The design of the X600 is, I must confess, pretty swish. The deep red strip around the edge of the handset and the black finish gives it a classy feel. It's a very nice looking handset with a black brushed aluminium around the screen and a rubberised outer edge for increased "hold-a-bility". The navigation buttons impressed me too - well spaced out, perfect size and they fit in with the overall design.

The joystick (I'm calling it a joystick, OK?) sits proud of the device by quite some way, but it's by no means ungainly.

A cool outer shell is all well and good, but we should check under the hood first. A Samsung CPU runs at 400mhz and there's quad-band GSM / GPRS/ EDGE but alas no 3G. You do, however, get that GPS (SiRF Star III) functionality plus WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, a microSD card slot, 2 megapixel camera and an FM Radio. There's no VGA screen here, but it's still very viewable even in direct daylight. The OS is Windows Mobile Pro, which means touch-screen action and a stylus.

OK, so a quick tour around the device. As usual we've got a little video for you. This one ends a bit abruptly because my camcorder batteries gave out, but it's only about 2 seconds shorter at the end than I intended.

Up on the top of the handset there's a cool "GPS" logo, just in case you were in any doubt about the capabilities of the phone.

On the right side there's your power button and, lower down, the camera button. This, when the handset is rotated, is in the perfect "trigger" position for taking photos.

At the bottom you've got the industry-standard miniUSB port, so anyone upgrading from most other Windows Mobile phones won't have to worry about a new mass of cables. Next is the microSD card slot, letting you simply push in a microSD card. Just to the left is the microphone. Below you can also see the stylus tucked away on the right - it's a retractable one and needs a gentle pull from the back to come out.

On the left strip is the 2.5mm audio / handsfree port and the reset button someway above it. Just above that is the button we showed you in the video, which activates the Voice Commander software for simply talking to your phone and making it do your bidding. The volume up / down keys are right above that.

Those navigation keys we mentioned earlier are big, bold, rubber buttons near to the bottom of the handset. Luckily they're not as close to the base as the Glofiish X800, which has somewhat fiddly thin navigation keys right next to the bottom edge making using them tricky.

The GPS / satnav program of your choice gets a dedicated key and the other keys are spaced well around it. Pressing the "Home" key gets you into a quick-launch application letting you hope into text-messages, media player, FM radio or calculator etc.

At the back is that 2 megapixel camera. It's looks like it's got a flash and a vanity mirror, although I couldn't find a way to enable the flash, so I'm thinking it's a rather clever blank bit of plastic. You should also be able to see the speaker here too.

Inside

The amount of extra software loaded into the Glofiish handset is staggering. Most of the software isn't your "added extra" variety either, it's mostly stuff to either enhance your user experience or simply to make the phone do... phone stuff. For example, if I look into "Settings->Remove Programs" on the X600 there's stuff like "E-TEN PhoneService" and "E-TEN BatteryMeter". Surely some of this stuff should be tucked away in the extended ROM? Either way, even if you do accidentally delete some of this stuff and want it back, there's an "Application Recovery" option in the "Utilities" section which will let you put them back again.

Also in the "Utilities" area is the option to restore back to factory defaults, a Bluetooth Manager and Backup utility. These can be seen below. I like the addition of the Bluetooth Manager as, unfortunately, the Microsoft version isn't as friendly..

You'll also find M-Desk, which gives a desktop-like experience to your handset..

The 400Mhz CPU runs everything pretty well and menus zip along quite nicely. The camera application, however, sometimes took 5-6 seconds to start and we found that the preview screen judders around as if it's having trouble dealing with the camera input.

This Glofiish handsets also comes with tweaks courtesy Cyberon and SPB Mobile Shell. The former give you voice-control over your phone - you may have seen this in the video earlier. Simply hit the button on the side of the phone and say, "Call Bob" or "Play Kylie Minogue" and it'll do it for you. SPB Mobile Shell brings you weather forecasts and quick access to your contacts, alarm and recently used applications. There's also a nice speed-dial application.

