O2 blueroom

Here’s a great selection of photos taken by, or of, the O2 Xda Orbit 2. We hope you like…

We’ve seen some great reviews of the Xda Orbit 2 from our seeders, but it is worth having a read of what some of the ‘big dogs’ have to say:

4winmobile

“O2 have been renowned for innovation over the years with the creation and development of the Xda series of machines. Twelve months or so ago O2 launched what was arguably the best Xda machine - the Xda Orbit. This developed a massive following despite it having a few shortcomings such as too fast a trackball and a relatively slow operational speed. O2 have now launched the replacement for the Orbit which has been imaginatively named the Xda Orbit 2. This is again based on a generic HTC design (the Polaris) but has been fitted out with an O2 designed housing as was the original Orbit. This resultant blend of HTC technology and O2 style serves to produce a modern looking and attractive machine. The Orbit 2 serves to bring to the user a high level of features; 3Mpixel camera, fast processor, large RAM / ROM, GPS, Quad band, phone, Touch interface, etc. O2 are back with another revolutionary Orbit design, but will it follow through and gain on the success of the original Orbit or will it be found lacking? We’ll look at its features as we move through the review and see if the Orbit 2 does carry on the traditions of the original Orbit….. Once more we extend our thanks to the generous folks at O2 for allowing us to review the Xda Orbit 2.”

(you can see the full review here)

Trusted Reviews

“At first glance this is nothing special. The face-on shots on the O2 website depict what looks like a bog-standard Windows Mobile PDA phone. There’s a large 2.8in screen above which sits a small lens for making video calls, below which is a familiar-looking cluster of control buttons. You can see the usual pick-up and hang-up buttons, plus a couple of shortcut keys for activating the start menu and OK commands and these flank what looks like a standard five-way navigation key…A superb touchscreen with accompanying software enhancements, and the inclusion of the excellent CoPilot sat-nav software and kit, all elevate the O2 XDA Orbit 2 from potential also ran to viable choice. If you don’t need the keyboard of the TyTN II it’s a competent and reasonably priced alternative, even if it isn’t quite as compact as one might desire.”

(you can see the full review here)

CNet UK

“While it still has an air of seriousness about it in comparison to phones like the Nokia N95 8GB, we really like the O2 Xda Orbit 2… It’s business as usual on the inside but the plethora of connectivity options make it a great choice if you always need to keep in touch…Our only word of warning would be that if you’re used to a mechanical Qwerty keypad, then switching to a touchscreen might come as a shock — try before you buy”

(you can see the full review here)

That may sound like a contradiction in terms - and it is. But it’s also a good description for the O2 Xda.

The Xda has functions by the bucketload. Indeed there’s probably one to book your holiday and make you a cup of tea at the same time, if only I knew where. But it’s also sufficiently simple to let me make calls, send texts and take photos (which are my essential things) with the minimum of fuss and without ever having to read the manual.

Things I like about the Xda:

• Looks quite swish (yep, am a sucker for the flashy and impressive-looking)
• I can check my emails, internet dating sites and other important dating schenanigans while out and about/waiting in a bar.
• GPS is a wondrous thing - no more need for endless scruffy print outs from multimap of bar locations etc. Though as the battery life plummets when you use it, it’s good to be paying attention once you set it going.
• Seemingly unlimited memory for text messages for the sentimental amongst us who like hanging onto these things.
• Large screen for pictures/picture messages

Things I don’t like/have struggled with:

• The Stylus. Yes, it’s possible to write texts without it, but it’s definitely more fiddly than on a normal phone - and for those multi-taskers amongst us who are usually texting while walking/standing on the tube/wine glass in hand, it’s sub-optimal. On the positive side, no doubt my phone bills will decrease.
• Re the above… fat chance of me EVER managing to send a text when drunk. This may be no bad thing, however.
• It’s quite big. Not 1980s big, you understand, but considerably larger than my previous phone (LG Chocolate). It doesn’t fit in some of my evening handbags, so I have to swop my SIM onto an old phone for the evening - so I’m back to being able to drunk text. Rats.
• It is impossible to see the screen in bright sunlight. Particularly if you lock the phone so it doesn’t dial from your pocket. Whilst skiing I completely gave up and had to resort to an old phone. Again, rats.
• Transfering photos from the phone to my computer is not easy. Well, you can email them (at a cost, of course) but there should be an easy cable transfer thing, like most digital cameras. I faffed for half an hour loading various bits of software and then gave up and went to the pub to show my friends the pics. Easier. But not very 21st Century. Also, because it’s a 3MG camera, the pictures it takes are then too large to send by MMS (despite selecting low res options etc). Go figure.
• Disappearing photos. The phone had a hissy fit one day and deleted all my pictures. Fortunately I had emailed my favourite ones already to my emails. I have no idea where they went. Same place as those blokes who are abducted by aliens? Possibly.

