O2 X1

Having read the reviews on ciao (and numerous other sites) I must admit I was wary of buying the 02x1. No one had much to say about the phone, other than “don’t buy it!” I was on the look out to upgrade my nokia phone to a camera phone, and at first I attempted to buy a Motorola V525 but found out the release of that specific phone wasn’t until late March. Being the inpatient person that I am, I couldn’t wait as long ...
...I read on it weren’t positive, and at the time the all-over rating of the phone on ciao was 2 stars, and many people said there was no point in buying the phone. I decided to wait for the release of the Motorola V525 and was eagerly anticipating its release until one day I read in a magazine that 02 had sorted out all of the 02x1’s problems and now it was a perfect phone for anyone; especially a first-time camera phone buyer. So, I took ... more

Having read the reviews on ciao (and numerous other sites) I must admit I was wary of buying the 02x1. No one had much to say about the phone, other than “don’t buy it!” I was on the look out to upgrade my nokia phone to a camera phone, and at first I attempted to buy a Motorola V525 but found out the release of that specific phone wasn’t until late March. Being the inpatient person that I am, I couldn’t wait as long as that, so I considered buying the 02x1. The reviews I read on it weren’t positive, and at the time the all-over rating of the phone on ciao was 2 stars, and many people said there was no point in buying the phone. I decided to wait for the release of the Motorola V525 and was eagerly anticipating its release until one day I read in a magazine that 02 had sorted out all of the 02x1’s problems and now it was a perfect phone for anyone; especially a first-time camera phone buyer. So, I took a risk. A big one at that. I forked out just under £200 (£170 to be precise) for it and must admit I was dreading receiving it in case I had taken too big of a risk. Luckily, it was the right decision to make…

♣ ♣ First Impressions… ♣ ♣

When I received the phone the first thing that sprung to mind was that it was a lot smarter than I’d anticipated it to be. I had seen the Motorola V500/525 and the new Sharp phone (which are both modern camera phones) and both are very heavy in weight and rather brick-like. The flip phone was silver with a very shiny and classy cover and it had a 180-degree rotating camera that was pretty smooth and easy to turn around. It had a small aeriel, and its battery was extremely light and thin. Weighing a mere 85g it’s not heavy to hold or to keep in your pocket. I was, at first impression, pleased with the phone. It had everything anyone could want, in respect of appearance, and if the features were good (which I hoped they would be) I would also be pleased with the appearance of the phone. The phone arrived with a charger and hands free which I was extremely pleased about. The hands free were also very smart, and were much nicer than ones I’d seen in the past. I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t have blue tooth. Blue tooth enables you to send numbers/pictures and other things to another phone that also has blue tooth. It can be done through holding the two phones close together (and keeping them at least 10cm close to each other) and sending the number or picture or whatever you wish to send. It can be done free and most new mobile phones have them. The fact that I didn’t have it wasn’t that disappointing but I did wish I would have the feature.

♣ ♣ The Features ♣ ♣

The ease of use of the phone altogether is pretty easy. I find it easy to text and to take pictures although when trying to use my phone some friends find it difficult to work out. I put this down to the fact that they aren’t really familiar with it, and I’m sure that if you used it long-term you’d get to know it easily. There are many features on the phone that I was pleased with and nothing disappointed me.

♣ Messages

Like all mobile phones the 02x1 has SMS; and like most new mobile phones it has MMS. The SMS feature is pretty simple to work out and to use. You’ve got an inbox and an outbox and you can save different templates. You’re able to write 456 characters in one text, which does save time and you can also use speed text which is up to date, although like most speed text facilities it can be annoying with “he” and “if” when the phone doesn’t know which one you want. The downside of the SMS facility is that you can only store 10 SMS messages, and that includes inbox and outbox messages. I was really surprised that the amount you could save was so little and was very disappointed. I use the SMS facility more so than calling someone, so I do receive around 10 messages a day. That means that I have to delete my messages everyday. Compared to the new nokia phone (which stores over 100 messages) it is very poor, and I was disappointed with the fact that 10 was the maximum amount that could be stored. Other than that, the SMS feature is very up to score. It’s got everything you need, including the facility where you can add an image or an animation to the message.

