XDA Mini S, PDA/Mobile Phone

I recently upgraded my phone from the nokia 6260. I was due an upgrade and so went about finding out what was about and more importantly what the costs where going to be,

I started looking at the nokia phones to start with I really love their phones, they way that they are designed and the use of use with their standard menus. I searched on their website and there wasn't anything that I particularly liked. I was looking specifically for a flip phone with a large colour screen. I spotted a few of the N ranges that looked really good, but they weren't out yet and I am a little impatient when it comes to buying.

So I had a look on the other websites, Carphone warehouse, Vodaphone, Orange then lastly o2. I noticed that they had a new range of PDA's out and they looked really stylish. I have always wanted one, even when I was younger I wanted an organiser that looking back now was rubbish! They only had two lines of input as a screen, a basic calendar and a notepad of some description and an address book! How things have moved on.

I read about their new pda's and found out that they had combined a very high powered PDA with a mobile phone and more features on top! They have several out, all very similar but this one stood out for me. I went to the o2 shop in town near me and asked to see the range in the flesh so I can actually see what they are like. She brought all three out and one (the executive one) was massive! It was too big. Then this one was given to me. The mini. The baby of the range. He was small, rounded and compact. It was like love at first sight! Ii asked the shop assistant how much the handset was and she replied 275.00! I was shocked! But that price was the buy it outright with no contract attached. So I immediately asked about the contracts and the prices involved. I had never had to pay for a handset before and wasn't prepared to do so.

She went through a range of options and we settled on a 45.00 per month contract with 800 minutes and 400 texts per month, which can roll over for three months. This is for the first six months then it drops by half, so 400 mins and 200 texts which is more than ample for my usage.

I asked her for an in store demo and that was ok, apart from the phone actually froze while she was showing me the features! I didn't care and signed up there and then. The phone has only cost me an extra 10.00 per month and I have more minutes and text so hopefully my phone bill wont be much higher than 45.00.

I went away with the o2 bag and dashed home to play with it.

The box was well designed with two draws that simultaneously opened when you pulled out one and inside was lots of other compartments for the battery, the phone, a rather thick instruction manual, a hands free kit and a leather case for the phone.

I plugged the charger in and turned it on. After about 5 minutes the phone was on! It takes that long to boot up as it's actually a mini computer running Windows mobile 5.0, the latest software.

The screen is massive and the clarity is excellent, better than my PC monitor! One the menu had loaded up, I didn't know what to look at first. The phone has all the features you can imagine and more.

First off, Navigation. This is done in a variety of ways. Either using the buttons in-between the red and green phone buttons at the end of the phone or by touch screen with your finger or the stylus which is inside the phone and you just pull it out and extend! It lives in a hole inside the phone so you won't loose it. Navigation is tricky to get use to, but it becomes easy once you have had a play with it.

The features.
1.3 mega pixel camera and video.

Text messaging
Multimedia messaging

Email accounts - add your existing hotmail account or another and check, send and receive your emails. This is really easy to set up, no need to input IP addresses etc....simply add your email address and password and you're done!

Calendar (like the one in Outlook) and can be viewed daily weekly monthly or yearly.

Tasks - ad your tasks, upload them from your PC
Notepad- scribble away!
Games- for entertainment, there is solitaire installed
Internet explorer - for browsing the net- full page style! No wap!
Pictures and video gallery -stores all your pics in here to send to friends
Excel mobile - full excel version to create spreadsheets on the go
Word mobile - the same as excel
PowerPoint mobile - the same again!
Contacts -stores all your contact information
Pocket msn- for hotmail and msn messaging
Windows media player - for playing movies, videos and sounds.
Active sync - for connecting to your pc
PDF viewer - for viewing PDF. Files
WiFi - for connecting to a wireless internet network (hotspots)
Bluetooth - for connecting with other Bluetooth devices such as a hands free kit or pc
Infrared - for connection again

The main screen is called "today" a summary. Your owner name, unread messages, tasks, appointments, battery level.

On the top right of the screen is the start button, which is the same as the start button on your pc. It brings up all the programs that are installed.

The design, feel and look are almost identical to windows XP. So if you know how to use that then you are fine. It takes awhile to become used to where things are and how to do things but it gets easy once you have had a play around.

Messaging
The design of the messaging is like Outlook. You have folders on the left, one for each account you have on the phone, so I have one for text, MMS, hotmail and my BT account at home.