So there you go. I like it - mostly for the looks/phone/email combo. If I could get music/camera to work properly too, it’d be even better. But maybe this is where I ask a bloke to help?

Steve Clayton has given some great feedback on what he thinks about “Word of Mouth Marketing”, opening the box, and the phones hardware. You can see his original post here, thanks Steve.

“With my recent travels I’ve been a bit slack on blogging about the XDA Orbit 2 that O2 (via VCCP) kindly sent to me recently. A few of my blogger friends are also on this seeding program and have reviewed in depth so I thought I would take a slightly different view than give you an in depth technical assessment. Besides, when it comes to the software I’m biased : )

For informed views from others, check out reviews from the likes of Being Lucy Diamond, Blog Til You Drop, Darren Straight, Keith’s Affiliate, Marketing Blog, Mediations, Mobile Phone Development, Neville Hobson, The Engaging Brand Blog and Will McInnes – all of which have been put up on the xda_blog

I wanted to explore 2 quite different things

1. Word of Mouth Marketing - Neville has covered this somewhat in an earlier post on approach to social media outreach
2. The out of box experience/hardware

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Will McInnes gives us his first impressions on the Xda Orbit 2, his blog can be found here.

“Disclosure: O2 is a client of mine. In a different capacity I am on the receiving end of a blogger outreach programme run by VCCP, one of their roster agencies, where they send out pre-release phones/devices for people to play with and keep. This is the second phone I’ve been sent - first time was the Coccoon which I never got round to writing about (oops) but I can say sincerely that my wife LOVES it and says she gets lots of positive comments about it, so there you go.

So first impressions of the O2 XDA Orbit 2.

Love the packaging - this is the kind of feel O2 needs to evoke in people if its own-label devices are to live up to the brand promise and the position that O2 wants to take in the marketplace. Packaging shouldn’t mean anything, but we’re not rational people really, and any Apple fanboi will tell you that great packaging does matter: it’s the fullness of design and experience applied across every touchpoint.

Love the user-friendly instructions and stickers.
There is so much ground to be gained in consumer tech by being easy to use. Although it may not be the cool brand amongst the young people, I personally believe Nokia owes so much of its position to having always offered the most intuitive, usable menu systems. In the USA there is much re-balancing of the Apple iPhone see-saw towards tried and tested Blackberries which super-users can bang out message on much easier (their words, not mine) than on the swish haptic iPhone interface.
So simple instructions and on-device in-location stickers that make it clear what I need to do using PICTURES (!) is great - I don’t read the manul, I’m afraid it’s just that simple.

Size-wise, I think this device is reasonable enough for the market: it’s not staggeringly thin and small, but it’s certainly not chunky - check this pic which highlights the lack of thickness:”

Bit old as it’s already been published on SMS Text News.

I’ve been playing around with the Xda Orbit 2 given to me by VCCP on behalf of their client, O2, for just over a week now and I’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty impressive phone. In all honesty, I’ve never been particularly fond of phones that come with a stylus. To me, they appear as an additional thing I just don’t need. Besides, I’m a master of predictive text (using either hand I might add) so the idea of using a little rod to poke in my letters is a complete turn off and, knowing me, I’d probably lose it within a matter of days.

So, as you might imagine, my first thoughts were I wasn’t really going to favour the phone from a usability point of view. However, after playing around with it on the first and second day I found the stylus is not really needed as you can change the option to TouchFLO and a much bigger touch keyboard is provided in QWERTY style. As fat as my fingers are (and they are pretty fat) I was able use them pretty easily to write text messages or input web addresses in the mobile browser.

The touch screen seems very similar to the iPhone and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Apple product was an inspiration for the Orbit 2. It’s definitely a selling point of the phone.

