed very well for the flap to snap open and stay locked at a 90 degree angle, until you snap it onto your earlobe and lock it there.

With email capabilities, oh, try using www.mail2wab.com, and browser, and Bluetooth HS connectivity, this phone is pretty awesome and very comfortable to wear and use as a phone without giving away the fact that you're actually a techo-geek.

e2g labs periodically conducts tests that are published in review form, of products peripherally related to eat2go Internet food ordering technology. If you have any related products which you would like e2g labs to test, forward your request to e2glabs@athyron.com. Please specify manufacturer, product and model number.

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