O2 Xda IQ

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O2 have built themselves a sizeable reputation as a provider of great PDAs, starting with the innovative Xda and then moving through to the Xda Exec and more recently the MiniS. O2 have now extended the Xda line to include the Xda IQ, which is based on HTC's Tornado reference design. The IQ uses the latest technology from HTC and Microsoft to bring a WM 5.0 Smartphone to the UK market. The question is will it live up to its heritage?

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O2 Xda IQ Review

Supplier: O2 Manufacturer: HTC Product: Xda IQ Colour: Black / Silver Cost: From £ varies with contract. Supplier Web Site: O2 IQ Supplier Product Web Site: O2 IQ Manufacturers Page: HTC

The 4WM web site staff were previously impressed by the recent new machines from O2, the O2 Xda Exec and the MiniS. We're now investigating the newest addition to the Xda range - a WindowsMobile 5.0 Smartphone - the O2 Xda IQ! Read on to find out! For your delectation all photographs are thumbnails which may be clicked on to load an image.

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Introduction As can be seen below the IQ is not lacking in technology as it is Quad band (meaning it can be used around the world), supports EDGE connectivity for high speed 2.5G connectivity, has full media capabilities as well as 'push' email so it is always up to date when linked through the Internet. Connectivity is further enhanced via Bluetooth and WiFi technologies, those coupled with a 1150 mAH battery make this an outstanding device - on paper at least. Within this review I will strive to give a good overview to what the IQ is, what features it has, and how it performs out there in the real world.

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Specifications Special Features Smartphone Quad Band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) GPRS class B Multislot class 10/EDGE Built-in Bluetooth® 1.2 Integrated Wireless LAN (802.11b) Full colour Internet browsing Instant Message (IM), short / long message (SMS) and multimedia message service (MMS) 1.3 megapixel camera MPEG4 camcorder MP3 media player Speakerphone and voice recorder facility Removable and chargeable Lithium-Ion Polymer Battery, 1150 mAh Key lock support (software) SIM Toolkit Standby Time: up to 150 hours, Talk Time: up to 4 hours Software Windows® Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone Microsoft® Pocket Outlook: Inbox, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks Microsoft Windows Media Player Microsoft MSN Messenger Microsoft Pocket Internet Explorer Microsoft ActiveSync Calculator Photo Contact ID MMS Wireless modem for USB, Bluetooth and IR Connection Manager Camera/Camcorder Voice Recorder Games

Hardware Processor Type: TI OMAP 850 200 MHz 64 MB SDRAM, 64 MB ROM 2.2” QVGA screen, 64K colour TFT LCD Camera 1.3 megapixels - Supports image formats JPG, BMP - Supports video formats MPEG4, H.263, Motion-JPEG AVI Power on/off button Volume up/down buttons 5 way navigation Phone Send and End keys 2 soft keys Home button Back/Clear button Contacts button Messaging button Camera button Connection Manager/Voice Record button External antenna connector 2.5mm stereo earphone Mini SD slot Infrared Port Mini USB port Weight and Dimensions: 46.5 (W) x 109 (L) x 18.5 (D) mm approx. Weight: 110g

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Packaging The Xda IQ arrived as a full retail package which means it was boxed in the new 'house' style packaging. As with the other Xda boxes this really is incredibly well designed - I'm still amazed how many bits and pieces as well as the IQ can be packed inside one box. And I must admit the 'engineer' within me just had to play with sliding the box open and closed for a few minutes before even extracting the IQ.

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Whats in the box? Xda IQ Case Removable battery Microsoft Windows Mobile Getting Started CD Application CD (includes ClearVue and Wireless Modem USB driver) Handsfree stereo headset Connection cable AC charger Warranty card Xda IQ Quick Start Guide

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Accessories Apart from the various CD's and literature supplied with the IQ the main three accessories that come inside the box are the slip case, the headset and the USB cable which connects the IQ to the PC. There is also a mains power charger supplied with the IQ, but it is very cunningly hidden 'inside' the centre of the box and the edge of the accessory drawer - I say this as I almost missed it was there! The Case The case, or more properly holster, is very basic in design and constructed from reinforced vinyl. Saying that it is strong enough to withstand a reasonable amount of force applied against it (it can resist a carpet tack pushed against the sides) excepting of course at the ends and corners where protection is either minimal or non-existent. The belt clip is made of tensioned ABS plastic and is surprisingly strong, at first glance I was under the impression that the clip was made of spring steel. This is all to the good as the strength of the clip combined with the small size and weight of the IQ means that it is not easy at all for the case to come adrift from the trouser belt. Mine has survived the rigours of the working day in an engineering environment with no sign of the IQ springing suicidally towards the concrete floor.

