I got a personal note from E-TEN Corporation the other day, and I am glad to say that they have released a couple of new devices.  The X610 and V900 were announced a while back, but have finally come to market.

The X610 is similar to the X600, an entry level device, but sporting a 2.8″ VGA screen, 400mHz processor, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE radio, 256MB ROM and 64MB of RAM.  The big upgrade here is that E-TEN has created a custom interface for the device using Spb Mobile Shell 2.1. The X610 is reminiscent of the HTC Touch, with its Cube interface.

The V900 is a bit more beefie, with a 2.8″ VGA screen, 533mhz Processor, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE/ and 3G/3.5G (HSDPA), 256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM.  It’s claim to fame is an antenna for its FM radio and a TV out cable.  Both devices come with WM 6.1 Professional, have a 1530 mAh battery and sport internal GPS chipsets for turn-by-turn navigation (application not included).

Both of these devices will be coming to Gear Diary for review, so stay tuned, and watch the site for their unboxings and their reviews!

Our E-TEN contact has just forwarded news of their latest accolade, the E-TEN Glofiish DX900 has won the Best Choice of Computex 2008 Award. I have to admit that after reading about the DX900, I think it sounds pretty amazing myself.

Get this: it is a dual-SIM handset, it “features support for both high-speed 3.5G (UMTS/HSDPA) and 2G (GSM/EDGE) communications, as well as GPS and Wi-Fi connectivity, [it has] a high-resolution VGA display, and a 3-megapixel auto-focus camera.”

Wowza.

The DX900 is a simple solution to an increasingly in-demand requirement for consumers who need access to two mobile communications services, but don’t want to carry around two devices at the same time. The DX900 allows users to have uninterrupted access to two separate phone services, for example one for business and one personal, or one for calls and another for data, in a single device. Frequent business travelers can use local SIM card and home SIM card in the same device.

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… Breley!  He’s the winner of a very gently used, E-TEN X800 courtesy of E-TEN and Gear Diary!

I’ve reprinted his story here for everyone to read:

This actually occurred a week ago. I took my wife, my 7-year-old son, and our 2 month-old-son out for a walk in the park, so to speak. I decided to take my X7501 along and use my GPS software to find some Geocaches. The local park we chose has about 6 caches, plug a multicache. My older son and I were dutifully following the GPS coordinates, easily finding a few of the caches.

It was a great early evening…sunny, 74 degrees, so we enjoyed every minute of it. We were making good time and took the path less traveled to reach a particular cache. The wife and newborn stayed on the white gravel path and my older son and I scrounged around in the underbrush. The cache had to be here! The GPS says so. Unfortunately, on closer examination I noticed the internal gps had dropped the satellite signal and somehow the screen stopped animating and the cache image on the screen was in fact waaaaay behind us. We had overshot it. To make matters worse, it was getting darker, and we had about 2 miles to walk back to the car. And for any one you with small children, you quickly find out they have small bladders. “Where can I go pee, daddy???!” my son wailed. “Can your GPS point out a restroom?” my now-irritated wife asked sarcastically. Ignoring the remark, I gave my son a quick lesson on how to water the nearest tree. Whew! At least we got that out of the way.

Half-way back to the car it got VERY dark, late twilight to be sure. Unfortunately, our larval offspring #2 decided it was time to announce in his wailing siren of a coughing cry that it was time for mom to dispense proprietary dairy product. Luckily for us, the white gravel was quite visible and easy to follow and we found a bench. Nothing like the blind leading the blind, but the X7501 gave off sufficient light that I could use it as a makeshift flashlight to aid in food dispersal. Normally I bring a small flashlight when hiking, but somehow forgot this time. Doh!
We made it back finally in nearly pitch black conditions. Back at the car I examined the X7501 more closely to see what the matter was with the earlier screen freeze: it was a reminder that had popped up underneath reminding me to bring a flashlight. I had forgotten to dismiss it properly!

I want to thank everyone who entered. Picking a single winner was difficult.  I had to read through things 2 and 3 times before I could single one out, they were all so good!  I also want to thank E-TEN for graciously providing the X800 for us to review.

Breley, we’ll be contacting you shortly with instructions on how to claim your prize!

If you haven’t gotten your entry for the X800 in yet, now is your chance!  The contest ends tonight.  If you haven’t yet, click the contest link at the top of the site, and tell me about your worst GPS nightmare.  Be creative, make me laugh, and you’re sure to have a great chance at winning!

Entries close tonight at 11:59:59. No entries after midnight will be accepted. The Gear Diary Team is going to pick the winner this weekend, so WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?

Good Luck!!!

I’ve reviewed the device, I’ve posted the pictures, now YOU get to keep the E-TEN X800, courtesy of Gear Diary and E-TEN!!  The device is in MINT condition, AND I’ve got all of the accessories that came with it. The ear buds have NEVER been used (so no worries, there). I hope you won’t mind if the device is just a little bit used.  I’ve taken EXCELLENT care of it; and anyone that looks at it will think you’ve been the original owner from the beginning.

Now, I know you’re wondering, how do I win this awesome toy?  Well, that’s pretty easy.  Polish up your writing skills and tell me all about your most interesting and humorous (lack of) GPS story. How lost have you gotten?  How did GPS keep you from getting lost, or rescued you from being lost?  Was the experience positive or negative? Did it make you laugh, or cry; or both?

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One of the things that I like the best about this job is the chance to look at and use some of the latest, greatest gadgets on the market today. I like writing for Gear Diary the best because of the diverse amount of products we get to look at. Recently, as many of you know, I’ve had the opportunity to take a look at a couple of new devices from E-TEN.  The E-TEN X800 is the top of the line model of the X series devices. Let’s take a quick look and see how the X800 stacks up.

Please note, that due to the recent site loss that Gear Diary had, I’m reprinting some of the previous posts related to this device as part of this review.

I’ve owned a number of different E-TEN devices, the M500, the G500, the M700, and now the X800 (and soon to be X650).  I was really concerned about this particular device, as the build quality of the previous three devices left a little to be desired. In fact, my daughter has been using the M700 for the past three months or so, and the device had some serious problems now. It is constantly getting stuck in boot loader mode, and getting it to turn on normally is a hit or miss exercise.

However, that’s another story for another time. Let’s take a look at E-TEN’s new slim, VGA powerhouse, the X800!!

The Unboxing

The box is WAY smaller than it looks here.  It’s really VERY tiny.

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I just got a quick note from E-TEN regarding the recent post on the announcement of the M810 and M750, and I wanted to pass it on to everyone. The M810 and M750 share identical body styles (which I really happen to like, BTW). There are just a couple subtle differences between the two devices:

The M810 has:

• HSDPA
• A Front Facing VGA Camera for Video Calls
• A Rear Facing 2MP Camera for Pictures

The M750 has

• EDGE
• A Rear Facing 2MP Camera for Pictures

The E-TEN M750 (no front camera)

It’s always fun to get news of new devices in my inbox, today we have a little somthin’ somethin’ from E-Ten, as they are now announcing their Glofiish M810 and M750.

According to E-Ten, their newest Pocket PC Phones “harness the latest mobile hardware technologies together with innovations in software to create a pair of sleekly portable, multi-connected devices, designed to help the new breed of bloggers, podcasters, video makers, and chatters, stay online and updated wherever they are.”

Read on for the full specs and a couple of (huge) high resolution pictures; as usual I have highlighted the specifications which I thought were interesting.

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