Overview
Introduction
For those of you who have been waiting for a Smartphone - a hybrid of a Pocket PC phone and a normal mobile handset, then the wait is over. Introducing the O2 Xphone, to be available late January 2004!
We were fortunate enough to obtain an O2 Xphone testing unit from O2 Online Limited; Asia Pacific. This unit is basically the same as the actual unit that would be sold in 2004. Read on to find out how my week trial with this long-anticipated Smartphone device has went! =)
New/outstanding features
The O2 Xphone is a feature rich Smartphone, which uses the Microsoft Windows
Mobile 2003 operating system. Ideal for both business customers and consumers, it has tri-band support, GPRS support, Bluetooth enabled, as well as a SDIO slot for SDIO peripherals, such as the Wi-Fi wireless access card.
With a larger screen than regular mobile phones, and provide many similar features to the XDA, the Xphone allows users to email, instant message, surf the web, listen to music and play games. Linking with Microsoft Outlook, the Xphone also has smart features for corporate user, such as automatically switching to silent during meeting times entered in the Outlook calendar.
With a built-in digital camera that can shoot video and still images at standard VGA 640 x 480 resolutions, it also support full multimedia messaging which means that users can take pictures or vide and instantly email or MMS them.
The in-built Windows Media Player enables users to view full colour videos with sound from the Internet; and access video download services including chart music, news, sports and comedy. With a large 32Mb SDRAM and 64Mb flash, the Xphone provide sufficient space to store your data, and if not, then an additional SD/MMC card could used as external storage.
Physical aspects
The modern advance-look design of the O2 Xphone is truly a work of art, especially with its metallic silver finishing of the phone, which felt light and not too big in my hand. Having a dimension of 120 x 50 x 24mm and weighing only 130 grams, the Xphone is small enough to fit in your pocket and to hold in your hand comfortably, allowing an alternative option of using a Pocket PC Phone, such as the O2 XDA II.
With its larger then average mobile phone LCD screen, the Xphone provide enjoyable mobile usage experience. To make it even classy, the phone also uses aluminium keys for a more modern feel as well as an internal antenna, which was given a lot of thank you from its users, who felt that an external antenna would get in the way in your pocket or the feeling that it could snap.
On the left hand side of the phone, the Xphone have four easy to access buttons. They are the Up/Down volume buttons, a record button for easy access to still or video camera function, and the power button, which is used to access a quick list for selecting profiles, powering off the device, key lock and also device lock the Xphone.
The Xphone have an easy to use type of button interface, which include the normal number pad, the joystick, two menu buttons and the Yes and No button, very standard for most mobile phones.
On the back, there is the digital camera, as well as a mirror on the battery for taking self-portraits. Beautifully designed, the Xphone would wow all of its users out there. =)
One thing that deserve a special mention is that the black hard plastic of the Xphone is made non slippery, so that it would fit in your hand and won’t give you a slide off feeling. Despite its size, you could still easily press the side buttons, including the top left power button with only one hand without slipping, which is extremely marvellous, especially when you have clumsy hands like me! There is also a rubber tack on the top-back of the phone which allows the Xphone to sit on the table and it won’t ever slide off if it’s on a slight angle, something that is an issue with other flat back devices with no frictional surfaces.
User Interface & display
One of the best features of the O2 Xphone I have to say goes to its large 43 x 35mm display, which is a transflective TFT LCD screen with 65,536 colours at 176 x 220 pixels. Being a TFT transflective display, the Xphone could be used under any type of lighting situation, where sometimes with reflective display, viewing it under the sun can make the screen seem abit dim and hard to read what is on the screen.
The Xphone could show off text and especially graphics with the utmost clarity, especially when compared to other phones using a STN screen or displaying only 4,096 or even 256 colours. Its bright blue backlight for the number pad as well as its LED backlight for the screen made the Xphone bright and clear to use, increasing a more pleasurable experience to have when using such a great device.
Using Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 operating system, similar to the Microsoft
Smartphone 2002 or Pocket PC Phone Edition 2002, the Xphone is extremely to use, being straight forward and you would find what you are looking for easily with everything starting from the Start button. If you are ever lost, just press the return button to get back to where you were before, or the Home button to get back to the home screen. However, to find it easy to use you must be computer literate or had experience with Smartphone devices, therefore, the Xphone should be aim at intermediate or advance user. Although this is the case, it shouldn’t be very hard in learning how to use the Xphone for simple tasks and slowly work your way up to complex activities.
The record button on the side of the phone allows shortcut function to the digital camera or the camcorder. With the power button used as the quick link shortcut menu button, we can easily move around to switching profiles, key lock or device lock the Xphone and also powering off the device or changing to flight mode.
