Introduction and First Glance

A little while ago we took a look at the Glofiish X650 from E-TEN and although it had a wide range of good features, the package as a whole had us feeling it was a bit overpriced. The reason for this is the X800, the bigger brother to the X6x0-series, as it's not much more expensive than the X650 and still manages to add a wide range of extra functionality which we think you'd want in the first place if you're spending this kind of cash on your Smartphone. Normally we don't start a review with the pricing, but as the X650 will set you back $799.95AU ($559.99US), it's not hard to see many potential buyers going for the X800 instead at $889.96AU ($599.95US).

The main difference between the X800 and X650 is the fact that the X800 supports 3G and HSDPA data transfers. This alone makes it a much more useful device for those that need fast wireless data access on the move. With support for 850, 1900 and 2100MHz 3G and 850, 900, 1800 and 1900MHz GSM with GRPS and EDGE, there are only going to be a few countries in the world this phone can't be used in. We could pretty much end this review here, as in terms of features, the X800 is almost identical from now on. It sports 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and also that E-TEN special; a built in SiRF Star III GPS receiver with TMC where it's supported.

As this is a 3G device, it also has a forward facing camera, something the X650 doesn't have, and it's used for video calls. The rear 2 Megapixel camera features auto focus and has a small LED light in lieu of a camera flash. The picture quality appears to be somewhat better than on the X650, but still not great.

Sadly the camera software is just as slow and awkward to use and has the same dreadful icons. The X800 also features 256MB of ROM for storage and a bit over 127MB is available for usage. There's 64MB of RAM, but less than 20MB is available after a fresh restart, which isn't great and we'd like to have seen more RAM on a top-of-the-range model such as this.

The processor is the same 500MHz Samsung SC3 2442, but oddly enough the X800 seems to suffer from random lockups, something we didn't see with the X650. Hopefully this will be solved in a later firmware, as the review unit was supplied with the latest firmware version installed. The screen still measures 2.8-inches and has the same 480x640 resolution as the X650. Saying that, the X800 is already available while the X650 is only available for pre-order, which means at the moment the X800 is going up against the X600 which only has a 240x320 display. We're very fond of VGA resolution displays on devices such as this, and the screen is great for a wide range of usages including browsing the web, although you're still limited to what sites works well on a mobile device.

Just below the screen are the main keys of the phone; sadly the X800 has the same joystick as the X650 and it certainly hasn't grown on us since the X650 review. The layout of the keys are also somewhat odd, with the call and end call buttons on the far sides of the handset, and two soft keys quite far down from the display on each side of the joystick. On the left is a GPS button and on the right is a home key, all four buttons here are black with red markings.

All the way at the bottom is the Windows Start menu key and the ok/back key, and they share the same plastic details as the call and end call buttons. It's not that intuitive to use compared to other Smartphones we've used, and in all fairness we prefer the layout on the X650.