vB Easy Archive - Thoughts on the Mitac 8380

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Thoughts on the Mitac 8380
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Posted by: DaninChina

Well, I see that a lot of people on the forum are trying this phone out but no one has posted a review yet...

So, I figure I will give it a shot - (of course, feel free to add your own opinions / corrections)...

The Mitac Mio 8380 -

I had been considering other phones, but I ended up deciding on this one since it had pretty much every feature I wanted in a phone (and was available that day). Given that it has an MMC slot I thought that I could keep it for a long time and it would still be a useful phone with features equal to or better than others on the market for some time to come...

Seemed a good value in Hong Kong at around 3680 HKD, packed with 2 batteries, phone case, 32 MB MMC card, recharging cradle & additional software (also free software upgrades for 1 year)...

The good:

+ Great screen, even in sunlight
+ Very customizable - it's very easy to personalize nearly every aspect of the phone
+ Has Mp3 player
+ Synchronizes with PC very easily (maybe not a good phone if you have a Macintosh)

+ Takes video clips with sound
+ 40 chord polyphony
+ Triband
+ Mine came with a game called "Metal Strike" - plays similar to Ikari Warriors...pretty sweet for a mobile phone...
+ Plays video clips - you can load the phone with a movie if your memory card is big enough...
+ Midi ringtones come across loudly, now everyone around me gets to listen to Weezer when I receive a call...

+ keypad short cuts easliy assigned for speed dialing or to open applications...
+indexing feature on contacts is really good...the phone list gets cut down in front of your eyes as you enter the letters of someone's name
+ can support display in English but still allows for entry of chinese characters (for the minority of you who speak English most of the time but occasionaly need to see Chinese characters or write in Chinese)

The bad:

- sometimes there is a pause while loading certain programs
- Is app-locked out of the box; can be unlocked with the right programs...haven't tried yet...
- Camera resolution is only 280 x 352 at best
- no MP3 ringtones
- No bluetooth (but not an issue for me since I don't have any bluetooth gadgets nor intend to get any in the forseeable future)
- Battery life is not great. If used sparingly, the phone will last a little over 2 days on a single charge. Annoyingly, the "battery low" indicator comes up when power levels are just under 50%
- While the exterior is not ugly, from the outside it looks like just another plasticy-silver phone

Other observations:

- phone is bigger than many other clamshells on market, however still quite small when you consider all of its capabilities - comprable to a p800...
- I normally keep only e-mail information for my "contacts" list in Outlook...having these people clutter up my phone is annoying, but tolerable since the sorting feature works so well
- Have read about complaints with the menu speed but I haven't noticed any major problems (though in all honesty my old old Motorola was faster when switching menus)...
- reception seems average
- earpiece volume is not quite as loud as my old Motorola, but still acceptable
- I really dislike the idea of a "app lock", however I haven't really found a need for the 3rd party applications where the app lock could be an issue.
- I haven't subscribed to MMS or GPRS services, so I can't say how this phone performs in that regard.
- It is neat being able to compose e-mail on the phone and then have it transferred to my Outlook outbox whenever I sync the phone.
- Guess I should try using the phone to look at Word or Excel files, but come on, I see enough of those at work and who wants to mess with one on your phone?

- Since the phone has some Microsoft and Mio applications to cover similar tasks (there are 2 phone book programs included, for example), it can be confusing when there is overlap - I think there are 3 different menus where you can select ringtones and I'm never sure which one will actually ring after I've been messing with the settings unless I call myself.

Conclusion - While not perfect, I am pleasantly surprised at how well the phone works overall. The Smartphone 2002 interface has been helpfully tweaked by some of the software included by Mio - you can view apps and other functions in the traditional 9 x 9 grid if you so choose. (Personally), coming from using an ancient Motorola, this is quite an improvement. Maybe not the phone for everyone - (definitely not for a techno-phobe), but good enough for me...

It will be interesting to see how future upgrades to the Microsoft Smartphone OS improve things...considering that this is one of the earlier incarnations of the program, they (and Mitac) have done a (surprisingly) respectable job.

Posted by: kimcheeboy

I'd like to add my comments after owning a Mio for 2 weeks then selling it.

Personally, it was a very very feature rich phone. So good that I could leave my iPaq PDA at home since it did everything the PDA could..except NES/GB emulation of course...

I found my Mio is be a bit unresponsive. I'm used to fairly quick actions on my Samsungs/Ericsson, but the Mio would lag behind at times while browsing through my contacts and menus. A quick reset would fix it but it's obvious the RAM was filling up.

The earpiece volume was fairly low, but usable. Not even close to the volume of the V200 or T610. But more disappointing to me was the fact that my Mio seemed to have a very dull microphone. Meaning that it would not pick up my voice very loudly so the person on the other end would have issues hearing me. And this happens regardless of reception and even in perfectly quiet rooms. Definitely the most disappointing flaw that made me switch phones. Surely, it's a good PDA, but it failed at the most basic and fundamental requirement, that being a phone. However, I must cover my tracks by saying that this was my Mio only and may not apply to all Mios.

I found the battery life fine since I would sync/charge it in the cradle every night anyways.

Overall, I'm very impressed by the Smartphone platform. If only the Mio didn't have the microphone issue, I surely would have kept it. However, the new Moto MS smartphone looks very promising. Although it doesn't have a camera, it seems to look good on paper. But does anybody seem to find a very very sharp resemblence of the Moto to the Mio? Check out the button layout, direction pad and soft keys. The hinge and top flip assembly and design look almost identical. Maybe it's just me, but anybody else notice the same thing?

Posted by: formulaben

After twice having taken the journey of having "the ultimate" phone/pda combo, I have decided to go back to my trusty Nokia and just use a pocket pc. The Nokia 6340i is a great solid phone with great battery life and reception. An ipaq pocket pc is much better at doing the things that a smartphone is supposed to do. Maybe in the future it will be better, but the only drawback I can see is that you have to carry two items. After spending all that money on something that doesn't do the job as good as before, it doesn't seem so bad anymore. As awesome the technology is, they still have a long way to go before a "Smartphone" replaces the phone and pda combo.