O2 Xda IIi

Mini Review of O2 XDA IIi Supplier: Mobile Fun Product: O2 XDA IIi Cost: Depends on Contract ROM: V1.10.00 WWE Radio: V1.00.00 After months of anticipation and speculation, O2 UK released the XDA IIi on schedule on Tuesday 1st February. Mine duly arrived from Mobile Fun three days later, giving me the weekend to play! (With apologies for the poor picture!) Click on the image to enlarge it The outward appearance is identical to the XDA II apart from the logo and the camera surround on the back, which is a metallic colour on the IIi. All the supplied accessories are the same as the XDA II and so all aftermarket parts should be interchangeable. The only addition in the box is the O2 extra utilities CD-ROM which includes KSE TrueFax, Fonix VoiceDial, ZIP and SpB GPRS Monitor. It is only after turning it on for the first time that changes become noticeable- the start-up procedure is longer due to the enhancements of the WM2003SE ROM, and the O2 customisations also take a little longer. The O2 Active screen, disliked by many on the older machines now has some enhancements which might make it more acceptable. • O2 Hotspot locator • View Orientation Switcher • Power Save • Profile • WiFi and Bluetooth on/off • Bluetooth Manager Unfortunately, the O2 Active screen handles Today Plug-ins very poorly. Kitara Genesis won't display at all, and others are severely truncated at the Right Hand margin. This makes the usefulness of O2 Active much reduced, and O2 would do well to include some method of configuring its screen to remove items it can't display. Another example of poor programming is that the installation of the O2 customisations removes the Time display from the Title Bar. This must be counted as a major error, as it needs a Registry editor to resolve, not to be undertaken lightly even by the experienced! Hardware Although not visible, there are major hardware changes in the XDA IIi. These are briefly: • 524Mhz processor with dynamic speed switching depending on load. • 128Mb RAM and 128Mb ROM with 59Mb available as "Storage" • 1.3 megapixel camera • Wireless Networking to 802.11b specification • Improved Bluetooth connectivity using the Widcomm BT stack • Slightly increased battery capacity (1300mAH) The processor speed is selectable between "Normal" (400MHz) and "Turbo" (524MHz) in the Settings/Power menu. Built In Software As much of the software is similar to before, I shall only cover the major changes in this brief review. The most obvious change is the ability to switch from Portrait to Landscape mode, though some 3rd Party software does not fully support landscape mode (warnings are given when installing an application which might not be compatible) Windows Media Player is now up to Version 10 and the new version supports Al*** Art and playlists, though I still can't find a way to access Network Music Folders from within the application (but if you buy Resco File Explorer, you can use its network capabilities to access these) Though not strictly "Built-in" O2 provide full copies of SpB GPRS Monitor, KSE TrueFax, Fonix VoiceDial and ZIP • GPRS Monitor is an essential tool for keeping track of GPRS costs and is a welcome inclusion • TrueFax gives full Fax send and receive. You need this specifically enabled on your SIM card. I can't test this as yet because O2 won't activate it till the start of my next billing cycle! • Zip: for managing ZIP archives. I don't use this as I use Resco File Manager's zip handling • Fonix VoiceDial: As it says, an application to enable Voice Activated dialling. Again, one I don't use. Operating System Enhancements Phone Application. The Phone dialling screen has a nicer, more "3D" look to the buttons, though the screen is essentially the same as before. But when you start dialling, the Smart Dialler screen pops up. This is a major improvement, and entering either the first letters of a contact name, or the first digits of a phone number sequentially select all matching contacts. Using the D-Pad you can then select either Home, Work or Mobile numbers to dial. This now makes dialling a truly one handed operation. Text Input. A new Soft Input Panel (SIP) has been released with the current devices, which mimics a mobile phone's T9 text system. The buttons are large and easy to tap with a finger, but there is no word completion- only the letters entered show, in various permutations, so you need to enter all the letters of a word before it can be selected. This is disappointing- it would be much nicer to match whole words as you type, but I suppose this is a limitation of the sheer number of possible permutations with T9. Connectivity Bluetooth now uses the Broadcomm(formerly Widcomm) Bluetooth stack, which has always had a better reputation than the Microsoft Stack included in previous devices. The "Add New" screen is much easier to use and I was able to form pairings with my BT GPS, Motorola Headphone and Toshiba Laptop (File transfer and Activesync) without any hassle. Devices have kept their bondings so far, and I've had no BT connectivity problems apart from an occasional error message when first starting Bluetooth, relating to insufficient driver memory. This requires a soft reset to resolve, but I've not seen it over the last few days. Once connected, there are screens for signal strength, data transfer etc. Wireless Networking The single most significant connectivity enhancement is the addition of 802.11b WiFi capability. Contrary to other reported experiences, I achieved an immediate connection to my Belkin 802.11n Router, and it has never failed to connect since then. Data transfer is fast and the connection robust. The major downside to this is the speed with which the battery drains if the connection is left active. There is an inbuilt power saving option which turns off the WiFi if not used for more than x