The other feature is MMS messaging. Here you can send and receive media messages. That is picture messages in non-phone talk. The only downer with this is that I can’t find a way to save my photos that I receive into the photos that I take. This means that the images I receive through MMS cannot be used as wallpaper, as it isn’t in my photos file but my MMS file. I found this irritating and off putting at first, and still do really, but have got used to the fact that I can’t find a solution to the problem. To my knowledge it can’t be done (as I’ve searched and searched the manual), although I could be wrong and I could just not be able to find a way to do it.

♣ 02 Active

02 active is, simply, the Internet. I haven’t really sued the feature much, but from what I’ve heard you can use e-mail and other features of the web on the phone. Each time I access the feature (through the blue button in the centre of the keypads) I get a list of facilities to choose from, including messaging, news, downloads, etc. I’ve downloaded a few ringtones from here, which is pretty handy. It’s even handier for this handset as it’s difficult to find ringtones that are suitable to download to the 02x1. That’s the downer of the phone – as it’s not as popular as other handsets it’s difficult to find sites that offer ringtones and wallpapers for the phone. I haven’t actually accessed the web yet, but I know people who have and say that it’s nothing different. If you have a WAP phone at the moment, then this will be exactly the same; there won’t be any new features on this one. Every time I access 02 active I get it for free for some reason. I’m not totally sure whether this is just because I’m lucky or whether this happens on each handset, but each time I access it, I don’t pay a penny. Lucky, eh?

♣ Organiser

I knew what I’d miss the most with my old nokia was the alarm. I knew there was an alarm on the 02x1, but I just hoped it would be as useful as the nokia one. On the 02x1 you can set 3 alarms at once (for different times, obviously) for any time of the day. There are five different sounds to choose from, but there’s a slight problem. Although all sounds are effective in what their purpose are, and are rather cool I find them a bit too loud. Many of times I’ve almost suffered a heart attack after the alarm going off in the morning. Not because I think I’m getting up late but because it’s so loud! Too loud if that’s possible. I’ve got used to it now, but if you’re the only person waking up in your house in the morning and are hoping to be discreet it probably isn’t the best thing to set the alarm on the 02x1 because I’m sure you’ll wake them up; and the neighbours!

Another feature on the organiser is the Calendar. This gives you the opportunity to set memos/birthdays/meetings on different occasion to remind you of that specific occasion. It also gives you a month view or a day view, and is a very modern updated feature on the phone. I don’t use it that often, but for a businessman or woman it would be very handy. The phone also has a feature that enables you to set tasks (“reminders” to use old-nokia users) that will remind you of different things to do on different days. You can set quite a few at one time to my knowledge and is a very handy thing to have; especially for people you forget things pretty easily! And of course, there’s a calculator like all phones have nowadays. It’s pretty modern and cool, again, and is simple to use. Just like any calculator!

♣ Games

I was rather upset that I’d be leaving my Snake II behind on my Nokia so I was hoping that I could have some good games on the 02x1. Sadly, I wasn’t too impressed by them. They are both java games, and the first is Jumping Bear and the second is Mini Golf. Both are satisfactory and easy to play, but rather dull and boring. There aren’t top scores, and for people who are rather competitive like myself that isn’t a very good thing. Another downer here is that if you flip the phone down during playing the phone will freeze and you’ll have to take out the battery and put it back in again to use it. But, this is the only time this happens. It NEVER freezes otherwise no matter what anyone says. Games can be bought and downloaded on 02 active for around £1.50 (which is a very good and reasonable price). Although I haven’t downloaded any I would recommend a game freak to do so, because that’s a very good price. Luckily for me the games feature of a phone isn’t that important, so the fact that the games aren’t much cop doesn’t matter to me. And really what you’ve got to ask yourself is, does it matter to you if the games are good or not?

