[navin]

Got an O2 Atom recently.

Earlier phones
Siemens S4 (1995) now used as paperweight, Nokia 6xxx stolen on my honey moon, Nokia 32xx hotel gave us 2 of these to replace my stolen Nokia 6xxx, Nokia 6100, Nokia 6310i, Nokia 6230i.

Earlier PDA
Palm 1000 (1992-3 when Palm Computing was not yet bought by US Robotics), Palm Vx (now a paperweight), and Palm T3 and T5 (T3 was kidnapped by my wife).

Reason to list above is to give you a background that I am familiar (you can say addicted) with stuff like Graffitti and Nokia's menu and hence your learning curve might be easier than mine (I had to unlearn Nokia and Palm functionality).

I developed a habit of forgetting my T5 in the office, at home, in the car, in the factory buit never forgot my Nokia so I figured if the 2 were one deivce I would not forget it.

My requirements:
2MP camera, Some PDA functionality, Wi Fi (T5 can do Wi Fi with an addtional card offered free), MP3 Player, Sd card, under 150gms.

Candidates. Samsung, SE 990, Nokia N80 and O2 Atom
The N80 and Samsung dont offer a keypad or pen entry. The SE has a memory stick and is much bigger and heavier. O2 was chosen by default. I figured if Palm has decided to use WM5 for the Treo 700 (also too bulky) it should be bug free.

To say the O2 takes getting used to is an understatement.
Out of the box it gave me a whole lot of headaches. Active Sync itself took 1.5 days to configure (the problem was that I use Euroda's MAPI driver on my laptop.

The flash would not come on.

Then I upgraded the ROM and it wiped out my phone book. Palm never did that. They used to back up the phone book to a .bak file and then upgrade the system. I am still recovering my phone numbers (I had about 600 in my Nokia 6230i) by copying from my Wife's SIM card and calling friends, etc..

The flash however now comes on but only in auto. there is not flash control like one has with digicams (fill in, no flash, full flash, red eye, etc..).

The menus are not intuitive at all. Ihave still not fully adjusted to the O2. I wount recommend it anyone other than geeks who have the time, knowledge and inclination to get used to it.

The camera takes 10 secs to activate and 2-3 secs to take a pciture. My 4 years olf Canon G2 digicam is 10 times as fast!

My wish list to make the O2 more user friendly.
1. O2 should hire Jeff Hawkins
2. Allow the user to choose the text size esp in the SMS and Phone book mode
3. Make the camera atleast as fast as my Nokia 6230i
4. Have a Jog dial (Scroll) feature a la SE 990.
5. Move the camera buttons. I am left handed and my middle finger keeps activating the camera.
6. Improve battery life or ship the O2 with 2 batteries and a spare charger. With one gadget being used for PDA, Camera, MP3 player and Phone battery life is essential.
7. Why Outlook? Outlook itself needs to learn a few things from Palm Desktop.

The O2 allows me to carry my PDA (I am still working on moving my Palm address book over to Outlook), phone, and a half decent camera. I dont use it as a MP3 player yet thanks to the poor battery life.

[jkdas]

Why I read? Coz it was a techy writeup by Navin:P

I am yet to see a o2 Atom in real life. People were like its great etc. Very unbiased writeup to show its negative sides.

I expected its cam to be faster as it should undoubtedly have a faster processor.

And, is SE990 out?

[satish_appasani]

Nice brief review Naveen

From what I read, Atom is better than iMate Jamin and K-JAM. Atom is faster than the other two. Eten M600 should be better of all. Wishing to buy one for myself in this year. I am a longtime user of MS PocketPC PDA.

[navin]

Originally Posted by jkdas

Why I read? Coz it was a techy writeup by Navin:P

Geez. I got a fan club! :-) LOL and wonder what would happen if i wrote steamy sex novels like Shobhaa De?

[normally_crazy]

Originally Posted by navin

wonder what would happen if i wrote steamy sex novels like Shobhaa De?

A Bigger Fan Club, maybe websites dedicated to you - people would love to read dirty things being written by an experienced old man !

[jkdas]

Originally Posted by navin

Geez. I got a fan club! :-) LOL and wonder what would happen if i wrote steamy sex novels like Shobhaa De?

I should check your memory cards that you use with your atom , just to be sure..

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by satish_appasani

Eten M600 should be better of all. Wishing to buy one for myself in this year. I am a longtime user of MS PocketPC PDA.

Eten M600 is better than all the others thanks to its Samsung processor that really makes light work of everything.