The Headset The headset supplied with the IQ is perfectly workable, but no great luxury. The ear pieces are constructed of hard plastic with no facility for ear buds to be fitted and this lack can mean that they are difficult to keep in the ear, and once in position can be uncomfortable. The control unit consists of two buttons, a single 'Talk' button which serves to answer or terminate calls and a sliding volume button. The volume levels vary from muted to uncomfortably loud. Audio quality is superb due to the wired link. Straddling the cable between the microphone and the control unit is a cable spreader which can be slid up and down the cable and is designed to stop the left and right ear cables twisting together. In practice unless one is very careful in folding the headset away then the spreader can act as a 'knot point' and assist in tangling the cable. So far each time I've had to use the headset I've had to spend a minute or so untangling the cables.

The Disks The IQ is supplied with two CDs these are: Xda IQ Application CD Xda IQ Getting Started CD Contained within the Application CD are: Clearvue document viewers (v2.41.387.5 dated 16 Dec 05) - requiring 2449 Kb of free space, which allow you to view PC native Powerpoint, Word, Excel, PDF and .BMP, .GIF, .JPG and .PNG images. Wireless Modem USB Driver - Which allows you to use the IQ as a wireless modem when connected via USB cable to your PC. The Getting Started CD once inserted in the PC takes you through the initial 'Getting Started process', installing ActiveSync and taking you through: Adding new programs to your device - Option to download Voice Command, Pocket MSN (which is already in ROM), and a link to the generic Tornado manual which resides on disk - 'Tornado_Hertz_UM_Generic_English.pdf'. Adding music, pictures or videos to your device - Loads Windows Media player to take you through the media synchronisation process. Learn more - Offers you link to the Microsoft and O2 Windows mobile based web sites. About this disc - gives you the disk version and various copyright messages. Gone alas are the days of old when vendors like Compaq used to fill the accessory CD's whith copious quantities of fully rgistered software.

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Design and Form And so on to the IQ itself. As an 'old hand' in the Mobile Devices world it's rare that a device really excites me at first glance, but the IQ did! Okay the styling is somewhat retro, and the keyboard/joystick combo is reminiscent of the old Ericsson T610, but the combination of those straightly curved lines, large screen and that user interface almost screams techno-avantgarde style. I'm sorry to say but it was (and still is) love at first sight. So wiping a somewhat jaundiced tear from the eye we'll take a stroll around the features that comprise that old /new modern beauty which is the Xda IQ. As can be seen from the pictures the IQ is styled differently to prior Xda machines in that the livery is black and silver with a strong definition between the front control / interface surfaces which are in black. This theme extends around the device where the bottom connectors are linked to the camera button via a scrolling side black stripe. The only interactive features lacking this styling are the volume and connectivity buttons. The IQ was put through the standard shaking and twisting tests and I'm pleased to say there was no evidence of loose componentry internally or any stressed creaks and groans which would tend to indicate poor design or construction. The IQ can therefore be expected to serve a lengthy working life!

