Motorola E1000
For a feature packed phone, Motorola’s E100 is moderately priced at £250. It runs Motorola’s own OS, so the only applications you can install are JAVA applets, but it has lots of built in features so if you’re an average user, the chances are you won’t need to.
If you buy the phone in the UK, your choices are Vodafone or 3. I went for the Vodafone version, which, as you’d expect, is covered in Vodafone branding. There’s a logo on the front, and back, and the default theme is red, with Vodafone logos everywhere. The Vodafone flash also has the Skins menu and the Java application loader disabled. This is needed to upload Java content to the phone, so by disabling it, Vodafone try to ensure the only way for you to get new content is through the use of their portal, Vodafone live. The branding can, however, be removed and the hidden menu items unlocked by flashing the phone with a freely available unbranded retail flash.
The phone has built-in Bluetooth, so you can transfer files from other devices and use the phone as a Bluetooth modem, but no Infrared. The Vodafone version comes with a CD containing mobilePhoneTools, a Motorola phone management suite to enable you to create ringtones and pictures message templates, but the 3 version doesn’t, so you’ll have to download it separately.
The E1000 is particularly good for playing videos and MP3s. MP4 and 3GP videos can be played up to QCIF format (176×144) in landscape on the 240×320 pixel screen. Due to the relatively small resolution in comparison to most videos, files can be resized and reduced to about 40Mb for a 30min episode, and a whole DVD fits comfortably onto a large enough expansion card. The phone includes 18Mb of usable storage and a 32Mb TransFlash expansion card, which fits into a tiny space under the battery. This means that they’re not hot-swappable, but a 256Mb card can be bought for £22.99. The cards come with an SD adaptor, so they fit into a standard card reader to transfer large movies.
Video calling is easy with the E1000, as it includes two cameras, one on the front, and one on the back, both of which can be used for video calls. The front camera can capture pictures and videos at 352×288 pixels, while the rear camera captures at a maximum of 1280×960. The resolution can be reduced to store more on the card, and the phone also includes an LED flash underneath the rear camera.
Sound quality on the phone is excellent for a device so small. Playback through the built in speakers on most phones usually sounds like a cheap pair of headphones turned up to maximum volume. MP3s can be copied to the phone as they are if there’s enough space available, or using Motorola’s PhoneTools, you can clip sections of them. The phone comes with the standard set of polyphonic ringtones, but only MP3s do the speaker justice. The phone has a 2.5mm audio socket, and includes a pair of headphones. Though you can pick up a 2.5mm to 3.5mm stereo adaptor from Maplin for £0.99.
Overall, I was impressed by the E1000, it packs alot of features into a small package. The phone is still quite new, but there are some good modding communities already working on themes and customisations.
E1000 Specification
| Network Types | UMTS, GSM 900/1800/1900 |
| Battery Life | 150 hrs talk, 250 hrs standby |
| Battery Type | 850 mAh Li-Ion |
| Weight | 140g |
| Dimensions | 52mm x 114mm x 23mm |
| Display | 262000 colour TFT |
| Display Resolution | 240 x 320 pixels |
| Camera Resolution | 1.3 Megapixel |
| Expansion Card | Transflash |
| High Speed Data | GPRS class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots) |
| Wireless Internet | WAP 2.0 |
| Java | MIDP 2.0 |
| Polyphonic Ringtones | 24 chord |
| Infrared | No |
| Bluetooth | Yes |
| Predictive Text | iTAP |
| Other Features | Email client, MP3-Player, PC-Sync, Assisted GPS, Alarm, Calendar |
Videos on the E1000
To resize videos and reduce their filesize to play on the E1000, get mpegableX4 live and MPEG4 Direct Maker, the use the settings below. MPEG4 Direct Maker is only needed if the videos you have are in a format other than MPEG. These settings give good quality and small filesize.
Use MPEG4 Direct Maker to create MPG (MPEG-1 video CD, compatible with nero)
Use MPEGable:
Video encoding – 128kbit/sec, ISO MPEG4. Variable bitrate. Adaptive framerate:
Full, Compression Quality: High Quality
Audio Encoding – 48Kbit/sec MPEG4 AC 16000Hz, mono
Interoperability – 3GPP MPEG4, AAC
Video Preprocessing – All frames, user defined – 16.50Hz
Image Preprocessing – Cropping/resizing: QCIF Bilinear. Uncheck high quality, constrain proportions
Display Dimension: User defined: 320×240
E1000 Resources
MyMemory.co.uk – 256Mb TransFlash card
Maplins – 2.5mm to 3.5mm Stereo Adaptor
3g.co.uk E1000 Forum
HowardForums.com
