Technical Specifications and Features
If there is one area where the SPV C550 excels, its in applications. The capabilities of this handset are outstanding and the Window Mobile operating system has matured into a very solid collection of applications with supreme functionality.
The SPV C550 features a built in 1.3 megapixel camera with 2.0x digital zoom that takes average quality shots, but still not up to standalone digital camera quality. The additional filters that were available are a nice extra.
BlueTooth™, GPRS, wirefree™ modem and infrared are the included methods of communication on the SPV C550. I didn’t find any problems with these, although the 4 BlueTooth™ headsets I tried to pair for testing didn’t always appear first time.
Of course, one of the major points of the SPV C550 for the majority of consumers is the multimedia capability of the handset, be it MSN Messenger, video playback or MP3’s, the SPV 550 did well with whatever was thrown at it. The included 128mb mini SD card, whilst a welcome addition to the overall package, didn’t last long and would certainly need to be upgraded should media playback be your thing.
Of course with all this added functionality there is a consequence and with the SPV C550 this is speed. The handset is incredibly slow, from a boot up time of nearly 2 minutes, to a slow interface, the handset suffers from a major lack of speed, and what really makes this a major issue is the battery.
With a quoted standby of 6 days and a talk time of 4 hours its disappointing enough on paper, but in reality it’s even worse. Daily re-charges were not uncommon on the SPV C550 we tested and we found that even that was not enough sometimes.
As mobile handsets develop to become more comprehensive the manufacturers have to address this problem, especially as more and more businesses are adopting the Windows Smart Phone platform for their business needs.
During calls the SPV C550 was found to have quite a pronounced echo that meant it was quite hard to be heard, at the same time the speakerphone function was also found to be very quiet, even at top volume. Fortunately the BT was loud enough and avoided this problem, but the use of such headsets is not always practical, so this is definitely an area for improvement in future revisions.