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O2 Xda Atom Exec Review 58

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the short-term-upgrades-rarely-are dept.
An anonymous reader writes "CNET has posted a full review of the new O2 Xda Atom Exec smartphone device. They were very impressed with the handheld, giving it their 'Editor's Choice' award. From the article: 'On its own, the Exec is a highly impressive, push e-mail enabled smart phone, but if you already own the first Atom, its upgrade worthiness is questionable.'"
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O2 Xda Atom Exec Review More

O2 Xda Atom Exec Review

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  • Printer friendly link (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @07:42AM (#15659356)
    Text only version [cnet.com.au]

  • How much do they get paid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @07:46AM (#15659365)
    for posting these fscking Slashvertisements?

    How about this for a proposal:

    - There are at most 3 slashvertisements for every legimate story

    - slashvertisements are clearly marked as such

    - subscribers can hide the slashvertisements on the front page
    • There's obviously a fuzzy line marking where a gadget story ends and an advertisement begins. Some might say that there is no real distinction between the two. However, I think virtually all tech reviews can be considered advertisements, as the company manufacturing the product has usually paid, in some fashion, for a favourable review.
    • My head hurts to even think about a "News for nerds" site that does not include technology previews and reviews.

      Perhaps you ment to type a diffrent URL?

    • Re:How much do they get paid (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @11:05AM (#15660114) Journal
      If I found a nifty gadget and sent a link into Slashdot, and I had no attachment to it whatsoever, I just thought it was nifty, how would you know?

      If you think about it, honestly maintaining your cynicism (e.g., even if I said I had no attachement to the product, you're not going to believe me), and follow through the implications, I think you'll come to the conclusion that there are one of two choices: Stop talking about products entirely, or run things that somebody, somewhere is going to consider a "slashvertisement". All things considered, for the purposes of the site, the former is preferable.

      I wouldn't mind a clear statement of Slashdot's advertising policy. On the other hand, I'd lay money they don't run every ad that gets sent in, because I bet they're getting at least 25 a day, and I wouldn't be surprised if they said it was in the hundreds per day (because of people re-submitting the same products over and over, not necessarily hundreds of distinct products). Presumably the editors actually think this is neat and aren't just being handed wads of cash. If you want to hand Slashdot wads of cash and get your product advertised, that's what the banner ads are for.

      A "product" category wouldn't be all bad, though.
    • pda, smartphone, o2, slashvertisement (tagging beta)

      Well at least one of your wishes came true.

  • Handwriting recognition (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BobTheLawyer ( 692026 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @07:48AM (#15659371)
    Does anyone actually find this usable? It's impressive it works at all, but I've always been frustrated by it, even when writing phone numbers and addresses.
    • That is the reason I went with the HTC Wizard/cingular 8125|8100/qtek 9200/imate K-jam...... It has a keyboard that slides out, with similair form factor, only slightly thicker. I used to use the HTC Magician/Imate Jam, which is is the Execs predecesor, it worked well for what I needed it for, although using the stylus for text messages was fine. I will pass on this particular model, and wait for the HTC Hermes, which will support UMTS, has a decent proc, and a keyboard that slides out.... Oh, notice the

    • Re:Handwriting recognition (Score:4, Interesting)

      by glesga_kiss ( 596639 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @08:16AM (#15659434)

      Like your other reply, I too bought a device with a slide out keyboard. I've never seen anyone regret that decission. You might be able to use handwriting for text messages but you do not want to EVER try it with vi over ssh. ;-) Also, imagine an "rm -rf" mis-recognition...

      Mind you, there are some neat bluetooth keyboards you can get, such as The Virtual Keyboad [virtual-la...yboard.com], so it's not all lost if you don't have one.

      I've been using my phone/pda for a year or two and I still think it's one of the coolest and most useful gadget I have. Google in my pocket, access to my home linux box, a camera and an mp3 player. Everything I'd ever need most days. One piece of advice though; get one with WiFi, this is an absolute must. It's much faster than GPRS and it's free most of the time.

      • check gomyplace - has a couple of nice features and does not require SSH
      • I'd agree that the HTC/iMate K-JAM [imate.com] is one of the best bits of kit around - I've had mine for about six months now, and already find it hard to imagine going back to a "normal" phone.

        The slide-out keyboard is a fantastic idea - I hardly ever use the stylus/on-screen keyboard method at all. In fact, the only visible "downside" to it is that if you're using the keyboard to write messages etc., it's a highly visible clue to muggers etc. that you're carrying an expensive bit of kit. Then again, to me that just e
    • I was lucky, the device I wanted had sold out, and I had to buy the model up (The HTC Wizard, with the side out keyboard). I tried to do a few days using the handwriting recognition to see what the £50 had got me.

      I was impressed with the recognition, I could scribble out text, and it would be 80-90% right. But the component selection was a real PIA.

  • Ad-less version (Score:2, Redundant)

    by broothal ( 186066 )
    Easy to read version (without bells and whistles): http://www.cnet.com.au/pdas/pdas/print.htm?TYPE=st ory&AT=40063806-39035588t-30000042c [cnet.com.au]
  • Useless!

    I'll have one of these instead.
    http://europe.nokia.com/A4142030 [nokia.com]

     
    • ... at the E61 [nokia.com] or the E70 [nokia.com] while you are browsing the Nokia site I think they have a newer Symbian version than the one you linked to. Design wise I especially like the E70. It folds open into a QWERTY keyboard and has a 352 x 416 pixels display which is better than my old iPaq had but it's quite small for the kind of features it offers. Personally I like Ericsson and Nokia phones better than the Windows Mobile powered ones like the Xda Atom Exec. Windows mobile phones are nice and well integrated but only i
      • I had a chance to play with an E61 recently and really liked it. The new Series 60 OS is significantly faster, I believe partly because Nokia are using a new compiler now.