E-TEN have also added a nice ringtone adder program, call filter and something called "Scenarios", which is basically your profile settings.

A feature that's also been added is a telephone blocking application which will allow only certain people to call / text you. There's extra features here too - like the ability to stop unknown numbers, block all calls completely or send a text to those on your block list. This could be useful if you're trying to get some work done and only want to allow your wife to call you etc.

There's the standard Office Mobile, Messenger application and the excellent Cyberon Voice Commander for complete hands-free control.

The FM Radio, after plugging in your headphones, is a nice added extra, so you can find your way to your destination while listening to your favourite station. I found that this not only does European FM frequencies (87.5 - 108Mhz) but Japanese and American frequencies too - great for travellers. There's a built-in scan facility and you can even add your favourite stations. The graphic equalizer is pretty swish too.

GPS

Hop into the "GPS" section of the programs listing and you're presented with the following three options. You can, of course, add your own satnav software - TomTom, Garmin or whatever. You can also add Google Mobile Maps for free.

When you hit the GPS button on the front of the device it fires up the GPS Viewer, which shows your location by way of longitude and latitude plus your speed and compass heading. You can switch to this 3D view (below) to show you where the satellites are in the sky too. You can, of course, change this button to start your favourite satnav software. I like the addition of software like this though, as it's a good sanity check and lets you know everything is working - and that the GPS functionality is onboard.

Other extra touches like a location sender will let you text your position to a friend, whilst a GPS updater will ensure that your X600 is talking to the closest satellites for a quicker lock.

The GPS works quickly and, especially with the satellite data update software updating things, the lock-time is fantastically quick.

Camera

The camera application, as we mentioned earlier, is a little disappointing. It takes a good few seconds to load up and then, on the X600, there's a definite stutter as you move the handset around to take a shot. Also, when you hold the phone with your "trigger finger" on the camera button, you'll find that photos ARE NOT taken in landscape format as default. This can be easily switched using the little "Phone" logo below, but I found it a little strange that this was the default setting, plus all my shots were being taken in 320x240 (a very low resolution) instead of 2 megapixel. This is probably one of my biggest bugbears about phones we review - all too many have their default camera settings on "Low" with the resolution set to "Normal" instead of "Superfine". It simply shouldn't be this way. I'm definitely not going to single out E-TEN here, because many other manufacturers ship their phones with camera settings on lower quality settings for no real reason.

Below you can see the camera preview window showing the various settings. This can either be shown or popped into the background when you're snapping photos. There's plenty of options to play with here - dimension / resolution, white balance, date stamp on / off, file format and special effects. I couldn't There's also a MutliMedia Manager to view your images and videos afterwards.

Below I've taken some shots on the phone after ramping up the quality to 2 megapixel. Inside shots come out fairly well, outside shots faired better. I found also that, with the delay in the preview-screen update, I had to wait a few seconds after pressing the camera button to save the shot. As usual, click on these previews for the straight-from-the-device images.

Although it may look like there's a flash at the back of the handset I doubt very much that it's there - there's no way of turning it on in the camera application.

Conclusion

The Glofiish X600 is a sturdy and well-designed handset which gives some nice extra touches. The lack of 3G and keyboard may prove to be a sticking point for some, but the style, added extras and WiFi capability make this a rather sexy handset with good specs considering its size. The phone itself operates well and the GPS capabilities worked flawlessly. The camera speed was a bit of a disappointment, but images did turn out reasonably well.

If you're looking for a good design, rugged and small PDA with GPS functionalities then I think that the Glofiish X600 definitely has a lot to offer. The extra functionality adds value and the Voice Commander, SPB Mobile Shell additions mean you'll be doing the majority of daily tasks without your stylus. This stylus is network-free, so you're free to add any SIM and get working straight away. It's definitely worth considering if you're in the market for a well-formed, easy-to-use GPS-enabled phone. If you really need a great quality camera and 3G too, check out the HTC Touch Cruise.

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