Front and Keyboard The front of the IQ comprises at the top (left of the O2 logo) the speaker piercings (standard phone call), and interlaid nicely within these are the power/charge LED (far left) and the BT/WiFi indicator (right). These indicate as follows: Left LED green - battery fully charged Left LED flashing green - connected to the network Left LED solid amber - charging or connected via ActiveSync Right LED - blue when Bluetooth is on Right LED - green when WiFi is on Right LED - blue / green alternating when Bluetooth and WiFi are on Below these is located the gloriously bright screen (see later) and below these the non-keyboard style function buttons. They comprise: Left Soft Key Home button (returns you to the Home screen) Back key (moves you back a screen or deletes a character) Right Soft Key The soft keys of course tie in with the Windows Mobile 5.0 screen displays and change function depending on what function is offered at the bottom right / left of the screen itself. If you've not seen that functionality before it is way cool. Immediately below these buttons and above the main 'phone' keypad is the secondary control module which offers shortcut keys to Contacts and Email, and below these the Call Key (Green) and End Call Key (Red) buttons. The Green Call Key can be used to answer a call, or go to the phone keypad. Pressing and holding it toggles on/off the speakerphone facility. The End Call Key if pressed and held will lock the keyboard and buttons on the IQ. In the centre of this cluster of controls is the joystick which serves to navigate you around the screen and through the menus. The joystick of course can be pressed downwards to offer the OK command to the system. The action of the joystick is superb in all directional movements but the downwards action has to be performed exactly while the stick itself is perpendicular to the fascia of the IQ. I have few problems with this as an ex-Ericsson T610 owner but some folks may have issues with it. Finally at the base of the front panel is a small piercing which serves to allow light through to the light sensor which the IQ uses to activate the back lighting on the keypad. The back lighting is white and bright and surrounds the keys - the keys themselves being made of hard rubber plastic do not illuminate. A great pity here that the keys are not translucent and back lit in O2 blue - that would have improved the looks 100%! It is worth mentioning that while using the IQ that buttons can have added hidden functionality, for example: Quick press of the power button - brings up a quick profile / lock screen (see later) Pressing and holding the 'End Call' button will exit any current application While in the Programs screens the '*' button will take you back a page and '#' forward While in data input mode the '*' key serves to switch input modes (Abc, T9, etc) or pressed and held to choose an input mode or select symbols from the list offered While in data input mode the '#' key serves to add a SPACE or press and hold for a list of symbols So do remember to check out the manual

Tops and Tails Compared to the plethora of controls on the front of the IQ the top and bottom faces are spartan in comparison, with the top face having: Power button - Press to turn the IQ on or off, or press and quickly release to bring up the quick list. Speaker - For speakerphone based calls Infrared port - For IrDa data exchange The base contains: The Microphone - for voice input - either phone call or voice note The earphone jack for use with headphones or the hands-free kit Sync connector for PC sync or charging

Sides The sides of the IQ continue the minimalist theme with the left hand side holding buttons for: Connection Manager - Press this to activate the Connection Manager application Connection Manager - Press and hold to make a voice recording Earpiece Volume Up - Press to turn up the earpiece volume during a call Earpiece Volume Down - Press to turn down the earpiece volume during a call Earpiece Volume Down - Press and hold to trigger a voice tag command and on the right hand edge: Camera Button - Press to activate the Camera application, or if the Camera is already running press to take a photograph Strap Ring - Can be used to affix a holding strap to the IQ (not supplied)

Back The back of the Xda IQ even though again minimalist in design appears strongly featured due to this being the focal end of scrolled stripe which commenced at the power/sync/headset connector on the base. The stripe end holds: The Camera Lens - which should be kept clean to maximise the quality of the photographs Self Portrait Mirror - used by those vain folk who enjoy taking self portraits Just above the stripe: Car Antenna Connector - This is protected by a rubber cap which is removed (don't lose it) to allow connection to an external car aerial which can be used to give greater signal reception and below: Back cover - This should be removed to insert the battery, SIM card, and MiniSD card (not included)

The battery cover fits well onto the casing and there are no concerns as to whether it can pop loose at an inconvenient moment, it takes a fair bit of force to remove it. There is no rattle internally from the SIM or MiniSD cards when fitted even under an intense shaking session, so internally or externally there are no failures in design which could result in a power loss or a disconnected phone call.

Size One important factor to a lot of PDA/Smartphone uses is size. Taking this into account the IQ has been shown here compared to the O2 Xda MiniS (PDA) and the Motorola MPx220 (WM2003 Smartphone). As you can see weight is around the same for all three devices, with the IQ coming in lowest by a mere 4 grams. On height the IQ is the tallest of the devices due to its 'candy bar' form factor, but bear in mind that the MPx220 grows in size when opened, and is then significantly taller than the IQ. The IQ also scores on width, being significantly less wide than the MiniS (not surprisingly) and even shaves a few millimetres of the width of the MPX220. The IQ is also the thinnest device, however this is really an unfair comparison as the MPx220's flip design contributes to some of its thickness, and the MiniS does of course have the slide out keyboard. However the main body of the MiniS is around the same thickness as the entire IQ shell. The 'minimal' dimensions of the IQ coupled with its contoured smooth lower casing do however serve to give a comfortable feel to the device when in use. There are no odd shaped corners or angles at all that might interfere with the use of the machine.

