Product Review: The O2 XDA IIi.

As regular readers will recall, 15 months ago I upgraded my mobile phone to an Orange SPV E200 (also known as the HTC Voyager). This was a fairly good phone and an ok PDA, but it did have its limits and after 15 months I find myself needing to do more.

So having a look around, I narrowed down my choices to the HTC Blue Angel (aka Orange M2000, O2 XDA 2s) or the HTC Alpine (aka Orange M2500, O2 XDA 2i). I based my choice largely on their improved functionality as a PDA and the fact that both had 802.11b WiFi built in. These are both pocket PC PDAs that include a phone function, as opposed to devices like my old SPV E200 which are "Smart phones" that include a PDA function.

I eventually chose the XDA 2i because I wasn't too bothered about the built-in keyboard on the 2s, and the 2i contained a lot of small improvements over the 2s such as a slightly faster processor, slightly better camera, slightly more memory, etc. These were personal choices based on my needs; other people may find they have other requirements.

First impressions

First of all, I'm not the best photographer in the world so these pictures are not going to do justice to the phone. Any lack of clarity in the screen photographs is mine, not the devices. It is also worth mentioning at this point that I'm reviewing the O2 XDA 2i and that other companies that also sell the HTC Alpine will probably produce their own different bundles.

 

 

 

In the box we find:

• The phone itself of course with one battery, running Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition.
• 2 "Styli"
• A very smart Silver USB docking cradle, with space for a second battery to charge alongside the PDA.
• A mains adapter that can plug into the docking cradle, and a plug to allow you to connect the mains adapter to the phone directly without the cradle.
• A stereo headset
• Plastic case
• Various manuals & Warranty card
• 2 CDs - one set of Microsoft tools such as Outlook 2002 (NOT 2003!) and ActiveSync, and one more CD containing O2's own Apps bundle (GPRS Monitor, KSE Truefax, Zip Manager and Fonix Voice dial).

The phone is about the normal size for a Pocket PC PDA, perhaps very slightly smaller, and obviously somewhat wider to hold in the hand than a "normal" mobile phone. To balance this however, the phone isn't as 'deep' so all in all it still feels comfortable in the hand - more so than you might expect!

Installing ActiveSync and setting up a partnership with the phone was quick and painless, though I downloaded the latest version of ActiveSync from the website and haven't even popped the seal on the Microsoft CD that shipped with the phone because I already have Outlook 2003.

If I was awarding points at the end of this review then shipping Outlook 2002 in 2005 would definitely cost a few points. Given the major security overhaul in Outlook 2003 this is more than just a cosmetic difference and Office 2003 has been around long enough now that there can be no excuses other than thoughtlessness or penny-pinching.

Another thing I'd dock points for is a lack of a SD card in the box. This wasn't a big deal for me as I've got plenty sitting around at home for my camera, old smart phone, etc, but it still seems a bit cheap of O2 to leave one out for the price they charge for this device! A SD card is important for a Pocket PC phone because in the event that you totally lose power, you lose all the contents of the main memory (including contacts, diary, etc). Now with a SD card you can carry a backup of those with you in the phone to restore at the touch of a button, and while power loss isn't a big problem, it seems a shame O2 didn't include a SD card big enough for their backup utility to work its magic on, to make the problem non-existent.

A redeeming feature against these negatives is that the XDA 2i is more or less the same size as the XDA 2, and hence many of the accessories that people may have already for that will work with the XDA 2i, including the infamous backpack! This isn't just important for upgraders, but is also great news for those of us new to the platform. It is good to know there already is a rich vein of extras out there for your phone. I remember all too well being a very early adopter of some phones and struggling to even find a decent case for the first few weeks!

Using the Phone features

The XDA 2i supports standard dialling via the touch-sensitive screen, and also has support for voice dialling. The on-screen dial pad, like most of the basic phone features, is comfortable to use with fingers so you don't need to peck with the stylus for every single operation.

Easy auto-complete options are available from the touch-screen pad, so you can start dialling a number and then select the one you want from a list of matching numbers from a selection out of your contacts and previous calls lists.

So to make a phone call you would press the green button to the left of the joypad, and dial the number using the onscreen touch-pad (remembering that you can use the auto-complete feature at any time if the number is in memory), then press the "Talk" button to connect. To end the call, simply press the red disconnect button to the right of the joypad. This isn't quite as immediate as a "normal" phone but I found it perfectly satisfactory in use; dialling feels fast and responsive with no lag in dialling, or in connecting when you've finished dialling and try to place the call.

Talking on the phone looks a little unnatural. You need to hold it to your ear with the screen facing inward while talking, but it actually feels quite comfortable to me when it comes to actually using it. Phone sound quality is probably better than the SPV E200, but the headphone socket is located at the bottom near the docking/power socket which isn't the best place it could be to be honest.

The 2i supports tri-band operation so roaming between networks should be painless, and I found it maintained its signal pretty well. It is not, however, a "3G" phone.

The included camera works well enough, both as a general snapshot camera and for sending MMS messages. It's quite well specified for a phone's camera, at 1.3 Megapixels.

 

Using the PDA features

General navigation for both PDA and Phone tasks is carried out via the "O2 Active" screen by default. This is something that you either love or hate, but it aims to put the most popular features you need in both a phone and a PDA on the front screen, which is commendable. If you can't see what you want on the active screen then of course the normal Pocket PC start menu is present and correct and works how you'd expect.

Unlike the smaller smart phones, the XDA 2i comes with all the modern Pocket PC trimmings including Pocket versions of Word and Excel, so its now actually worth using this phone as more than just a diary.

