Motorola E680i Review

Motorola E680i – Cons

• E680i is a bit harder to use than other PDA’s. The screen is smaller and the OS is not always intuitive. Example: I sometimes got frustrated using the address book to send a message or make a phone call. Coincidentally, I think Palm had the best address book I have ever used.
• The start screen’s appointments list cannot show multiple items. So only the next appointment is visible, unlike PocketPC that shows upcoming appointments in the next few days.
• The battery life is quite short (less than one day) if you play music, even if you’re only using wired headphones.
• The CPU is quite slow, and general phone response feels sluggish, especially when loading the calendar.
• Sometimes, callers have difficulty hearing what I say – could be a radio stack issue.
• It can only use Realplayer for playing media files, and hence, no equaliser or adjustable progress slider bars. Very basic functions.
• Playlist can only hold 50 media files. However, there is a hack available. Scroll to the end of the review to see.
• Camera resolution is low; pictures taken are fuzzy.
• Can only view Microsoft Office documents (Picsel viewer), and not edit them.
• Not many 3rd-party programmers / hobbyists are writing programs for this unit (as far as I know).  The only downloads available are from Motorola’s official website (link – remember to select model E680i at the top left corner to get the *real* list), and they’re multimedia candy rather than useful apps.
• Less-than-smooth synchronising of Outlook items with Phone Organizer. Synch program may crash if there are too many items to synch, so it’s more stable to choose exact appointments/contacts to synch. Further, you need to select the correct "USB MODE" on the phone before you connect! That’s more effort than I can bear, so I don’t bother…

Motorola E680i – Pros

• Great calendar application (better than PPC or Palm), even though it doesn’t have a yearly view. It’s good that the monthly view includes information such as time of appointment, and nature (business or personal).
• It comes pre-loaded with a Chinese input system!
• FREE Chinese-English dictionary INCLUDED!
• Linux-based (say no to MS monopoly!)
• Cool voice recognition commands. Look like Captain Kirk demanding his phaser to open voice dial! No, seriously it’s neat… you don’t need to program it, just press a button say the contact you want to dial, or the application you want to load, and E680i will dial/load/open as commanded.
• Can read and use 2GB SD cards.
• and MOST IMPORTANTLY: BLUE TOOTH HEADPHONES!!!

The last reason could be, and probably is, the ONLY reason that I’m still hanging onto this machine.

Motorola E680i

I should mention that I don’t use all the functions that are advertised for this gadget. For example, I don’t go on the internet or connect to office intranets, send emails or instant messages. So the E680i may actually have a lot more good points than what I’ve stated above. Would love to hear if any of you have neat tips or tricks using this thing. 

-limpet man 

Links

Motorola E680i

Hack for extending realplayer’s 50 song playlist limit

Disclaimer: We take no responsibility if you damage or fry your phone trying this….etc. I know it works on mine, but only after a lot of experimentation. Don’t expect it to all go to plan on try#1. However, I’ve never ever done any programming before this in my life and have never hacked anything except with a knife so if I can do it, any monkey can…

The original thread is here, at HowardForums by a really really really nice guy called yantz.. Long live yantz, you freed my music soul… But it’s a long read so for the convenience of Kaitech readers, here are the relevent bits quoted for you….

Yantz:

just to show you its not difficult doing basic hack into the phone.
download linloader package here

there are 4 files inside.
put phone to usb mass storage mode and connect to pc
make sure explorer is set to view hidden files
explore to sdcard\.system\QTDownLoad
create new folder "loader" there
put loader.png, loader-sm.png and lin_loader in the new loader folder
put test.lin into phone’s main folder
explore to sdcard\.system\java
open PlugCardDB there using any unix compatible editor, wordpad should be fine, but not notepad
if you have installed some apps in sd, there should be quite a long list there, otherwise it will show only 2 lines
anyway, add these to the bottom of the file:

