Introduction

This is not just another review of the O2 Xphone. This is a story of my experience with the Xphone.

Even before I decided to purchase this phone, I had already read up on the many reviews online. I was initially quite skeptical about it. I knew that the Xphone was far from perfect. But what is perfect anyway? Of course, some of its reported shortcomings were, by my standards, quite unacceptable.

However, my Nokia 3310 was dying after 3 years of faithful service. That and well, my impulsive nature were really the deciding factors for this purchase. Read on further as I bring you into my world with the Xphone for the past 6 months. I know that the Xphone has been in the market for quite a while now but I'm sure there are many who are still waiting for its price to drop before buying one. Hopefully, my experience will give you a good idea whether the Xphone should be your Smartphone of choice.

When I bought this Smartphone, I was absolutely clear about certain things. Personally, I am not into convergence devices like the O2 XDA II just yet. It is a nice concept but I prefer to have the two roles separated - at least for now. I don't like having an incoming call to my PDA while I'm showing a movie clip to my friend or when I'm reading my favourite e-book. You get my point.

I intended to use the Xphone primarily as a phone, not a PDA. I understood its limitations as I have been using PDAs for several years now. The Xphone is definitely not going to replace a full-fledged PDA. Just FYI, the first PDA I owned was the Compaq iPAQ H3660 (worst choice I've ever made - horrible battery life and a lousy side-lit screen) before I switched over to the Sony Clie NX70V (best PDA choice I ever made). I also had the opportunity to use the old Casio Cassiopeia E-115 which had a beautiful HAST screen!

The O2 Xphone is a Smartphone running on Windows 2003 Smartphone Edition. It's just like your Windows XP operating system but running on a small 2.2" 64K colours trans-reflective display. Haha... Just kidding!

Nah, it's nothing like that at all although it does give you the Windows "feel". I'm not going to go through all the Xphone's features but they will be covered somewhat during this walkthrough of my Xphone experience.