[Non-Touchscreen Windows Mobile Other] vma:
"How bad is the Vodafone branding?"

It says vodafone on the phone under the screen, so you cannot remove it. It does not annoy me, though I am using a different operator. I compared it with a real life Toshiba version and it looks as good (the colours of the keys are different on the Toshiba version and it says Toshiba instead of Vodafone).

On the software side, it will boot after a hardreset into German language and with the Vodafone skin. You can revert to the default WM6 skin and choose the language between English, German, French and Turkish.

The annoying customization is with some few icons, which have been replaced by Vodafone ones, like the Explorer icon. Nothing dramatic, but a little weird. That is supposed to make life easier for existing customers, who are already used to those icons... What a stupid idea, I say, in case the decision makers are reading this.

"Was it SIM locked?"

No. It did not have any lock what so ever.

I wonder if those phones where distributed by Vodafone unlocked and I actually tend to believe that, because:

1) I have found no reference what so ever about unlocking this phone.

2) There are so many of them being sold, all of them unlocked, even the ones being sold by private sellers, whom I cannot imagine to have found an unlocker that I did not find.

Anyway, to make sure, search for the words "ohne SIM-Lock".

"Is it as sluggish as the reviews suggest?"

It is the fanciest phone I own now and I have Nokia nGage, Nokia Communicator 9210i, Qtek 9090, 2x Universal, HP iPaq 514...

Even my wife liked it (must be the first time) and the finishing of it is quite good. It looks much more expensive than it actually is.

The bad side of it: the screen is always with grease spots from fingers or the ear, much like the iPhone...

Regarding the software, I have not many complaints. I dont think it is sluggish. It runs Route 66 acceptably well and TCPMP runs the same episodes properly, which I already watched on my Universal.

So overall, I have no issues with speed, BUT I do not intend to run software on it like I do on my Universal. Of course there is a difference between 260MHz and 520MHz... The Universal has twice the speed!

But the phone does not feel more sluggish than the other smartphones I have. Beware this is a subjective opinion...

"How is the battery life & phone reception?"

Battery life is OK for me, as I let my phone charge over night. I simply cannot risk going out in the morning with battery at 50%, as I might have a bad day with lots of customers calling.

Still, I think the battery is pretty good. It has 1100Ah. And it seems to charge very fast. I imagine the battery should manage two days of normal use.

"Do any of the vendors on ebay.de ship to the UK?"

I live in Portugal and still got mine... Yes most will ship within Europe, but you should clarify this BEFORE.

However, bear in mind that you may have increased costs regarding money transfer. Within EU, all countries using the Euro can make transfers at low charges (i.e. I pay 1 Euro). I don't know how expensive it will be from the UK.

"I'm actually looking for a dirt cheap, qwertybar, GPS enabled WM standard device"

Well, I was looking for a cheap GPS enabled WM mobile phone, that would allow for easy chatting and mailing.

My HP iPaq 514 is a great device and was very cheap (new in a shop with 2 years warranty 129 Euro... no GPS but with WLAN). I have an external Bluetooth GPS device, but it was the lack of a keyboard that I did not like. Being always online, thanks to a flat rate, is inviting me to write text. Forget T9 for that... Plus, I don't care for WLAN anymore.

The Universal is of course the best phone and can be bought at good prices on eBay, but not always do I want to walk around with a brick.

So this phone does:

- look pretty good

- is slim and small

- has built in GPS

- has a usable keyboard

- is cheap

Problems:

- no WLAN (don't need it anyway thanks to the flatrate)

- QWERTZ keyboard (not QWERTY!!!): basically the Y and the Z keys are exchanged, one gets used to it pretty fast

- not the fastest CPU, but that does not matter much, because:

- WM6 Smartphone Edition has no touch screen functionality (logical) and because of that, won't run most programs designed for WM6

- many programs for WM6 Smartphone Edition have been designed for mobiles with the smaller screen resultions (276x200 (not sure if that is right) instead of 320x200) and won't run, either

So the last two points mean you won't have that many programs and games. Still I found all I need.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

vma