That Glorious Screen I'd had a feeling that the IQ was going to turn into a rather special device, so prior to powering up the IQ I had the camera ready to record the initial boot sequence. So here you can see the three stages of that first 'boot' recorded for posterity The IQ greets you with the expected O2 logo, then a still image of the O2 rising bubbles and finally one reaches the Home screen. You may (or may not) be able to tell from the photos but the screen is exquisite, it may only be 2.2" (diagonal) in size which is smaller than that used on a lot of PDAs, but having a 320 x 240 resolution it is much higher than a lot of the mobile phones out there, and the IQ is first and foremost a phone! The colour balance is spot on, there are no unfortunate colour tinges like those that plagued the Xda IIs, and I hate to admit it but the colours are brighter and more vivid than those of the Xda Exec. This may in part be achieved with there being no touch sensitive layer present, but none the less the screen is very very impressive. The only negative factor for the screen is that it is not that visible in bright sunlight. The highly reflective screen 'glass' serves to reflect a lot of light, and some of that light is focussed into the device under bright conditions. I'd not say the screen becomes washed out, but it does need angling in the hand to regain readability.

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Internals The Home Screen This is the standard Home screen of the IQ which will greet you after initial boot up and Sync with the PC. It appears to show you: A list of commonly used icons in the icon navigator Carrier details and the date and time Any all day events The next appointment (Calendar) The profile currently in use Details on any SMS messages However this screen is cunningly deceptive. There are hidden parts of it which will only show up if there is data present. The full list of system applets actually is as follows: A list of commonly used icons in the icon navigator Carrier details and the date and time Call in progress indicator Missed calls indicator Any all day events The next appointment (Calendar) The profile currently in use Any received broadcast messages (not used in the UK) Voicemail indicator Details on any Email messages Details on any ActiveSync messages

Pretty cunning and rather cool! Of course if you add applications to the IQ later which have Home screen components the XML (shudder) which drives the Home screen can be customised to add even more features! You can see this on the screen on the right hand side which I've been customising. The system plugins used to generate the screen are: Fizz Weather 2.2 - Smartphone SmartPhinger™ SmartMonitor Homescreen Plug-in SBSH Facade Homescreen Plug-in along with a bit of XML editing and the use of a custom Home screen image. I think it looks quite good myself

The Applications The IQ comes loaded with the full set of Windows Mobile 5.0 Premium edition applications as applied to the Smartphone platform. This includes the basic application set that is seen on the full size Phone Edition devices with the exception that the office suite of: Word Mobile Excel Mobile PowerPoint Mobile is not included. Rumour on the 'net' mentions that these applications are being developed for the Smartphone platform but that can't be confirmed or denied. Other differences in the application set include: Voice Notes - This is purely for voice notes, taking of textual notes is not supported at all Video Recorder - This is a separate application on the IQ whereas on the Exec it is part of the camera application And of course as this is a WM5.0 device it uses persistent memory (to retain data in the event of a power loss) and the Clear Storage application is therefore present to allow you to 'HardReset' the device. Note: The 'Photo Viewer' application is NOT part of the application set, it was installed to allow the screen captures to be taken.

The ROM And for those of you who like the technical data on the machines here it is. Very interesting that the CPU is rated at 195MHz whereas O2's specifications list it as 200Mhz. I know that the speed of 195Mhz does not seem very fast compared to the 400-620MHz speeds seem on the IMAP processors, but the TI OMAP chips operate differently and the IQ is no slouch. I estimate that the OS is running at 30% faster than that seen on the Exec and about 50% faster than the MiniS.

Games As always Microsoft include a couple of games in the WM5.0 ROM and at the moment these are the usual offering of Bubble Breaker and Solitaire.

