The Dopod C730 aka HTC Cavalier reviewed.
My wife got me the new HTC Device Dubbed the Cavalier with a Dopod Branding and imported it from China for my birthday… Migrated my information over night and replaced my dash on the charger with this Dopod – NOW THATS LOVE!
I have had this bad boy for almost 3 weeks now and it’s just about time for my in depth review. First of all I love this phone in all its 3.5g Glory. Everything I didn’t like about my Dash has been improved upon (almost). I am going to run down a list of what I really like and then follow it up with its weaknesses. Check back later in the week for applications, hacks and configuration settings…
The Good:
- HSDPA is Super fast and I have seen up to 965kbps in Manhattan.
- 3g Is still faster than Edge or Gprs – I have seen up to 93kbps.
- Tethering a laptop to my Dopod is super fast.
- The processor is double that of the Dash @ 400mhz. This might not seem like a big deal to you mister 3ghz desktop… but trust me this is like the jump from 56k to Broadband.
- This smart phone is really smart – it does cut and paste out the box.
- 2mp Camera.
- Windows Mobile Standard 6.
- Battery life is much better as long as the device isn’t constantly switch between bands.
- Video streaming on this guy is awesome and so is mp3 streaming.
- My security cameras display on the dopod as well.
- Auto Dimming of the screen with an ambient sensor.
- The combination of the faster processor and faster bands puts my Dash to shame!
Now the bad...
- No touch screen.
- Built in speaker for playing music without headphones is just so-so.
- No flash on the camera.
- No GPS – Is this so hard to integrate now? Chips are so small!
- No upgrade on internal memory – Can we get a mandatory bump please?
So when my buddies push their iphone at me and grunt… Ug why you no have iPhone Admin?
I just say one word… HSDPA!
What phone do you guys use? Do you love it or hate it? What do you want your phone/pda to do that it can’t? Do you need help setting up your dopod on a local network? We can help! Hit us up in the comments! There is also a great thread over @ HoFo.
_TheDopodAdmiN_
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about 4 years ago
How does it work with Sling Box? Have you tried it yet? It was slow on the dash and i dont know if it was because of the 200mhz pro or the edge/gprs.
about 4 years ago
I love mine too, had it one week now. My only complaint is – where can I get an English manual?!? Some of the advanced features are hard to find and figure out, especially for the camera. If anyone knows of any good software for this please email me: dj_ion_stl@hotmail.com . Also admin, there are good, small bluetooth gps receivers for only around $60 on the web now…
about 4 years ago
Oh yeah, one more thing.. Is there an app for wm6 devices to control the audio? Even with all the settings maxed out, the headphone volume for anything other than calls is so low that it’s unusable.
about 4 years ago
@tmd Sling Works AMAZING on this thing!
@Bropod – I have an HTC manual in English (PDF) my asian friend found iT for me on their Taiwain site. I will post it for you tonight!
I use a media player with amp control so you can make it obnoxiously loud TCPMP. I have all the links available somewhere around here -and all the dash links I have on here will work as well!
What are you having trouble figuring out? Post it here and I will reply when i get the link for the manual!
FN Space activates Edit/Copy/Paste Mode – that took me a while!
Viva la HTC!
about 4 years ago
I would love to have all those links! I had problems with the camera usage.. there are so many functions and you have to know the shortcut key to access them..
about 4 years ago
Here is the Dopod C730 is here. I uploaded it to my server.
All I use for the camera is Snap… I set it to auto and called it a day. It works great!
As for the links for the apps and media player hit up the categories on the right hand side of the AskTheAdmin.com site and you will see DASH as a category. The links are in there!
Let me know if there is anything you cant figure out. That manual is KILLER … I little encyclopedia.
about 4 years ago
I would love to get that manual if you could send it or upload it somewhere.. my email is dj_ion_stl@hotmail.com – I am going to try that media player. I flew over the weekend and had some movies ripped to a microSD card. I couldn’t even hear the movie in media player over the jet engines…
about 4 years ago
http://www.mistercomputerhead.com/C730_WWE_Manual.zip
That is the link above – sorry the one above got all flucked up. Let me know if you need it emailed its like 30mb or so.
Did you find the media player link?
