O2 blueroom

Darren Straight, a Microsoft Student Partner, an avid blogger and technology enthusiast, has given an invaluable review of the Orbit 2. A massive thankyou to Darren, whose thoughtful in-depth review and concluding judgement make a great read!

“Last month I was contacted my Steve Cater who works at vccp as part of O2’s Marketing Team. He asked me whether I would be interested in trialling one of O2’s new phones in a seeding program, similar to that of the O2 cocoon seeding program which gave developers and technology lovers a chance to trial the phone. The idea sounded interesting and it looked like the cocoon program did well so I said yes to testing this new O2 Phone (didn’t know the name of it then).

Last week a package arrived, I opened it up and lo and behold it was an O2 Xda Orbit 2 Phone along with all the necessary accessories and a sim card. I got straight into taking some photos of this shiny new device along with testing it.
Technical Specifications:

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Lolly, who was also part of the Cocoon seeding campaign, seems to be enjoying her new phone. Here’s what she had to say:

“The highly anticipated Xda Orbit 2 is now available in the UK, and Steve at VCCP, the advertising agency behind the Cocoon seeding programme, asked me a couple of weeks ago if I was interested in reviewing the device… and I simply couldn’t say no to a shiny new toy!

The deal with VCCP is quite clear - I’ve been given this phone with no obligation upon me to say or write anything about it. But I will, as this is the sort of phone I was planning on upgrading to and I am glad to see a bigger range of smartphones available on the market.

I’ve been playing with my new toy in the last few days and my verdict so far can be summed up in one word: wow! The new Xda Orbit 2 is definitely a cutie with an impressive spec!

Whilst smartphones tend to be masculine looking, the Orbit 2’s design is gender neutral, yet stylish. The Orbit 2 is very easy to use … so intuitive in fact that the manual is still in the box! Saying that, O2 should still aim at improving their manuals (I believe I said the same thing about the Cocoon a few months ago…). I felt that the manual could have been organised in a more logical and comprehensive way (without being too bulky) as the information is all over the place…

I am so far terribly excited about the camera, music player/digital radio (can’t wait to see whether I can at last ditch my iPod) as well as Co-Pilot 7. I am planning on blogging about these features in the coming weeks…. In the meantime, more reviews can be found right here on the Xda Orbit 2 Blog. ”

Lolly’s origional post can be found here.

Keith Bond is definately getting to grips with his phone very quickly:

“I was recently contacted by Steve of vccp.com, part the 02 marketing team, he asked me if I’d be interested in trialling the new O2 phone, well anyone who knows me I’m always up for a freebie, my Fashion Blog is littered with reviews of various items of apparel that I’ve been sent, so naturally I agreed.

On Tuesday morning a carrier delivered my brand spanking O2 XDA Orbit 2 and wow what a phone.

The key features of this little beauty are:

• 3 Megapixel camera
• On-board GPS
• Microsoft Windows Mobile v6 Pro

One of the reasons I’ve never taken to mobile phones in a big way is that the tiny keys and my numb arthritic fingers are incompatible, not a problem anymore, the Orbit 2 comes with a touch screen and a neat little stylus.

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Stephen Davies, PR Blogger, also recieved his own Orbit 2 on Tuesday. Here’s what he had to say:

“Like quite a few others, yesterday I received my O2 Xda Orbit 2 mobile phone by the cool cats at marketing agency, VCCP. Steve Cater, who’s involved in the outreach, emailed me a couple of weeks ago asking if I’d like to try out the phone with no obligations to write about it. Of course they’d like me to (that’s the point of blogger outreach after all) and of course I will oblige after I’ve tried and tested it.

I was involved in the very good O2 Cocoon outreach last year and Amelia from VCCP very kindly shared with me the details of the initiative which I used when I presented at BizDays in Bucharest in November.

I haven’t had a chance to play around with the Orbit 2 yet but some of its key features are: 3 megapixel camera, touch screen, sat nav, Windows Mobile 6 Professional, mp3 player and FM radio. According to Neville Hobson, there’s a four day trial with CoPilot Live sat nav so I’m planning on giving it a whirl also.

Ewan from SMS Text News mentioned on Twitter that I can write a review for his blog so I’ll probably do that if he’s still up for it. Might be a bit like a 12 year old writing a piece for the Economist, however, given my lack of mobile knowledge. Compared to Ewan at least.

The Xda blog can be found here. No content on it yet though.”

Here’s another intial review of the phone from Simon Judge at Mobile Phone Development.

“O2 have kindly sent me their new Windows Mobile 6 based Orbit 2 as part of their blogger seeding programme. It’s very timely as I am currently doing some Windows Mobile work every other week (and Nokia N95/S60 in intervening weeks).

This has given me the opportunity to compare the current top of the range (WiFi, GPS, HSDPA, multi megabyte camera) S60 and Windows Mobile phones. Here are some initial random observations…

• First of all, the Orbit 2 is actually a re-cased HTC Touch Cruise with different bundled software. Personally, I think the rounded corners of the Orbit look better.
• The Orbit 2 comes with a fully functional version of CoPilot. This is a great plus point because both with the HTC Touch Cruise and N95 you have to pay extra for maps and turn by turn navigation respectively.
• I am pleased O2 haven’t included the HTC today screen plugin that’s found on other devices such as the HTC Touch that I have been using - I personally don’t think the plugin is much good. It just confuses users.

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Firstly, a massive thankyou to those who agreed to take part in reviewing O2’s new Orbit 2.
Initial reactions are starting to pop up - our first being Neville Hobson

Here’s some of his initial thoughts.

” ‘Getting to know the Xda Orbit 2′

The doorbell rang before 9am this morning. There stood a courier guy with a big box containing an Xda Orbit 2 mobile phone courtesy of mobile operator O2 and its ad agency VCCP.

This is the latest smartphone from O2, running Windows Mobile 6, which is just now becoming available in the UK. So getting one hot off the press, as it were, for an early look and experimentation is great.

The deal with VCCP is quite clear - I’ve been given this phone with no obligation upon me to say or write anything about it.

But I will choose to talk about it (this post being one example) simply because it’s the kind of gadget I would want to talk about. Not sure how much or when I will write more; when I do, it’s likely to be on my Next tech blog rather than here.

Other bloggers are involved with this outreach programme, too - Stuart Bruce, Philip Young and Sarah Blow, to name three I know. VCCP has set up an Xda blog and no doubt there will be links there to all the folk involved.

Incidentally, VCCP is the agency behind the O2 Cocoon programme last year. I like their approach to social media outreach - well planned and executed.

So, to some immediate impressions about the Xda Orbit 2.

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