Next up is the mobile browsing. Being a frequent user of the mobile web, the mobile browsing experience plays a significant part in my mobile phone purchasing decisions. The Orbit 2 runs on Windows Mobile 6 Professional so uses Internet Explorer. Admittedly, I’m not a user of Internet Explorer on a PC but I have used it on an Orange SPV I used to own a few years ago. It was pretty useful then and still is today in my opinion. All my favourite mobile sites (Gmail, Bloglines, Twitter, BBC, Sky News etc) work fine on it. Although it did take some time to get used to the way it’s operated but I think this has more to do with me being more familiar with the browser on my Nokia n73.

The Orbit 2 also comes with ‘News Hub’ installed. Basically, News Hub allows you to subscribe and read RSS feeds on the move. You can also listen to and download podcasts, watch video blogs and schedule downloads. You can also import an OPML file too. Pretty cool.

I tested the internet browsing using wifi and was very impressed also. Believe it or not, this is the first phone with wifi capabilities I’ve actually used (how very old fashioned of me) so maybe it was the novelty of it that impressed me so much. Either way, it was quick and responsive and the next phone I have will definitely be wifi enabled.

Syncing the phone to a computer is a doddle and transferring music over was easy too. The phone comes with a 1GB memory card but the memory can be expanded up to 32GB apparently. Windows Media Player performs well as does the built in radio. A good radio is always a plus point to me. You just never know when you’ll want to hear a bit of Chris Moyles.

The phone’s 3 mega-pixel camera is adequate, although it doesn’t have a flash. What’s more impressive is the camera album which (again like the iPhone) can be used to sweep the photo thumbnails side to side. In all honesty, I think the camera could have been a bit more powerful given that Nokia’s producing 5 mega-pixels these days. Maybe I’m just being picky, I don’t know?

Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to play around with the sat nav yet. Will probably do so in due course and report on it later, but so far so good. Like all new phones it takes some getting used to but I’m liking the Orbit 2. In the beginning I wasn’t so sure.

Definitely a grower.

Anna Farmery has fallen in love with her Xda Orbit 2, quite literally. You can see her post on her blog here. Thanks Anna!

“I like gadgets, like the way that they can help me…but a couple of weeks ago I got the new O2 Xda Orbit 2 mobile phone to review - no strings attached .
Firstly, I have to congratulate the agency, VCCP as I think they have done a great job with their outreach program and also the xda blog for the phone. They have kept communication going for instance, last weekend I emailed Steve with a question - the reply came Saturday night…now that is someone trying to engage me, putting customer serivce first…not just doing his job!

Hmmm I thought well, I need a new phone so let’s have a look. What happened next shocked me!

I opened the box and fell in love with this phone….really! I mean this is a sexy, sophisticated phone, sin the mould of the iPhone. I found myself ripping open cables etc to get this up and running. For the last 2 weeks I have been using it and I absolutely love it….It is easy to use, light, functionality is great, setup is easy, it does everything well. Even the battery life is good.

I spend a lot of time on the road and this phone makes it easy to stay productive, but in a way that makes does not make me feel technology because I have to…but because I want to…just showing how an outreach program can convert a Virgin customer to an O2 customer!

My only issue now is how to transfer, I don’t find the O2 site easy, I don’t find the tariffs easy, I find I have to click on numerous links without ever finding the information that I want! Also, I have 5 months to go on my Virgin contract…so should I transfer? Should I not let my heart rule my head…

(For detailed 4winmobile technical review click here)”

, is finding the car kit ‘impossible’. Have a look at his video to see why.

“Last Monday, I received an Xda Orbit 2 mobile phone courtesy of mobile operator O2 and their ad agency VCCP.So I’ve been playing with this gadget all week, trying it out mostly with wifi. It’s very nice indeed.As a phone, it does what all phones do (let you make and receive calls) and it does that job pretty well in the few calls I’ve made, probably testament to O2’s good cellular network coverage.Not received any calls yet as I haven’t widely advertised the number

As I mentioned in my initial post on my main blog, I’ll be posting thoughts about the Xda Orbit 2 here as and when I have some.

Today I do and it’s to do with an accessory for the phone that I found pretty useless, never mind extremely irritating.

Yesterday I drove into London and decided to try out CoPilot Live 7, the satellite navigation application that comes with the phone.

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