Neowin review: O2 XDA

Well, I"ve just got hold of my new O2 XDA Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition handheld, and I"ve learnt two lessons straight away:

• Read the instructions: Although fairly similar in appearance and location I pressed the hard reset button instead of the soft reset... I lost all my data and had to rebuild all my installed apps, contacts, appointments, config etc. Not good :(

• Reading Neowin Mobile Edition or instant messaging Neobond in bed will result in a slap from g/f lol. Also not good. (Can"t beat dedication though.)

Anyways, for those of you that don"t know, the XDA is a combined GSM/GPRS mobile phone and feature packed PDA with a colour screen (with Cleartype). It"s got versions of IE, MSN Messenger, Word, Excel, Outlook and Media Player powered by a passable 206MHz Intel StrongARM 32-bit chip. However, I"ve already had to go out and buy some flash cards to add to the measly 32MB RAM: this is now enough given that it is capable of playing music and video if only there was space to store them. I fully expect a beefed up version to be released in time. This is its biggest downfall IMHO.

To say that this thing has attracted every bloke in my office to clammer round my desk wanting to play with it is an understatement. It has serious amounts of cool... which is the main reason I parted with £500 for it. ;)

Click on Read More for the rest of my review.