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Orange launches SPV M5000 (HTC Universal) in UK, France, and Switzerland
Our lust-affair with the not-available-in-the-US HTC Universal is no secret. Now our friends in the UK, France, and Switzerland can get their sweaty anticipatory hands on it with Orange's official launch of the SPV M5000 - you know, that UMTS (3G) brick packing Windows Mobile 5.0, WiFi (now confirmed although curiously not listed on the Orange website), Bluetooth, 1.3 megapixel camera, QWERTY keyboard, 640x480 touch screen, 520MHz processor, 128MB of ROM, and an SD memory card slot. It will sell for about £400 (€600) and begin shipping in the UK, France and Switzerland in October - available to the network's other territories by the end of this year.
Hands-on with the HTC Universal
As promised, a gallery of HTC Universal pics to accompany our question and answer session from earlier today. If you'd like pics of something specific that we may have missed, let us know and we'll try our best to accomodate you.
You've got HTC Universal questions, we've got HTC Universal answers
It took a few days, but we're finally answering your questions about the HTC Universal. We didn't have time to answer every single question that was posted, but we hit as many as we could and we'll do our damnedest to answer more of your questions over the next few days - just post them up in the comments below and we'll try and add them to the post. We'll have also have full gallery of pics going up later this afternoon, but for now, on to the Q&A:
HTC Universal/MDA Pro hits Germany later this week
We're still fairly certain that the HTC Universal isn't going to be sold over here in the States (at least not the UMTS version), but we have some good news for any of our German readers who have been lusting after this monster of a Pocket PC Phone: starting on Thursday you'll be able to pick up the new phone, which as being sold as the "MDA Pro", from T-Mobile Germany. Retail price will be a hefty €749.95 without a contract, or between €430 and €500 depending on what kind of two year service agreement you sign up for.
The HTC Universal: What do you want to know?
Man, if there was ever one gadget we were definitely not expecting to have fall into our laps this week, it's the HTC Universal. It's definitely big for something you're supposed to use to make phone calls, but with great size comes great power, right? (There's a good chance you have the spec sheet for this one memorized: this baby has Windows Mobile 5.0, WiFi, Bluetooth, a one megapixel camera, QWERTY keyboard, a VGA touch screen, a 520MHz processor, 96MB of ROM, 128MB of RAM, and an SD memory card slot.) Normally we'd take a week or whatever and pump out a review, but we thought it'd be more fun to just ask you guys what you want to know about. Post your questions in the comments below and we'll do our best to answer as many of them as we can in a future post. UPDATE: Yikes, that's a lot of questions! In fact, a lot more than we'd anticipated, can't guarantee that we'll be able to answer all, or even most, of them, but we promise we'll do our best. Now just give us a few days, ok?
HTC Universal review
Jason Langridge has a rather glowing review of the HTC Universal - apparently its largitude can be forgiven by its action-packed feature set. The device gets high marks for a gorgeous swivel screen (handy for preserving battery life while playing music), solid build, responsive QWERTY keyboard (using thumb-style is apparently a go, not just typing against a surface), battery life, improved Windows Mobile 5.0 phone application, easy Bluetooth pairing, and enhanced WiFi connectivity. Bonus points are awarded for the ability to place a voice call while simultaneously using the 3G data modem. Not a lot in the negative column here, kids, other than that size factor - if you can live with that, you could be about to fall in love. [Thanks, Barry]
The SPV M5000 makes an appearance on Orange's site
This one slipped by us the other day, but a bunch of people wrote in to remind us that the SPV M5000, aka the HTC Universal, finally showed up on Orange's website (something which typically, but not always, means that a launch is not too far off). Probably not going to see this one over here in the States since it rocks the UMTS and not the HSDPA, but this brick really packs it all in: the M5000 runs on Windows Mobile 5.0 and has WiFi, Bluetooth, a one megapixel camera, a QWERTY keyboard, a VGA touch screen, a 520MHz processor, 96MB of ROM, 128MB of RAM, and an SD memory card slot. [Thanks to everyone who sent this one in]
