Review of the O2 XDA IIs

[manav]

Hey this is for all of my friends here at mobileburn. After getting my phone stolen for the second time I decided to go low profile and to prove to my dad that I can infact use inexpensive phones! Used a 7260 for about a year! And then finally switched to a A780 didn't like it that much after my P900 so decided to go in for a windows device. I had been quite out of touch and finally noticed that not many mobileburners prefer windows devices. So to help people know about this little wonder am going to write a little review on it. Hope you like it.

The style of writing this review is totally copied from shuns review which can be found http://forums.mobileburn.com/showthread.php?t=12524. Thanks a lot bro for helping me out!

Let me tell you this phone is also know as Qtek 9090, i-mate PDA2k, T-Mobile MDA III and Orange SPV M2000. Depending on your country, provider.

Specifications :
Network GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900
Dimensions 125 x 71 x 19 mm
Weight 210 g
Full specs can be found at http://www.gsmarena.com/o2_xda_iis-933.php

[manav]

http://img.gsmarena.com/i/pics/o2/o2xda2s_00.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/manav_arya/MISC/DSC00022.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/manav_arya/MISC/DSC00021.jpg

The phone is quite big, but has many usefull shortcut keys on its face. The best part is the huge screen with crisp 65K colors. The bad part is its prone to get scratched too easily, thats why got a screen protector on it. The keyboard is not very very good but its decent and fun to use. There is a numeric keypad which can be used by pressing a special function key. But I used the normal touchscreen phone application the buttons on the touchscreen are big and easy to press with your fingers.

I have to say that the headphones which come with it are ok, and if you slide out the keyboard a lot it gets loose and the whole thing starts squeaking and if you keep it in your pocket when you take it out its prone to open up. The stylus is nice. And the loads of chrome buttons all over which can be set to anything are really usefull!

[manav]

The performance of windows mobile 2003 was really good. Its much faster then expected or maybe its just because we have a mindset of windows lagging so much on our desktops it makes us think that way. It does crash sometimes if that happens just upgrade the firmware and voila you are ready to go!

The battery isnt so good, it used to last a day for me with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth usage.

It came with a 64Mb SD card.

[carcomptoy]

Congrats!:D

[manav]

The reception was quite good no complains there, I just dont like the loudness of the headset and there is no loudspeaker option! That is something thats really stupid as you are spending so much then it makes you feel jacked.

There is no concept of the phone turning off. To lock it simply press the power button!

[manav]

The Camera sucks bad please dont ask its just a VGA unit I wont even bother to post pictures here, but the Video is good I think it records it at really high fps and resolution ill give it a 7/10 there and you can record as long as you want before space runs out.

The phone has a keyboard with a numeric keypad but I'd rather use the touchscreen keypad for dialing numbers. The special phonebook key is also really usefull so is the contacts key. The best part is you can use a software to assign any key to any task.

More or less the phone is pretty useless without the awesome collection of software that is available for it. If you are planning to buy a windows device I'd reccomend the following programs.

SPB Today +
Ebook reader
Virual Pool
SPB weather +
Pocket Music
Socket Wifi
Netfront
Pocket PC torrents

Overall the experence with the phone was good. It has loads of gadget value and the wi-fi is absolutely useless in public hotspots with low signal. Instead I use my home wi-fi network for watching movies on it streaming them over the wi-fi network. The messenger and browers are also really good. Wi-fi drains the battery quite fast. Very feature rich phone Ill give it 8/10 in features Multimedia (except camera that sucks) 7/10 overall 9/10 as its a awesome gadget. Too bad had to sell of mine :D

One more thing. I love it that you can just flash and upgrade the windows and radio firmware of the device. As there are so many versions of windows you can find on the net. Its a really nice thing. Loads of geek value there as I love to tinker with my phones!

[Shun]

noticed that not many mobileburners prefer windows devices
Interestingly, the Windows Mobile themes I posted in MobileBurn gets hundreds of download and the thread gets thousand over hits... wonder who are using them?

The phone is quite big... ...if you slide out the keyboard a lot it gets loose and the whole thing starts squeaking and if you keep it in your pocket when you take it out its prone to open up
You must have "deep pocket" to be able to put that thing in, :D

Waiting for the rest of the review and the conclusion, :)

[manav]

@shun : UPDATED :D

Sorry I could not find any photos that I clicked with it. They are not that good actually so whats the use :D

[Shun]

It has loads of gadget value and the wi-fi is absolutely useless in public hotspots with low signal. Instead I use my home wi-fi network for watching movies on it streaming them over the wi-fi network. The messenger and browers are also really good. Wi-fi drains the battery quite fast.
Lucky, battery life is much more improved in newer devices with the help of slower porcessor though. Signal in my Wizard is good too, it seems to become weaker after using a registry hack to enable 11g, but it is still accecptable.

More or less the phone is pretty useless without the awesome collection of software that is available for it.

One more thing. I love it that you can just flash and upgrade the windows and radio firmware of the device. As there are so many versions of windows you can find on the net. Its a really nice thing. Loads of geek value there as I love to tinker with my phones!
LOL, agree fully, PPC phones are pretty useless without addons, users who expect a nice "phone like" device out of the box will probably have to look elsewhere, :D

Impress that you get the "moral" of Windows Mobile within such a short time frame, it all about personalizing and tweaking that set it apart from other mobile OSes. Nice review, :)

[manav]

Thanks so much shun,
Too bad I sold it off! :D