XDA II officially announced
By: J�rgen Sundgot, Monday 15th September 2003, 16:34 GMT
The successor to the world's first Pocket PC Phone Edition device goes official: the O2 XDA II boasts overall improved specifications, a digital camera and Windows Mobile 2003.
Over a year after the introduction of world's first device based on the Phone Edition of Microsoft's Pocket PC platform - the original XDA - pan-European carrier mmO2 has officially unveiled its successor. The O2 XDA II will feature an integrated digital camera, Bluetooth, Windows Mobile 2003 and all round beefed up specifications.
Slated for arrival later this year, the XDA II remains similar to the original XDA in size, but has lost its antenna and offers more power under the hood with a 400 MHz Intel XScale processor and 128 MB of RAM. Also, the XDA II boasts newfound support for tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz and Bluetooth, as well as more recent innovations including MMS and the latest version of the Phone Edition of Microsoft's Pocket PC platform - to be known as Windows Mobile 2003.
Also new is an integrated, VGA resolution (0,3 megapixel) digital camera as well as a 16-bit transflective colour display - although this is of similar size to that of the original XDA. Despite the improvements to specifications, O2 also claimed that the company had achieved increased standby and talk times, and has also thrown in SDIO support for the SD/MMC Card expansion slot.
Currently, the original XDA is priced at EUR 399 in Germany when purchased with a 24 month contract. The price of the XDA II has not yet been determined, nor the exact date for its availability - although O2 promises to have it out in time for Christmas.
An additional hi-res picture of the O2 XDA II is available on the following page.
Moved as not Symbian related to Community Waffle.
Cross posting is not alowed,i have deleted the same post from the SX1 forum.
BTW:The XDA's primary function is as a PDA,every other Symbian device,except maybe the communicator functions first as a phone then as a PDA.It does look great,but the form factor is not going to score a lot of points.Don't even get me started about the OS.
The person posting sounds like an advert not a person. I think O2 are very brave making a sequel to the XDA after how badly the original bombed. Hell last I knew they still had warehouses full of the buggers to get rid of.
it does not mean this is a write off....they are allowed to improve on things.
so cynical!!!😛
i had a chance to try it
its really great and amazing
all its features are amazing but 2 downs:
1. one day only batery
2.its reception is bad
other than that its a hell lot better than p900
Yeah,right.Like the battery last one day with heavy use.And the OS is rock stable,Bluetooth doesn't freeze every once in a while and you never have to restart the device because the OS has a mind of its own.
Ismail,i was being sarastic. 😃
no i mean ur true about os
i had the o2 xda and every 2 hours i had to reset it because it hung up
i have an n-gage now and its a hell lot better
waiting for the new 9000 series or 7700
Nice device ... first thing I'd do is blow away Win Mob 2003 and install Linux! 😉 But, it'll probably take people a few months to reverse engineer it and get Linux on that bad boy ... 😉
I've bought one - and moved from a P800.
It's excellent. No resets so far. Screen is excellent, bluetooth is flawless and the phone is pretty good too.
Advantages over a P800
1) Screen (being able to write across one, for example...)
2) Applications remembering the state they were in when you switch between them (do not underestimate how annoying this is - I have no idea what Symbian were thinking of)
3) ActiveSync is so much better than than the PC-Suite - and it's still rubbish
4) I've got Avantgo back, and sorry the 3rd-party software is miles better
5) It's fast. Very fast. Noticeably quicker than the P900 which I have seen
6) It looks much cooler than the P800. I also hated the look and feel of the P900 (once again, SE produces a creaky case)
Disadvantages
1) Battery life. Not too bad but not as good. Without music, I get two days.
2) Form factor. But I now realise I cannot have the best of both worlds - big screen and small PDA
3) Not enough use of the keys - e.g. hold down phone off for silent, etc.
But as a general point, and someone who used a HP 928 WDA (now that really was an appalling phone OS), it's worth noting how much MS has caught up as usual. It is a different experience.
Advantages over the p800
1)I'm confused. 😕 What do you mean by that?
2)Confused again,i don't know what you mean by that.If you don't close an application it will continue to run in the background which is normal for any full blown OS.
3)Agreed.
4)There is more third party software,but miles better?
5)I only owned an iPAQ which probably was faster but it was really difficult to notice.
6)That's only your opinion.IMO,the p800/p900 looks much better.
Disadvantages
1)Two days?
