| Since first impressions matter, I should point out that the very first thing that strikes you about the latest O2, the O2 Atom, is that it comes in a beautiful jewellery box like package, complete with an embedded magnetic catch! Open the box, and the phone doesn't disappoint either. |
| For a PDA, it's comfortably sized at 71.7 x 125 x 18.7 mm and weighs under 200 grams. The 240 x 320-pixel display on the 3.5 inch translective LCD screen is, like all other members of the O2 family, extremely sharp and can be comfortably viewed even in the sun. |
| The Atom is O2's first PDA-phone to have the new Windows Mobile 5.0, though I needed to read up on "how to speed up Windows Mobile 5" since the software wasn't as snappy as I'd thought. |
| Some of the software that comes bundled with the phone includes O2 SMS Plus that allows chatting via SMS "" the service also allows for pre-scheduled SMSes like "happy birthday" go out from you even if you forget! |
| The O2 Media Plus is designed to give you a Windows Media Centre-type look and feel, to allow you to play video, music, listen to FM, photo albums and stuff like that. You can even add your own picture to the screen. |
| The Equaliser is fun to use and gives you options like bass, classic, dance, rock and so on to go with music. But the quality of the earphones leaves a lot to be desired. I managed on the bundled earphones by lowering the volume (avoiding the voice distortion). |
| The FM radio comes with stations pre-set for the Asian market "" you can, however, only launch the radio application if you have any earphones connected to the device. Taking back ups and remaining on top of things with multiple devices can be done with Microsoft's Active Sync technology. |
| Since the attempt has been to make this even smaller than the popular XDA II Mini, one of the solutions found was to remove the slideable keypad, and so the Atom only has a virtual keypad. |
| This is a bit irritating for those who've got used to the QWERTY keypads on other phones for messaging. The dialling doesn't always require a stylus as, once you get used to it, you can dial with your thumb on the virtual dialpad that comes up when you press one of the four application buttons the Atom has on the front screen. |
| Messaging is a bit painful since you have to use the stylus for this, but the usual Microsoft suggest-words feature is helpful, once you get used to it "" basically, you can set it so that the phone gives you prompts on possible words (you can choose as many possible words you want) after you've typed a few letters (you can also choose after how many letters you want the prompt to come). |
| The four application shortcut buttons, familiar to Pocket PC users, are split into two pairs. The lower pair initiates and ends calls, while the upper pair gives quick access to calendar/scheduler and contacts. |
| Pocket Word and Pocket Excel are both present on the device by default thanks to its Microsoft's OS. Pocket Internet Explorer and MSN messenger are two other things without which the Atom would simply have been incomplete. |
| Connectivity is not world class, but certainly better than many other PDAs that are sold. The phone comes with the usual bluetooth and infrared connectivity and a USB connector as well, so you can use it as a modem as well "" though it's unlikely you'd want to do that given just how slow GSM networks are when it comes to data applications. |
| The Atom's speaker is made to look like a design feature, and the microphone is a tiny slot located towards the bottom of the casing. |
| The SD card slot, infrared port and on/off button are in the top of the casing. One drawback is that the headsets need to be attached at the bottom making the PDA a little uncomfortable for those on the move. |
| The VGA camera sits on the back of the casing and it can take stills at 640 x 480, 320 x 240 and 160 x 160 pixels "" this is great for a PDA, especially the quality. |
| The hardware that supports all this includes an Intel XScale processor running at 400 MHz and a healthy 128 MB RAM. In addition, 14 MB of the 64-MB ROM is set aside for permanent user-accessible data storage. |
| There's the usual SD expansion cards to boost the space-crazy techies. The battery test involved looping the MP3 playback with the screen always on and along with normal telephony capability switched on. |
| I got a good one day's run on the battery and that's good for a PDA. The entire PDA phone works on a Lithium Polymer battery of 1490 mAh. |
| K-Jam: This beauty from I-Mate is similar to O2's Xda Mini S, right down to the sliding QWERTY keyboard, except the K-Jam is also Edge-enabled, and so in places like Delhi and Mumbai where GSM operators like Hutch and Airtel have Edge-enabled netwoks, the surfing is faster than the usual non-Edge phones. |
| The K-Jam, like the Atom, also has curious pricing to make it appear cheaper "" so, it's priced at Rs 39,990, which the company wants customers to feel, isn't quite Rs 40,000! |
| The K-Jam's a quad-band phone and so can be used anywhere in the world. Like the Atom, it too is powered by Windows Mobile 5.0. |
| The QWERTY keyboard, of course, is probably a tad too closely packed to be of much use, and to that extent, the Atom's probably made the right decision by doing away with it altogether. |
| If you're looking for a keypad that's easy to use, for dialling and messaging, Sony Ericsson's P910i's your best bet, but the phone's now been discontinued since another model is due in the next few months. Both the Atom and the K-Jam operate on GSM-based networks only. |
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