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“This review refers to the O2 XDA 2S. All comments...”

written by accuro100 on 12/07/2005

Good Points
Hardware solid.

Bad Points
Poor intergation of hardware and software.

General Comments
This review refers to the O2 XDA 2S. All comments expressed here are based on my own experience with the device covered in this review, and these may differ from the experience(s) of other users with the same device.


Hardware:


The slide out keyboard has q light green secondary function, printed on keys, BUT the backlight is blue, making reading them IMPOSSIBLE.


The battery life is less than two days with average use of the phone (15 local calls per day, averaging less than 10 minutes each).


The system response is poor: when a button is pressed, it takes, often more than 10 seconds until the device responds. Sometimes it does not respond at all, requiring you to press the key again.


The Bluetooth (BT), is clumsy. It required a patch within a month of relase of the product. Note: It is only loaded in volatile memory, and needs to be reinstalled after a hard reset.


No BT headset available, requiring a third party accessory, with ONE extra charger to carry. Learn from Motorola! Note: I am NOT an employee of a mobile-phone manufacturer - I am a consumer!


SMS: A sent message cannot be resent. You must copy and recreate a new message.


Phone: A phone number cannot be added to an existing contact. Only saveable to a new contact.


The copy function is somtimes in the drop down menu, and sometimes under "EDIT". It is inconsistent and therefore clumsy.


You cannot send a text message to a phone number stored in the phonecalls received list.


Inserting a contact number from the contacts list into a text message is impossible without editing. (NOKIA allows insertion of a contact number)!


Inconsistent use of writing area when in contacts: when changing from "Search by Name" to "Search by Company" the writing area (Block Recognizer) closes. Inconsistent!


The alarm volume is inadequate for wake-up as an alarm clock. Again, compared to the competition (NOKIA, SONY-ERICSSON and MOTOROLA).


Using IE on the device accumulates so much extraneous data in the cache, that a Backup to the SD card hangs consistently with a "File Sharing Violation". This clears once the cache is manually emptied.


IE cannot copy web-page content to the local memory. It must be written down manually, and typed in again.


SIM Manager: a euphemism for a copy funtion, that managed to mess up my OUTLOOK contacts on the synchronized PC.


Spreadsheets created on the PDA only become recognizable when transferred to the PC via Autosync, but not when copied to the PC via infrared, or using BT.


The help manual is more like an afterthought. It has a poor index (like many manuals). Some topics are only found after extensive searching. Some topics are irrelelvant to the device (like modem congfiguration), and some topics are not mentioned at all, like how to turn off the WiFi connection.