♣ Ringtones & Wallpapers

With polyphonic ringtones and a wide range of wallpaper features the 02x1 has both great wallpapers and ringtones. There are 40 polyphonic ringtones to pick from, which are all fun, modern and funky and can fit anyone’s taste. You can also pick from 10 different polyphonic SMS alerts. Both the ringtones and the SMS alerts range is very wide and I often change both of them because I love so many of the different ones. I’ve downloaded a few ringtones too, from 02 active for a mere £2.50 and I can use this as well. You can have a specific ringtone for a certain person too or for a certain group. A group is when you group you’re phone book, e.g. friends, family, colleagues etc. I don’t do this, but for people who have a lot of numbers/people in their phone book it’s a good idea to do it. The ringtones on the phone are wonderful, and are the best I’ve had. They’re also much better than other phones’ variety.

The wallpaper features are very good too. You can choose a picture from you’re photos that you’ve taken to wallpaper as well. They’re of a very high standard, and I often change my wallpaper depending on my mood. Certainly another great feature.

♣ Phone Book

With over 250 names and numbers possible to save the 02x1 is certainly a phone for a people with a lot of friends (and remember that this is the phone that stores a mere 10 SMS messages!). You can store the person’s name, surname, home number, mobile number, work number, address, postal code, country, e-mail address and you can group them into a certain group. So, as you can see there are a wide variety of features in the phone book alone. A phone book is a phone book, really, but the 02x1 phone book is certainly one that is a cut above the rest. It’s full of different features and you can store many numbers. It’s most certainly impressive!

♣ Camera

And of course, the whole reason so many people are upgrading their phones, and the whole reason I bought the phone… the camera. The 02x1 takes wonderful pictures and not only that, but takes motion clips as well. For the pictures and the motion there’s 2MB, which I find pretty reasonable. You can easily take up to 200 pictures with this. The only problem (if you could call it that) is that the picture and motion don’t have separate MB, but share the same. For one small motion clip, you could probably take about 30 pictures, so in retrospect, it’s best to just take pictures. To date I’ve not saved any motion clips, although they are fun. They don’t record sound but they’re pretty top-notch, really. The whole camera facility is very clever and modern and certainly as good (if not better, perhaps) than I thought it might be. You can view thumbnails of the photos or have a photo list. Either way they’re still great to look through, to send, and to remember with. You can add frames around you’re pictures (which is a lot of fun to do) and you can also zoom in and out, and can get pretty close to someone whilst trying to picture them! There are great features with the camera that doesn’t let it down. A great good quality camera that I’m dead proud to have!

♣ ♣ So, Did I Make A Mistake? ♣ ♣

After reading what I’ve said about the features you probably know that I wasn’t disappointed with it, I did take a risk with a buying it as it had received such bad reviews and no one really had any good to say about, but all in all, I’m really happy with the phone. With it’s 180 degree rotating camera you can easily take a picture of whatever you want. There isn’t a flash (which isn’t uncommon with a camera phone at all), which doesn’t really bother me as I usually take pictures in the light or in daylight, so it doesn’t affect me. The fact that it freezes on java games and that it can only store 10 SMS messages is the big downers for me, though. I don’t really play the java games so that’s not as big an issue, but I am an avid texter so that does disappoint me. If it stored 50 SMS messages I’d be completely, 100% happy, but that’s something that just makes me 98% happy with it!

I think that the 02x1 is a phone for anyone really – young or old; businessman/woman or student. It’s got such a wide variety of features that it wouldn’t disappoint anyone, it’s very versatile for anyone really. It’s not difficult to use at all, and I learnt how to use it within hours of getting it. The battery's pretty long lasting too. It has to be charged very three days or so, and that's after a good use. it usually takes around 3 hours to charge fully from no blocks at all. It’s light and looks smart and at £170 I think it’s well prized against its competitors that aren’t that good. All in all I’m happy with it. So, did I make a mistake with buying it? Definitely not!

I give it 4 and half stars, which rounds up to 5. Highly Recommended.

© Matt Roberts 2004

 

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