Sending and receiving is easy. But typing them is a little tricky. First of all there are several ways of typing your message. There is a little icon at the bottom which enables you to choose which input method you want. These methods are available for use with all of the writing applications.

Block recogniser - this is if you want to write on the screen as your input method and it will type it up for you. It is a little tricky for it to recognise your handwriting at first, but there is a setting which if you go into, you can select how you write your letters so it knows! There are little icons to select for adding symbols like :? / "@

Keyboard - a screen keyboard comes up and you can select the letters you want by using the stylus.

Letter recogniser- similar to the block one except it does one letter at a time. A space comes up on the screen and it has a section for capitals, lowercase and numbers.

Phone pad - a screen comes up and it's similar to a normal phone pad with numbers and letters and they are done so you can use predictive text but it is touch screen again. the pad can be changed from having number and letters (using predictive text) to just numbers for adding a phone number in for example to just letters for inputting in single letters (without predictive text) each pad has a colour so its easy to identify at a glance which one you want to switch to. The pad blocks are large enough to use a finger to input with so it's similar to using a phone.

Transcriber - this is the best one of all. The whole screen becomes a writing block and you just scribble away and it will recognise it and replace it with text. There is a small button at the bottom which you can add symbols but it will recognise a full stop and will then add a space then start the next word.

There are different settings you can choose like what colour you want to write in according to preference, and an option to change the font size, bigger or smaller for confidential matters so no one can read it over your shoulder.

Then lastly there is the sliding out keyboard. It lives underneath the phone and is easy to slide out when needed. As the phone is normally used vertically (standing upright|) I was a little confused how you would use the keyboard as it's horizontal to the phone. But then I realised...the screen changes around when you pull the keyboard out so the screen becomes wider. It is a full QWERTY keyboard, with everything you would expect to find, even a little star button which starts up the menu! Navigation can be done from here with little arrow buttons on the right. The letters light up a vivid blue so you can type in the dark.

You can turn the screen round at and time in any of the applications depending on your preference. I use it mainly to browse the internet as I find the wider screen better. The straight screen squashes the internet and is a little difficult to see everything on the page.

The phone. I wasn't sure how to make calls with a mini computer, but all you do is press the green button and the phone comes up. It automatically brings up a large screen phone pad for you to type in the phone number you want to dial or you can select a contact from the drop down menu. There is a loud speaker which is excellent and very clear. and the option to make notes while on the phone, very handy for jotting important notes in a conference call etc...

Connecting to a PC is easy via the cable you are provided with and it uses Active sync program. You have to install cd and then you are away. You can browse the phones files from your pc, add files into it by copy and paste or drag and drop and the phone instantly receives them and stores them in the place where you selected. You can sync with your outlook emails, outlook calendar notes and anything else you desire.

The phone has soft keys around the outside of the screen and these are preset but changeable. One for messaging, internet, voice recorder and voice recognition for voice dialling, one for connections like Bluetooth and WiFi and one for the camera. They are identifiable by the little pictures on each one.

The camera is awesome and takes good quality pictures, change the mode to black and white, sepia, video, or contacts picture to add a picture to a contact. The camera has a light which you can turn on or off depending on the light conditions. It has a digital zoom.

Power profiles is a setting on the phone which you can change and switch about, some use more battery power like if you choose to have the screen really bright and for it not to time out after a few minutes of not using. I like to conserve my battery so I have set it to turn off after one minute. It doesn't actually turn off but more like standby. To turn it back on takes seconds by lightly pressing the on/off switch at the top of the phone. I find the battery can last a few days if used in power saving mode called 'long life'

There is a slot at the top of the phone to insert a mini SD card which will give you extra memory. Ideal if you want to store lots of pictures or documents or contacts.

You can easily customise the look and sound of the phone with the usual ring tones, themes, wallpapers etc...

I really could go on and on about he features of the phone but my little fingers are tired from typing up this! Overall then this phone/PDA is excellent. Easy to use once you know how. Its packed full of features and more but the phone still works excellently and very responsive. I have had to use the reboot button a couple of times as it's frozen up after opening multiple programs. One thing I learnt is that it doesn't close each application by clicking the ok button at the top. It has a task manager which you have to use to close all your programs down otherwise they will continue to run in the background, using memory and battery power. One good thing though is that you can charge your phone up by using the USB cable when syncronising.

This phone is excellent for business people on the go and need to stay in contact with the office or for people who looks, style and up to date features are important.

Oh a nothing thing...it can be used with the Tom tom or anyother sat nav software for Satalite navigation.