      • My E70 arrived this morning. It's rather nice. Extremely rather nice.

        Known issues:
        - Can't currently use SIP based VOIP through NAT; Nokia apparently working on resolution
        - Web browser can run out of memory; N80 had same issue, Nokia resolved with new firmware

        It's a very elegant device, I've been a fan of Symbian since my Psion MX5 and Revo and being a Nokia, it's got 5 hours talk time, 10 days standby and great voice quality.

        I'm sure I'll find more I don't like about it, but I'm also sure I'll find more tha
    • Not really. I have the original atom and when I want to make a phone call I press the phone hardware button and use the touchscreen to enter the number.

      Use my finger most of the time as well.
  • Ok guys, I've been using PDA's for the last 5-6 years or so, mainly for work and such and I just can't honestly imagine them getting further than they are now and laptops are just getting so much more viable as PDA replacements. Sure there are those certain times when a PDA is the only choice but as a wise man once told me "You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air." I whistled for a cab, and when it came near, The license plate said "fresh" and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I could say t
  • to be willing to pay us$915 for something like that.  Let me shed tears for
    the poor exec who has to carry a cell and seperate PDA at a fraction of the
    cost. And if your company isn't buying then you really do need help with
    your spending priorities.  No moaning about the cost of this or that when
    you put one your credit card.

    • I just spent around $650 on a new phone - a Nokia E70. It arrived this morning.

      For the use I'm going to get from it, the convenience it gives me, the fact it fits into my trouser pocket (when two separate devices wont), the satisfaction I get from owning it, and the opportunity cost involved (i.e. what else I would have spent the money on) I don't think my spending priorities are out of kilter.

      I am not on crack.

      Next big purchases:
      - $3600 boiler replacement for my house
      - $1800 refurbishment of my Indiana Jon

  • I have the O2 Exec... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Madcowz ( 904786 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @09:17AM (#15659595)
    I have the O2 Exec... otherwise known as the HTC Universal and I love it.

    It does all of the usual PDA stuff as well as being my mobile phone, GPS (with additional matchbox sized receiver) and I can walk round town using MiniStumbler to detect open WIFI.

    It syncs with Exchange so I can access my work public folders and Global Contacts. It also does email, texts, web, etc etc.

    And yes... the Universal can run Linux: http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=35 972 [xda-developers.com]

    Oh, nearly forgot, it also doubles up as an mp3 player with an additional SD card (up to 4GB). So quite a step up from my previous Palm V :-)

    /Mad
    • btw MP3 player - check out my project no need for SD card, just pull the files from your home PC
  • I'm having a hard time imagining buying a phone with no hardware keypad. I can be ok with handwriting recognition for the computer part of it, but I'm really gonna need an actual 12-key keypad for the phone part.

  • push e-mail enabled (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sgt scrub ( 869860 ) <saintium@NOSpAM.yahoo.com> on Wednesday July 05, 2006 @01:27PM (#15661105)
    *** RANT WARNING ***

    I think this "push e-mail enabled" market speak has been repeated one time too many. People actually believe it is some magical, only available via crackberry and crapchange servers, functionality brought via the heavens. It is called IDLE. IDLE has been available via IMAP for years. Lots of years. Many much more years!

    type this to see for yourself.
    telnet your.imap.server 143
    a001 CAPABILITIES
    * CAPABILITY IMAP4REV1 IDLE NAMESPACE MAILBOX-REFERRALS BINARY UNSELECT SCAN SORT THREAD=REFERENCES THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT MULTIAPPEND LOGIN-REFERRALS STARTTLS AUTH=CRAM-MD5 capabilies ad nausium....
    a001 OK CAPABILITY completed

    and that is from plain old uw-imapd

    wooo woooo i have puuuush technology on my internet!
  • I use PDAs in a day-to-day basis since PalmIIIe.
    after 4 generations of palms (last one was a zire 72), i finally took a PocketPC (o2 XDA II) only to consolidate all my gadgets in one.

    basically my xda = PDA + cell phone + pendrive + mp3 player.

    but zire 72 was way better than XDA ins terms of usability and shows me that PDAs have a lot to evolve, they must be not like computers and more like cell phones. adding a new contact with a photo is a burocratic procedure that convinces 99% of the users NOT to do it a

  • A rose by any other... wait, no. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Onan ( 25162 ) on Thursday July 06, 2006 @02:49AM (#15665314)
    Bahahahah! That has got to be the most atrocious company/product/model/version name that I've ever seen.

    Take something that might be the chemical formula for oxygen molecules or might not, add an unpronounceable thing that might or might not be an acronym, add on another word that's currently being used by a completely unrelated technology, and top it off with a word that already means either a person or a system call, but never a piece of hardware, and you get a true miracle of impenetrable gibberish. I honestly think that it might be literally impossible to create a worse name.

  • Do not EVER buy anything from O2. This company is shady in its business practices.

    Here's my story:

    I bought an O2 Atom in Hong Kong a while back. Within 2 weeks the unit was broken and wouldn't turn back on. I went all the way to their repair center, and had to wait in line for over 2 hours to get service. And then they told me I'd have to come back another day. This is fine. However, when they notified me to go back, it was in the form of a specific date and specific few hours. I told the tech if I c

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