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(More customer reviews)What looks good on paper is horrible in use. I would not recommend this phone to anyone, and I will NEVER buy another ETEN product. I posted my first review on a different Amazon listing for this same phone and that listing has been de-activated and this new listing has appeared, so I'm reposting my review in the hopes that it will save someone the headache that I went through with the phone and the company.
I bought this phone about just after it came out, in late January 2007. I was so excited to get it. On paper, the phone looked like the real deal, with everything, GPS, EDGE, Wi-Fi, slider keyboard, touch screen...the works. 3G wasn't such a big deal when the m700 came out, so I could live with EDGE/GPRS. I got the phone, and for the first two weeks I thought it was the greatest thing ever featurewise. Construction-wise, it had a lot to be desired. The slider keyboard is cheap. Compared to other slider phones, ATT Tilt, TMobile Wing, HTC Touch Dual, the sliding mechanism is rough. Those other phones have lightly spring-loaded rollers that make the sliding mechanism very smooth and pleasant. The m700 is just bare plastic on plastic, almost gritty, and difficult to open. The phone is also bulky. If it's in your pocket, forget about trying to fish it out if you're driving, or sitting down.
Everyone else who called me hated my new phone. All inbound callers to this phone were greeted by an ear-splitting screech that lasted for about 2 tenths of a second - just long enough to say OW! and short enough to think it was a fluke, except that it happened every time. To test it, I switched over to my old Motorola v600, and my callers stopped getting the ear-popping screech. When I switched back to my m700, the screech came back.
After 4 months (the end of May), my phone broke. I was on a road trip, using the m700 as an mp3 player (the line out volume was very low) and as my GPS navigation at the same time, when the phone screen went black and a DOS looking boot screen showed up. Then it rebooted again, and again, and again until it finally shut itself off, never to turn on again.
That's when I found out about ETEN's non-existent support. Check ETEN's website and you'll find that there are no US contact numbers for the company. After a fair amount of research and repeatedly pestering the retailer I bought the phone from ([...] - don't buy from them either!), they finally tell me there is only a single (yes only one!) importer for ETEN phones in the US. I don't know this for sure, but I had emailed every contact email on ETEN's website and did not receive a single response. The retailer tells me that ETEN does NOT deal directly with customers and that they won't respond if I contact them directly. Funny, because when I first contacted Samstores about my broken phone, they told me to contact ETEN. I had to hassle with Samstores for almost 2 weeks before they finally gave me an RMA number for the supposed 1 year USA warranty on the phone.
I paid to ship my phone back. After 3 weeks, no response. I called the retailer and left messages - no response. Whenever I spoke with someone who said their "guy" would call me back tomorrow - never called me back. I had to keep calling until someone answered. Finally I got a hold of someone who told me they contacted ETEN. They tell me, "2 more weeks!" I wait and wait. 2 weeks goes by, still no phone. I call the retailer AGAIN and they contact ETEN who tells them it's almost ready. Another week goes by, I finally get the phone back. ZERO work has been done on the phone. It is in the exact same condition as when I shipped it back. I contact the retailer again and ask for a refund or even an exchange for a new phone. They tell me OK, send the phone back and they'll refund my money. It's early August now. I send the phone back with delivery confirmation, pay for shipping again, and wait. I see through online tracking that the phone has been delivered so I call the retailer. Now they tell me, they're not going to issue a refund, that they're shipping the phone back to ETEN again! I'm livid. I pester them every day until they give me the number for their contact at ETEN.
I call him immediately. BEWARE! ETEN's policy is REPAIR ONLY. They will not exchange phone or issue a refund. He tells me they're using a different place now to do the repairs, someplace more "reputable" in California. I wait three weeks, still no phone. I call again, only to discover, for some crazy reason my phone has been shipped back to the UK! After many more phone calls and ANOTHER 3 weeks, I get my phone back. I don't even want the phone anymore, but I'm hoping everything is fixed so I can at least salvage it on eBay. I open the box and plug the phone in. To my utter shock, the phone is STILL BROKEN!!! It is, once again, in the exact same condition in which I shipped it to them - broken. So out of the 1 year "warranty" and the 4 months I used the phone, it was being "repaired" for almost 5 months. In the meantime I bought a different phone - the TMobile Dash (HTC Excalibur) - a fantastic phone, in place of the ETEN phone. No GPS but much smaller, lighter and with an external keyboard that works well for one-handed use, and all the symbols on the keys light up. On the ETEN m700, only the letters would be backlit, so if you were trying to type in the dark, none of the symbols or numbers were visible.
Samstores finally offered me a refund after I contacted them about the second non-repair and threatened to take them to small claims court, just send the phone back and they'll issue a credit to my credit card, they say. I ship the phone back again, paying for shipping again, and call them when I see the delivery confirmation. I don't see the credit on my card statement after a week, so I call them again, and they give me the runaround AGAIN! After two weeks, they blame the distributor. I call the distributor and leave a message about the phone. He calls me back the next day and says he has issued the refund. I call Samstores after this and they say, "We have good news for you...your refund has been issued!" It is now mid-October. Almost 6 months of nothing and I finally get the refund I had asked for in the first place.
So, for those of you considering this phone, it's a fun gadget. Beware if it breaks because you could be in for a long, drawn-out headache. At any rate, they'll quote you 6 weeks for the repair which means you'll have no phone in the meantime, and who knows when you'll get it back, and if it will even work when you get it. Personally, I will NEVER buy another ETEN product, and I would tell anyone who is considering buying an ETEN phone not to buy anything from that company.
Click Here to see more reviews about: ETEN Glofish M700 Sliding Keyboard Pocket PC Phone ( Unlocked )
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