ClearVue's PPT and PDF viewers, the pocket Office apps (outlook, word and excel), KSE Truefax, MSN Messenger, Terminal Services client, and Windows Media Player 10 all combine to make this PDA/Phone a very powerful "pocket rocket".

Being able to use pocket Excel and Word on the move is a boon for productivity. I find it very helpful to jot down an idea when it pops into my mind during the day and then simply return to the original "jotter" document later on to flesh out my thoughts fully. It is also very impressive to have all the figures and notes at your fingertips in a tense meeting, not just for viewing but for editing too.

As for sending and receiving faxes, well you need to pre-arrange receiving a fax for it to work well. But it can be a life-saver to be able to pluck faxed information out of the air wherever you need it - and of course you can then use Bluetooth to transfer the fax to a computer or print it if needs be. For some people this won't be of much interest, whereas for some of the rest of us this could be a life-saver.

Text input worked well with both the typical PDA stylus/keyboard input, a great predictive text entering mode that can be used without the stylus and will feel very easy to use and quick to anyone who uses SMS text messaging on a normal phone, and last but by no means least, the "transcriber tool's" handwriting recognition is surprisingly accurate with even my chicken-scrawl, and quite fast too!

 

Performance – well it felt as fast, if not faster, than most of the PDAs I've used recently (we've been deploying Dell Axims for a project recently), and general use as a PDA was snappy enough. Quite surprising as the benchmarks are nothing to write home about!

Benchmarks - best score from 3 runs, after a soft reset and all other running programs stopped.

• Jbenchmark 1: 3398 (text 733, 2d 794, 3d 551, fill rate 519, animation 801)
• Jbenchmark 2: 423 (image manipulation 341, text 509, sprites 496, 3d transform 471, user interface 331).

I found that playback of media files while doing other intense tasks caused a stutter but this is hardly unique to the XDA 2i. This is a fault of the OS rather than the device I would say.

Wireless and Bluetooth fun

Of course the big "must have" feature for this phone and the similar HTC Blue Angel, is the WiFi support. Due to technical reasons, 802.11b is the only protocol I've seen supported on pocket PCs, and this phone does not break that trend. Support is present for connecting to non-encrypted networks, WEP encrypted networks or WPA encrypted networks. As well as connection to Wireless access points you can also setup an 'ad-hoc' network with another computer just as easily.

With WiFiFoFum installed, you can have much fun "war walking" and seeing what you can pickup. Range seems "fair" rather than good, but this can be adjusted in the settings for the wireless network card. You can also set an auto-timeout here to turn off WiFi after a period of inactivity, and this is a very important option to preserve battery life.

One possible problem with the WiFi connection is that it drinks battery power like a hole in the desert sand drinks water. This isn't a criticism of this particular device as this is a common thing to all PDAs with wireless support, but it IS worth remembering to watch out for this as you obviously don't want your phone to "drop dead" on you halfway through your day. Luckily, you'll find it quick and easy to swap to a spare battery when power is low.

Connecting to wireless hotspots has all kinds of implications besides the obvious; with a copy of Skype you can make very cheap phone calls worldwide a reality from any place you can get a WiFi connection, and a wireless connection will be both faster and considerably cheaper than a GPRS connection for transferring data.

As you might expect, Bluetooth support is included. As normal you can pair with a headset or other "hands-free" devices, exchange business cards with other similar devices, run ActiveSync via Bluetooth, connect to a network, and generally explore other Bluetooth devices to see what services are on offer.

You can also transfer files between the 2i and other devices such as a computer. The reason I'm making a big point of mentioning this is because some people have had trouble with doing this on other smart phone / pocket PC devices in the past, and I've seen the problem put down to all kinds of things; anything from buggy Bluetooth drivers to a dark evil conspiracy on the part of Microsoft to take over the world by crippling Bluetooth on smart phones has been blamed in various forums.

I'm pleased to confound the conspiracy theory fans by showing a transfer between my PDA and a computer taking place - and not just any computer; my Bluetooth-enabled PC happens to be an Apple iBook! I wish I could say it was difficult, I wish I could fill page after page of this website with nasty tales that got me the sort of traffic that Slashdot can only dream about, and possibly somehow use that traffic to get rich, but I can't.

I switched on Bluetooth on my Mac and ran the discovery program, and while that was running I went to the PDA and turned on Bluetooth. I then told them both that yes, I wanted to create a partnership and gave them a secret key to share, and basically that was it, both systems sorted it out with no bother. And from then on I could browse from either device to the other one and do what I liked and did not encounter a single error. Just like the manual probably would say had I bothered to read it!

 

Conclusion

Do I recommend this phone? Yes I do indeed, to those people who need all the functions. I will be using this device to the fullest, and I don't regret choosing it for a single second. I want to make it clear: This kind of phone isn't for everyone, but if you need this kind of phone then the XDA 2i is the one to get.

If you find you've outgrown a basic smart phone, or if you find yourself carrying around a phone, a PDA and possibly a MP3 player too, then you should definitely consider this device. Battery life might be a concern if you use the PDA features heavily but the battery monitor is very good, and the lack of a SD card in the O2 bundle does strike a slight sour note for me. Despite all that, this phone has everything you need to be both a good phone and a good PDA. It strikes a good compromise between those two jobs, so whatever your needs are you won't find it lacking.

If you need a very good mobile phone and nothing else, then this isn't for you. Not that there is anything wrong with the 2i as a mobile phone but it is expensive and rather large compared to most mobiles on the market, so if you won't use the features that justify the cost and size then you'd be better off buying a simpler smaller phone. If you want a windows smart phone but don't need the full-on PDA power and complexity of the 2i then consider the Orange SPV E200 or SPV C500 - both very good phones.

More XDA IIi photos and screenshots in the review's Photo Gallery

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