2)Yes you can,its called a p900 😮
Well, ghostdog, the screen by estimate is basically twice the size of a P800 (roughly another 70% of the size of the P900 I'd guess without one to hand)
Yes, two days. With bluetooth headset use too and a bit of GPRS.
The software is miles better. I would cite Pocket Map, Age of Empires, Fitaly as being prime examples that I had missed. And Avantgo.
by the way, on the background issue try this (something I did all the time).
write something in jotter, in the middle of a call, with a number. Start writing a contact. Forget the 10 digit number + pin code half way through. go back to jotter. then go back to the contact and carry on.
on the P800, and I believe the P900, you will have to reopen both the contact and the jotter note. the jotter note - not too much hassle. The contact - incredibly irritating.
Just a point - not a flame. I love the P800 (but not the P900 which I felt was more tacky - fake chrome effect anyone with ultra violet disco liights - and creaky)
Forgot another point. I've got a 512MB SD card.
Ghostdog is such a fanboy.......nothing is better to him!!!:P
I recently had a poke around with the xda II and I was very impressed. PDA phones like this is what propted me into owning a 7650.
Only prob I have with it is the volatile memory pda's have compared to phones and the weak battery life.
LOL at Orophin 😃
Guys,don't get me wrong,i liked the iPAQ and i'm sure that the XDA II is pretty good as PDA but i'm not so sure about the phone side,plus(I hate me for saying this) its too big.
olvar,sorry for the attitude,i figured you were just another advert 😮
No, just trying for a reasoned debate. Really, I'm frustrated that I can't have a perfect phone and PDA in one without a foldable screen.
the LG SC8000 looks quite promising......
http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=505
...the 1.1 Megapixel cam does help!!! 😃
Yes it does.When can we see it in the european market?BTW:It has a touchscreen,right?
I like everything about the XDA2, just wish the OS was more stable, and it was the size of a P900....Age of empires on the PPC platform would have give me hours of fun on the Loox, shame I had to recharge every 5 hours. 🙄
Originally posted by J2theIZZO
I like everything about the XDA2, just wish the OS was more stable, and it was the size of a P900....Age of empires on the PPC platform would have give me hours of fun on the Loox, shame I had to recharge every 5 hours. 🙄
My thoughts exactly. I find the P900 to be the best compromise between phone and PDA concidering the above underlined reasons.
IMO, the most important features of a device like this is:
- Size/weight - It needs to lay comfortably in the hand, and be of a size/weight that doesn't make it impractical to carry around wherever you go.
- OS stability - Needs to be fast and reliable, leaving a slim to non chance of losing data. And not too complicated.
- Ease of operation - Being a phone, it needs be quick and easy to dial a number, look up a contact etc., one handed.
- Battery life - Should get you through at least an entire day of heavy use.
Besides all that, I dislike everything about the PPC OS - both the way it looks, as well as the way it works. But even if the XDA II was running Symbian, it wouldn't be my choice, because of the reasons mentioned.
I know the XDA II can be a more powerfull PDA, but that's mostly when it comes to flashy stuff like 3D games and movies. As for actual 'useful' applications, UIQ is on the right track and will get there eventually, when the platform matures and it gets the proper developer support.
Hoi,
I think the Windows mobile OS 2003 has more software and shareware than the Symbian OS That's why i like the XDAII and you can write your own software in C++
Help me when i am wrong.
I don't know the difference betwen both very well
Yes, of course it has the most applications, because the platform has been around WAY LONGER than Symbian/UIQ. You can write your own software in Symbian c++ too, as well as J2ME MIDP 2.0, Personal Java, and hopefully soon enough, OPL.
I forgot to mention (not intentionally I swear! 😃 ) the biggest downside of the Px00 - The memory expansion format! Sony's proprietary Memory Stick DUO format is limited to 128MB only. This really s@cks, but they'll hopefully offer a firmware upgrade to make it accept the new DUO PRO format eventually, which allows for more memory (currently 512MB I think)...
lol....its no use promoting a PPC OS phone on a Symbian forum.😛
I don't think anyone is promoting anything here,we are just having a sensible discussion,right guys? 😃
Did you read the news?The rumour is that there will be a Symbian version of the SC8000!
i dont like rumors
they get me excited and when it turns out to be fake i get sooo depressed
anyway if it is true then that will definetly be my next phone
i read the new already
but its still not offical
and if it is i will definetly get it
that is if they keep all the same feauteres😃