Task Manager The Task Manager is a very nice included application, written by HTC and it allows you to view which applications are running on the IQ and also to: Go to any application Refresh the list Stop the selected application Stop all applications Stop all but the selected application Display System information (detailed battery, memory, storage card, and OS data)

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Camera The Camera application used on the IQ is developed by HTC specially for the Smartphone platform, version 2.58 (build 23015) being within the ROM of the review machine. The application is reasonably fully featured and supports various modes and formats: Capture Modes Photo - 160 x 120, 320x 240, 640 x 480 and 1280 x 1024, zoomed 1x, 2x, 3x or 4x (dependent on image size), basic, Normal, Fine, or SuperFine JPEG qualities Video MMS Video Contacts Picture Picture Theme Ambience Auto Daylight Incandescent Fluorescent Night Grayscale Sepia Cool Adjust View - Manually adjust the brightness and saturation Images can be saved to internal or external memory, flicker adjustment of Auto/50/60Hz can be applied to video with further options including: review after capture ON/OFF, disable shutter ON/OFF, video audio ON/OFF, reset photo/video counters toggle, change save file name mask (i.e. IMAGE_XXX), set template folders, apply date and time stamps. The application has therefore clearly been developed since the application seen within earlier Smartphones. The only real lack compared to the Exec are that advanced capture modes such as 'Sport' are missing, possibly due to the use of the OMAP chip which has less native processing options than the Intel chip used on the Exec.

Example Photos A selection of photographs and video taken with the camera in the Xda IQ. The first is 640 x 480 normal, the rest 1280 x 1024 superfine, except of course the video which is 176 x 144. Picture quality varies on the IQ depending largely on the ambient lighting conditions. If the lighting is somewhat poor (overcast skies as in the first picture) then the photos tend to wash out and gain a blue/purple tint. Photos taken under good conditions fare reasonably well and are just about acceptable with colour balance and sharpness of the image noticably improving.

My thanks go to Irblinx for the photographs of the castle, car and hotel

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Phone System The Phone System built into the IQ is sophisticated and has all the most modern features one would expect from a 2G phone. Advanced functionality such as call forwarding, waiting as well as dual lines are supported (I did tell you to read that manual). Coupled with these features are a pretty good range of predefined Profiles. The profiles can be edited with respect to: Ring Type - most combinations of Ring, Vibrate, and silent Volume - from OFF to Five (Loud) Alarm type - most combinations of Sound, Vibrate, and increasing Alarm Volume - from OFF to Five (Loud) Notification type - most combinations of Sound and Vibrate Notification Volume - from OFF to Five (Loud) System Volume - from OFF to Five (Loud) Unfortunately there is no facility to vary the actual ring tone per each profile, or to automatically switch the profile based on a schedule.

Other additional phone functions become available during a phone call, giving you the option to: Swap between the current call and a secondary incoming call Mute the call Turn Speakerphone On / Off Turn the call into Conference mode, that is multi-caller conversations Turn hands free mod on Display Contact data on the connected caller Save caller details to Contacts View Calendar Call History

WiFi As mentioned earlier in the review this is the excellent HTC Comm Manager (activated by the left hand side button) from here you have full control over the the various parts of the phone: 1 - Turn phone on / off 2 - Bluetooth on / off 3 - WiFi on /off 4 - Direct Push Email on / off 5 - Cancels the data connection, i.e. turns off GPRS 6 - Toggles between sound and vibrate modes 7 - Loads Active Sync As you can see the WiFi system is fully active and from within the Comm Manager both Bluetooth connections to devices and WiFi links to wireless networks can be configured.

Cool Things One very cool feature of the Smartphone OS is that when the cursor it over a application one can choose the 'Menu' option and opt to assign a 'Speed Dial' or 'Voice Tag' to that application. This means that if you have a Speed Dial set as '4' to run Mobipocket you can just press and hold the '4' key on the keyboard for around three seconds and the application will run. You can use voice tags in a similar manner. This is a great time saver, as you can see I have the voice tag assigned to Oxios Tasks and Mobipocket, so I can trigger the voice recognition system and say 'books' or 'tasks' and immediately the relevant application loads. The tagging system will even handle creation of emails to a predefined address, as well as of course handling regular speed dials. How cool can you get!

Not so Cool Things One application I was looking to install on the IQ was the Smartphone variant of CoPilot Live 6 (CPL6) from ALK Technologies - I've had that sat on my shelf waiting for the IQ to arrive. CPL6 loaded without any issues once I'd updated to the latest version with the patches from the ALK site and under brief tests it has performed perfectly, about 30-40% faster than on the Xda Exec which was amazing! The only downside is that ALK recommend that CPL6 is installed into main memory and as that takes up 5.21Mb of storage space that has reduced my free storage memory to 2.72Mb! This unfortunately shows up a flaw in the IQ which affects all current WM5.0 devices - they do not have enough storage memory on board. Therefore it highlights the fact that if you buy any WM5.0 device you need to purchase a nice large SD/MiniSD card and install as many of your applications as possible on to it!