And I HIGHLY suggest the BlueTooth HeadPhones!
about 4 years ago
yeah already installed it.. thanks!~
B
about 4 years ago
i have my eye on the cardo s2 bluetooth headphones – for now I’m using a mini usb to headphone adapter so I can use my good headphones
about 4 years ago
Hey there Bropod where r u from? do u see 3.5g?
about 4 years ago
not available by my provider yet, but they say soon…
about 4 years ago
I love mine where did you get yours? Im rocking hsdpa out in LA.
about 4 years ago
I’m in St Louis.. I was in LA over the weekend but my provider isn’t with it yet.
B
about 4 years ago
I just noticed mine doesn’t have the voice commander or RSS feeder installed.. how do I get those?
about 4 years ago
I use Egress for a rss reader and I used to use Microsoft voice commander.
I was unable to find the apps either. They are available from HTC but only in Chinese.
HSPDA IS AWESOME and sling box is doublely awesome.
about 4 years ago
I just made some new home screens as well as a bunch of wallpapers (I didn’t make all the wallpapers, I knicked some of them from obvious places). Here are screen shots and links to download. These are my first attempts, so please give me feedback – dj_ion_stl@hotmail.com .. thanks and enjoy!
http://www.4beatsdeep.com/vista_320x240.zip
http://www.4beatsdeep.com/vista1_theme.jpg“
http://www.4beatsdeep.com/woodgrain_320x240.zip
http://www.4beatsdeep.com/woodgrain_theme.jpg
http://www.4beatsdeep.com/zune_blue_320x240.zip
http://www.4beatsdeep.com/zune_blue_theme.jpg
http://www.4beatsdeep.com/zune_red_320x240.zip
http://www.4beatsdeep.com/zune_red_theme.jpg
and here are a bunch of wallpapers:
http://www.4beatsdeep.com/wallpapers_320x240.zip
about 4 years ago
Thanks Bropod Brian – where are you from? How are you liking your Dopod so far? Are you seeing HSDPA??
Ill check out your files and get back to you.
about 4 years ago
I am in St Louis and still on EDGE haha but my provider promises to get the 3g and 3.5g going soon.. we’ll see. I love it so far – it does everything I need. I’m having a hard time finding good third party apps and games for the 320×240.
about 4 years ago
Oh, also the internal speaker is still miserably quiet. I installed that gain patch but it didn’t help much…
about 4 years ago
Edge :(
As for the speaker it does suck but if you use TCPMP goto settings audio PreAmp increase and you can make it a lot louder. You loose quality but get the volume. I pump it to 25% over.
As for the apps what do you need. You need it we got it…
about 4 years ago
I use tcpmp, but that only boosts the audio or video you are playing in the app… is there a way to boost the overall gain for all apps? As far as the apps go, I found a good rss reader, weather, and mapping. Most of the other apps I found are for the wm professional phones with bigger screens and don’t display or operate correctly on mine. What’s out there?
about 4 years ago
also any decent games would be great.. no luck so far..
about 4 years ago
Brian the gain patch works a little on the whole volume control but it was a lot better on the dash. I am into my bluetooth headphones and streaming music, I dont use the internal speaker that often.
As for apps it will use the 240×240 apps it just takes a little getting used to. It also will work with all the smartphone apps again you need to learn how to navigate.
I have loads of apps but no real games just not what Im looking for but if you tell me what YOU want I will hook you up with some links.
about 4 years ago
HELP! My dopod is in a boot loop.. I haven’t installed any new software.. I tried removing micro sd and sim per some online forums to no avail.. any ideas?!
about 4 years ago
Also I don’t want to do a hard boot because I haven’t synced it up this week yet and need that data!
about 4 years ago
mine went crazy as well. this morning i was in chinese and my email counts were gone.
id add em back and they would tell me a account with that name already exists.
trying not to do a hard reset myself and going through the messaging directories. have you soft reseted? anyone else having issues?
about 4 years ago
I ended up hard resetting mine, but now it’s in Chinese.. how the $%#*% do I change it to english when I can’t read anything?!
about 4 years ago
nevermind.. used an online chinese translator to make my way thru the menus :)
about 4 years ago
Brian for future reference start settings (picture of gears)
hit 7 for more
and then 5 for regional settings
switch the language back to English and soft reset.
Mine is still having issues! Thank god for my Dash!