minutes. Another minor annoyance is the method of starting the WiFi connection. Tapping the signal indicator in the title bar MAY give a "Connect to WiFi" option, but it may not (can't work out why this is!) and tapping the Taskbar WiFi icon takes you to the configuration screen rather than the On/Off selector (unlike the BT icon which DOES include switching). There is a generic Connectivity applet which has switches for BT, GPRS and WiFi, and I now have this in my Main tab of PocketPlus on the Today screen. If you want to surf, or email using WiFi, then you have to switch WiFi on manually first- if you don't then it will try and connect via GPRS. This is probably a good idea, as it prevents excessive battery drain if you are out and about without WiFi accessibility. Camera The camera is now 1.3Mpix, but on first using it, you'd be hard pushed to notice! The quality of image in less than bright surroundings is actually worse- more grainy- than the XDA II. Whether this is software or hardware remains to be seen. Also, the Auto Exposure algorithms are poor. Bright surroundings result in a washed out picture, and dark ones give an undersaturated, dark image. The default image size remains at 640*480, and has to be changed in "Options" to "Large" to get the full resolution. Pictures taken at 960*1280 have a far better resolution, and if the Exposure is set manually, pictures can actually look quite good (relatively!) 640*480 picure on the Left and 960*1280 on Right Click the images to see a larger picture Overall Impression On first switching on the XDA IIi and comparing to the XDA II, the immediate impression is how much brighter the new screen is. The XDA II was often criticised for its dark screen which made some games (like Fade) unplayable. I have yet to try Fade on the XDA IIi, but am sure it will look much better. Whether the brighter screen will have any adverse effect on battery life remains to be seen- immediate impressions suggest not. The next impression is how much better Pocket Excel and Internet Explorer look in Landscape mode. One disadvantage of sticking with the "Himalaya" chassis is the lack of hardware buttons, but as I don't use the Recorder application, I've assigned that button to Screen switching, which works well. On my XDA II I used Battery Pack Pro's Power Buttons to assign 2 different actions to each Hardware button; unfortunately in the XDA IIi Power Buttons wont work due to O2 Active's own button applet, which can't be disabled. I suppose this is academic for me now, as I changed from BPP to PocketPlus due to the latter's integration of its Plug-in Tabs. The next unexpected surprise (OK, I should have read the specs more thoroughly!) was the extra memory available in "Storage", the excess ROM assigned to user programs. This is now 59Mb and I have used it to install the full user files plus a 32Mb map of TomTom Navigator 3. This has had the effect of speeding TT3 map access considerably, over the previous SD Card map location. The next, less than welcome, discovery was that the Extended ROM is no longer accessible- you can't even see it, let alone make changes. So you are stuck with some of the performance sapping features added by O2 like Caller Picture Display (though this does seem a lot better than the version on the XDA II). At least the annoying O2 Connections title bar icon can be disabled, and O2 Active prevented from autostarting after a reset. Speed: the XDA IIi has a 524MHz processor, but by default it is set to "Normal" mode which is 416Mhz, presumably to conserve battery power. I have to admit to keeping mine at the lower speed, and I have yet to feel the need for faster operation. I have gone through some Benchmark tests using the SpB Benchmark program. I tested the XDA II, and the XDA IIi in normal mode, and Turbo mode. Overall the IIi is quicker in both modes, and (as expected) significantly quicker in Turbo mode. If you look at the results you will see that anything related to processing or graphics appears faster, though RAM access seems to be slower in the new machine (significantly so in some tests). One small glitch I have come across in use is with one of my medical textbooks, which uses a reader app called EZ Reader. This has a full text search facility, which I expected to be faster with the new machine, but is in fact much slower. Searches which took 10 seconds on the XDA II take 40 seconds on the IIi. I suspect this may be an incompatibility with the reader program and WM2003SE, rather than an XDA issue, but it is a concern. I've lodged a support question with the developer anyway. Click the image to see the Results Table in Adobe Acrobat format Summary For Familiar form factor Faster Processor Wireless Networking Bluetooth Enhancements Windows Mobile 2003 SE Increased Storage capacity Compatibility with older accessories Better Camera hardware. Against Limited number of buttons Poor implementation of O2 Active UI Reduced battery time Inconsistencies in Connection switching Poor Camera implementation Conclusion So is this a major leap forward? Probably not, but it is a good evolution. Those already happy with their XDA II devices, especially if they are comfortable with alternative ROMS and SDIO cards, may see little advantage. For me, it definitely is a step forward. Just having WiFi available on tap, and the extra Storage capacity makes the expense worthwhile (indeed I've saved money by buying into another years contract with the XDA IIi and selling the XDA II at a healthy profit!). And it is probably worth pointing out that the small perceived advantage of the XDA IIi over the XDA II goes to show just how good the XDA II was. For those coming to the Pocket PC arena for the first time, the current XDA family still has a lot to offer for little or no increase in price since the XDA I was launched. 4WM Rating 95%