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Pro's & Cons Pros Small form factor. Good feel in hand. Light weight. WiFi. Improved Connection manager. Stylish headset. Loud volume. Running WM 5.0 Supports 'push' email. Persistent Memory. MiniSD instead of MicroSD slot. Clear and clean voice quality. Good signal receptivity. Good battery life. Conclusion Hardware The design of the IQ is well thought out as far as ease of use is concerned, it is comfortable to hold and all the features you need to reach to operate the machine are there to hand. The only slight niggles for me are that the side buttons are a little hard to press, but that ties in with the aim of avoiding accidental triggering so can be lived with. The Joystick for me works perfectly and I have no issues with it at all, although some folks may find it troublesome to press to achieve the OK trigger. The control buttons directly below the screen could be slightly bigger and if you have large fingers you may find them a little awkward, but I've seen similarly sized controls on other phones and no one seems to make an issue of them. The screen as evidenced above is superb and that along with the silver/black scrolled styling really make the IQ stand out - at the office its looks have drawn a fair portion of ooohs and aaahs Software The software package offered within the ROM of the IQ is very much the basic Microsoft OS offering with the addition of the Camera and Task Manager which have been supplied by HTC. There is very little customisation of the device by O2 with the exception of the colour scheme and the Home screen. This is good news indeed as the IQ is not filled up with any non-useful applications which may interfere with its operation or speed. Operation and Function The Xda IQ is the first Microsoft Smartphone I've used extensively as an alternative to a Phone Edition PDA such as the MiniS (HTC Prodigy) or the Exec (HTC Universal). This involved somewhat of a learning curve with respect to both operation and applications to be used. The first change was of course the move away from a touch screen and stylus to a non-active screen with joystick and button control. This for me was no great difficulty as the IQ feels like a phone due to its design and form and therefore I automatically transitioned into 'T610' mode and I was away. I can imagine that users who have only used Phone Edition PDAs or mobile phones without a joystick might find that change over a little more difficult to manage. However MS have striven successfully to create an operating system which is friendly and easy to get to grips with and most users should find adopting to the interface painless. At least there are no worries about losing the stylus! The second problem was finding Smartphone applications that covered the requirements that I have on the PDA platform, that is applications to manage my primary needs of: PIM management, especially task handling Photograph / Picture Display File Management eBook reading Photograph and File Management were easy problems to overcome thanks to Resco as they have Smartphone equivalents of their PDA applications. eBooks were a problem as currently there is no equivalent to uBook, as uBook Lite in not yet released. The solution here was MobiPocket Reader which works well enough and is nice and clear to read. PIM management was more difficult as there was not a single application a la Pocket Informant which met my needs. SBSH Facade was an acceptable substitute for Appointment and Event management but it lacked the power I needed in Task management. I use tasks a lot both at home and work and the only Smartphone application which met the filtering, viewing and operational requirements was Oxios ToDo List 6.02, which had just been updated to gain WM5.0 and QVGA functionality. One last operational aspect worth mentioning is that of battery life. The IQ has been tested during the working day, that is from leaving home at 6:30am until arriving back in the evening at around 5:30pm. During this time it has been used for: Task and appointment management Connected to GPRS 100% of the time and bringing in push emails from the 4SmartPhone.net server Used to send and receive 10-20 SMS (text) messges Make and receive on average 5-10 phone calls That is typical of a working day. On arriving home the battery life has been noted at between 65 - 78% of full charge. At no point has it dropped below this level which is excellant for such a small but powerful device. Phone Quality On all Xda Phone Edition (HTC branded) devices one ongoing problem has been voice quality. Incoming calls have usually sounded good but outgoing calls have varied from terrible to good. The Xda Exec for example has what I would term average outgoing voice quality. The IQ has been tested for both incoming and outgoing voice quality and in all tests incoming calls sounded perfect - no loss of quality at all. Outgoing voice quality is unfortunately not up to the same standard, it can be considered better than the Exec, but it is still not perfect. Most of the time I'd class it as good, but it can drop down to average whilst walking across the shop floor at work. Then again as this is within a production