However, I'm holding back from buying one for the following reasons:

1. Its bulkier - the Jammin is smaller and the Atom is really really small.

2. Wireless is restricted to 802.11 b. No 'g' support which the Jammin and the Dopod 838 gives you.

3. Proprietory USB interface - all other MS PocketPC devices come with the mini USB interface. Why is this important? - My Camera, my USB Mass Storage drive (120 gb), my JAM and various other devices use this mode of interface which makes things very easy for me. I need just ONE usb cable for all my devices (same logic behind using the SD format for all my devices). Proprietory USB dongle also means that if I happen to damage the stupid cable in one of my trips to deepest africa I'm pretty much stuck. I dont carry a charger for my JAM because it powers off USB, and I like the simplicity of carrying just the device and a common USB cable.

4. No FM Radio (I like this feature on the Atom because that makes it pretty much an all-in-one device).

Other than that there's hardly anything to find fault with the Eten, really. Its about 700 Dhs (thats Rs.8,400) cheaper than the other two devices, too!!!!

I'm tempted.....

[nishant_kingpin]

Originally Posted by Steeroid

Eten M600 is better than all the others thanks to its Samsung processor that really makes light work of everything.

However, I'm holding back from buying one for the following reasons:

1. Its bulkier - the Jammin is smaller and the Atom is really really small.

2. Wireless is restricted to 802.11 b. No 'g' support which the Jammin and the Dopod 838 gives you.

3. Proprietory USB interface - all other MS PocketPC devices come with the mini USB interface. Why is this important? - My Camera, my USB Mass Storage drive (120 gb), my JAM and various other devices use this mode of interface which makes things very easy for me. I need just ONE usb cable for all my devices (same logic behind using the SD format for all my devices). Proprietory USB dongle also means that if I happen to damage the stupid cable in one of my trips to deepest africa I'm pretty much stuck. I dont carry a charger for my JAM because it powers off USB, and I like the simplicity of carrying just the device and a common USB cable.

4. No FM Radio (I like this feature on the Atom because that makes it pretty much an all-in-one device).

Other than that there's hardly anything to find fault with the Eten, really. Its about 700 Dhs (thats Rs.8,400) cheaper than the other two devices, too!!!!

I'm tempted.....

Hey Steer...you just said what I thought I would post when I was reading through the post.

Eten has some unique features that I did not find on any other phone. Including Voice activated all Programs available on the start button. It reads out new messages and emails word by word to me and I don't need to look at the screen also. This saves a lot of time when I am doing some calculations and all on my PC. It gives direct access to the RAM so that you can increase efficiency by closing down some of the programs that may be running unnecessarily.

All in all its almost got all that the Atom gives you at about 8.5K less. But yes even though the looks of the phone are good it sure has more weight to it.

[nitrous]

Does Nokia have a touch-screen mobile after the 7710???

navin, how much did the atom cost??

[navin]

Many thanks to Steeroid who has helped and is continuing to help me with figuring out my Atom. I is nice to have an experienced hand holding yours.

I paid 38K with bill for the Atom but the dealer threw in a 1GB mini SD card, a belt clip, an extra charger and a screen protector. I giess he cant sell the Atom for less but can afford the freebies on the commision he makes.

[navin]

Steeroid, given the limited battery life on these PDA phones I assume having camera, MP3, FM, etc... is really mute. If you use all of these the battery will run out in under half a day.

[Steeroid]

Navin

Once you get used to it, you'll get hooked.

I'm quite surprised at your battery life - mine lasts a day with all the above activities except FM Radio, which is compensated by a lot of GPRS usage.

There's another trick to it. I'm not sure if you got a USB sync cable with your unit (not a cradle), but if you keep your phone connected to your laptop while you're working on the computer it will keep charging thru USB. SO you could be charging your phone as you read this post and reply to it.

Originally Posted by navin

The camera takes 10 secs to activate and 2-3 secs to take a pciture. My 4 years olf Canon G2 digicam is 10 times as fast!

I'd like to see your 4 year old Canon G2 make phone calls and connect to WiFi.

[navin]

Steeroid that is what I do now. i canny my USB cable with me and almost any PC with XP will recognise it and charge it. mighty inconvienent though.

If I had 2 things to change it would be the text size and the camera boot up speeed.

besides my G2 is 4 yrs old. I figured 4 years is a couple of generations in electronics so the Atom should be atleast as fast.

BTW you think this speed issue is a WM5 issue or a hardware issue.

[navin]

Hey I finally got Active Sync 4.1 to work with my Outlook. turns out the OUtlook 2002 they supply is not able so I installed outlook 2003 that came with my MS Office on my laptop and voila. Now i can backup my phone book.

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by navin

If I had 2 things to change it would be the text size and the camera boot up speeed.

You can change the text size. Go to Start>>Settings>>System>>Screen (or its equivalent in WM5) and then click on the "Text Size" tab.

Originally Posted by navin

BTW you think this speed issue is a WM5 issue or a hardware issue.

Its a combination of both - its really an issue with the WM5 implementation on that hardware. Which is why you get firmware updates that come with the same WM5 but better speed.