At the top of the user interface in the home screen, the last five applications launched are display for easy access to it again by using the joystick. Unread SMS or missed calls are also on display in the home screen as well as appointments in your calendar that are coming up that day. The Xphone is surely one of the best device to have to keep you organise and ahead in your schedule! =)
Making and receiving calls
Just as with all other O2 products, the audio quality of the Xphone is crystal clear and the earpiece provides more-than-sufficient volume. I guess mainly it is because the phone also uses the earpiece as its loud speaker and speakerphone. The phone offers three methods of taking calls - either using the phone’s earpiece and microphone, holding down the Yes key to activate its speakerphone or also using the included ear microphone headset accessory. You can also do multi-party call conferencing with the Xphone.
With the nice curve on the Xphone surfaces, the phone rests comfortably on most faces that it comes in contact with, which ultimately provides comfort during short or long phone calls.
Searching through your contact is extremely easy and convenient, as it also support T9 predictive text input, which allow you to key in the person you wish to call and the list of people in your contacts that is similar to what you typed in will come up, allowing you to choose the number you wished to call. If you just type in the phone number you wish to dial on the Home screen, just like with any other phones, it will also automatically show up Name of the contacts that it found similarity to the number. Talk about being smart, extremely convenient and easy to use!
Caller ID picture book is also available, allowing you to stored a photo of your contact against their name, so when they call in, the photo would also appear, allowing you to easier identified your caller.
The 32 polyphonic MIDI ring tones are loud and clear, allowing clear and distinct melodies to be pumped out by the speaker. Amazing enough, just like other Pocket PC phones, the XPhone could also play back WAV and WMA files as its ringing tone, allowing your ring tones to be as vibrant as it can ever be. I once used a song converted to a WAV file as my ring tone, and it sure caused quite a lot of stares on the train as people try to figure out who started singing in the middle of the train ride! =)
Messaging
The Xphone provides all the basic requirements for text messages, as well as the ability to attach simple graphics, sounds, and animations with your text as well (EMS).
Also supported is MMS, which allows you to send pictures, taken with the integrated camera, or pictures saved onto the phone from a PC, to another capable MMS mobile phone. Another great feature of the Xphone is the ability to send E-mail. You could now type your e-mails while on the go, and have it sent straight away, or postpone it and send it when your back in the office, plug it into the cradle of your computer and have the e-mail sent via your computer’s Internet connection, saving you GPRS costs.
Unlimited amount of SMS or E-mails from your local PC’s Microsoft Outlook, synchronised by Microsoft ActiveSync, can be stored onto the Xphone as long as it can be fitted into the shared storage of 64MB flash and 32MB SDRAM.
T9 predictive text input support is provided with the Xphone, and this feature has been done very well with the
Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003, which sure live up to its name “smart”. The O2 Xphone automatically detect and store new words that its T9 function does not already have into a custom dictionary, as soon as it has been entered in manually the first time that it does not recognise it. I sure hope that many other phone manufacturers, especially one of our popular Korean manufacturers, would also see how great the Xphone has performed in this area and will follow suit very soon! =)
Connectivity
There are basically four ways you can connect your O2 XPhone to your PC – either via the Infrared port, Bluetooth wireless connectivity, USB data cable / cradle, or using Wi-Fi 802.11b provided with an optional SDIO card, which would have to be purchased separately from after market manufacturers.
Included with the sales package is the Microsoft ActiveSync CD-ROM, which includes the base software plus necessary drivers to allow your PC to utilise the GPRS capabilities of your Xphone and network (where available). ActiveSync allows the management of your Xphone via Microsoft Outlook to your Pocket Outlook. This allows you to take your contacts, schedules, notes and emails from your local PC into your phone allowing these data available on the go.
Updates done to the local PC or the XPhone are synchronised using ActiveSync allowing the management of all your data to be consistent. Files from your computer could also be copied onto the XPhone using Windows Explorer under the “Mobile Device” tab, which treats the XPhone as a system folder. Synchronisation with remote PC is also available if the enterprise deploys Exchange Server 2003 with Exchange Server ActiveSync.
I’ve tested connecting the Xphone to a range of PC, and found them to be able to connect very successfully after installation of Microsoft ActiveSync. This is one of the main advantages in using Microsoft products with Microsoft operating systems.
Build quality
The O2 Xphone is very well-built with no issues at all that I could find. The rigidity of the battery fitted in the phone excellently, as well as the keys and the joystick being very solid and won’t move around even a bit. The SD/MMC card fitted into the slot also does not have a bit of it sticking out, allowing the card to fit into the phone very nicely. The Xphone should have no problem if it was to be mistreated in a non-intentional way, such as banging onto the keys or moving the joystick hard, although I won’t suggest people to go and try that! =)
Battery life
The O2 Xphone performed brilliantly using its rechargeable Li-ion battery @ 1,000 mAh, living up to its claim of around 3 hours talk time and about 80 hours standby without any partial charging in between, during my week long trial of the review unit.
Since this is also a data device, this battery life is really good given the amount of function this phone could do using its
Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 operating system.
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Take a closer look!
Overview (Page 1)