engineering environment that means a lot of steel around to interfere with the signal. All the tests were successful; there were no dropped calls and no one asked for anything to be repeated. Plus of course don't forget that the IQ is Quadband whichs means that wherever in the world you travel to you will be able to use it to receive that important call (roaming agreements permitting). Communication As the IQ comes with AKU2 (Adaptation Kit Update) in the ROM it has the new 'push email' feature recently created by Microsoft. For those of you who sync with an Exchange Server (for example using 4SmartPhone) this means that you can get your messages delivered to you as soon as they arrive on the server. The IQ also has Pocket MSN installed so you get the benefits of accessing MSN Messenger and your Hotmail Email too. Both these services can of course be accessed using either GPRS or WiFi as a connection medium. The WiFi connection I was unable to fully test in that my router (Netgear DG834GT) seems to have an issue linking with WM5.0 devices. I can say that the IQ sees the router and does try its best to link to it using WEP. No further testing of the WiFi system on the IQ has been possible. As no router is involved with Bluetooth I was able to test all Bluetooth bonding and links with the family PC, the O2 Exec and the Jabra BT500 headset. All links worked perfectly and without issue. The Jabra was actually slightly clearer on audio quality than the Exec. Conclusion Once the new interface had been mastered and the applications chosen the IQ was put into use as my daily machine, that is achieving all the tasks during the working week that were previously undertaken by the Xda Exec. The IQ performed admirably well in comparison and at no time did it fail to perform any required activity. The only problem for me was data input as on the Exec I could use the QWERTY keyboard as a primary interface and on the IQ I had to use 'T9' or 'Abc' input methods. As I've never previously embraced the world of 'Texting' this was somewhat of a shock. After a day or two I adjusted and although I'm not entering data as fast as I was on the Exec data input is achieved relatively painlessly. I hate to say it but with the exception of the data entry issues I actually prefer using the IQ to the Exec. The reasons are manifold but some of them are: The IQ is small and fits any handy pocket No problems in finding a 'weather applet' or configuring it - Fizz Weather works well and painlessly. The screen is clear and beautiful to behold. Phone call quality is somewhat better than the Exec. I love the design and the shape of the machine. To put it simply the IQ is at the moment my machine of choice, and now I've bonded my Bluetooth keyboard any data entry issues are a thing of the past! The only problem with the keyboard are due to it being bought prior to WM5.0 being released - there is no soft key support. 4WinMobile rating:- 90% Selection of Third Party Applications When relatively new technology like that used within the IQ is launched there is always a concern about the availability of software which is compatible with the machine / OS on board. Luckily WM5.0 support is now being offered by most developers and software houses. As QVGA devices are even newer to the market place support for these devices is still in the process of being rolled out, but most of the major software houses are now producing compatible versions of their software. Some of my favourite applications I'm running on the IQ are: Resco Photo Viewer (v5.32) Fizz Weather 2.2 - Smartphone MobiPocket Reader Oxios ToDo List 6.02 Resco Pocket Radio (v1.51) All of these apps are running perfectly on the IQ with no issues at all, they are all WM5.0 and QVGA compatible. Accessories As the Xda IQ is a 'badged' HTC Tornado, also sold as the iMate SP5 and the Qtek 8310, it is a relatively widely available device which means that third party accessory developers such as Brodit have already commenced making accessories for it. Here you can see the Brodit Proclip supplied by www.dsldevelopments.com which holds the IQ perfectly in position in the MG. As both TomTom and CoPilotLive 6 are available for the IQ this makes a perfect mount if you wish to do any satellite navigation using the IQ! Final Important note: The O2 Xda IQ page states "Office applications you'll already know, like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. And Pocket Outlook can synchronise your Xda with your desktop computer so your calendar and contacts are always completely up to date." This is inaccurate as at the moment Pocket office applications are not available for the Smartphone platform! This error has been reported to O2 and it is expected that it will be corrected it in due course! Thumbnails and Images used within this review have been processed using SnagIt Screen Capture.

Cons Poor quality case. Lacks the 'Office' suite of larger Xda machines. No built in backup application. No timed or event category based profile changing. Not enough internal storage memory (common fault with current WM5.0 devices) Lacks the ability to email files, only Pictures and Voice Notes can be attached (WM5.0 Smartphone OS failing)