[AppLinkRecord100000001] <- change this to a number AppLinkCount+1
AllPosition = 101 <- change this to a number that doesnt conflict
BigIcon = loader.png
Comment = 
Directory = ../../../../mmc/mmca1/.system/QTDownLoad/loader
Exec = lin_loader
Group = 3
Icon = loader-sm.png
InstalledDate = 
JavaId = -1
MpkgFile = 
Name = LinLoader
OsVersion = 
Position = 10
Rotation = 
Shared = 0
Type = 2
uid = 100000001 <- change this to same as above

save the file, plug out cable and restart phone.
after restart, you should have new "Appname" with arrow down icon in tools menu.
tap and hold test.lin -> open with -> Appname <- appname should be at the bottom of the list
tick always open this program….
close and reopen file manager and you should see a new file test.txt created.
at this stage, you have successfully installed linloader, a very very useful tool that enable you to easily run scripts from phone’s file manager

Yantz (next posting)

now lets try hacking into the realplayer settings
create a script to extract the config file from the phone.

#!/bin/bash
cp /ezxlocal/download/appwrite/setup/ezx_realplayer.cfg /diska

save the file as anything.lin. to save you the trouble, i’ve created the file for you. get it here
put jus587.lin to phone’s main folder
tap the file
close and reopen file manager
new file ezx_realplayer.cfg will be created in phone’s main folder
edit that file as per previous instructions by mfd-2h using wordpad
save the file and modify the script to copy back the cfg into its proper location

#!/bin/bash
mv /diska/ezx_realplayer.cfg /ezxlocal/download/appwrite/setup

save and tap it
close and reopen file manager
the ezx_realplayer.cfg should disappear from the phone’s main folder
congratulations, your playlist can now hold more than 50 songs

 Jus587:

  I’ve now gone past the first step but got stuck on the second part.

ezx_realplayer.cfg file has appeared
but this does not have "MaxNuItem = 50" line.
I’m having trouble from here.
I do not know what/how to edit from here on.

yantz~ can you explain in an easier way??

Yantz:

heres my edited ezx_realplayer.cfg:

[MediaControlItem]
CodecName = 
DefaultStorageDir = /ezxlocal/download/appwrite/
MusicShopURL = http://wap.monternet.com/?customportal=moto680i
Mute = 0
PreConfigURL1 = 
PreConfigURL2 = 
PreConfigURL3 = 
Repeat = 1
SearchOrder = Phone,Memory Card
Shuffle = 1
VideoMode = 1
VolumeLevel = 10
[MediaLimitationItem]
MaxNumOfBookmark = 20
MaxNumOfHistory = 20
MaxNumOfItem = 5000
MaxNumOfList = 7
MaxNumOfMediaFile = 5000
[MediaLimitationItemWithoutMMC]
MaxNumOfBookmarkWithoutMMC = 
MaxNumOfHistoryWithoutMMC = 
MaxNumOfItemWithoutMMC = 
MaxNumOfListWithoutMMC = 
MaxNumOfMediaFileWithoutMMC = 
[MediaProxyItem]
ProfileName = 移åÅ ¨æ¢¦ç½‘
Proxy = 0
ProxyAddress = 
ProxyPort = 8080

you can copy paste some/all fields 🙂

since you can see ezx_realplayer.cfg in phone’s main folder, it means your linloader is successfully installed. it would be very very easy to do other basic hack from here :clapping:

ps: i highly recommend mfc @ http://www.rcsc.sisrs.com/mfc its more targeted at moto linux phones

 jus587

Well, I tried editting .cfg file with copying parts from yours..
and I have to change jus587.lin file as well, right??

I did, but the .cfg file does not disappear.
Strange!

Yantz

if the cfg doesnt disappear, then it could mean you didnt edit the jus587.lin file right. 

you can edit .lin files with phone’s notepad. just tap and hold -> open with -> notepad, but dont tick always open program……

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