Wheres the best deal for XDA2i ?

[peanutS]

If you were getting an XDA2i where would you go for the best deal at the moment . ? Would you go for a contract ? or outright buy ? I would like to keep my existing number but I guess I could get a contract phone unlocked ? Can anybody help?......... I need to upgrade before Xmas so I need your help

[Uridium]

Generally I've found O2 online to have the best deals for XDAIIi (have you seen the new XDA Mini s though )

www.onestopphoneshop have good deals as well though.

Benefit of O2 online are the tariffs have much more minutes and txts included than O2 tariffs from theirs or other stores though.

I'm on O2 online 100 and get 150 xnet minutes and 750 texts for £25 a month (from memory)

Just ask your current provider for a PAK code and move your number

[peanutS]

That sounds good thanks. I looked at the mini s looks real cute but not many providers seem to have then at the moment.
The XDA 2i is awesome in features and I like the idea of using them WiFi on home wireless network .
The Mini's best feature is its small size. Truly a pocket fone. After spending a year hauling around a Nokia 6600 brick anything seems an improvement
The only other option is to buy second hand unlocked XDA2i and use on existing tarrifs and wait for better deals on the mini s and XDA executive after christmas what do you think

[Uridium]

If the build quality of the IIi is anything like that of my IIs then any second hand ones would probably be feeling a bit tired

I bought the IIs with the same idea of WiFi browsing at home but in reality the browsing experience isn't wonderful and I ended up picking up a cheap Ultrasmall notebook (Dell L400) off Ebay for £100.

If you go for a IIi make sure you remove all the providers "Extras" installed by the Extended rom as they run twice as well with a clean Windows install.

I think you may find the IIi as much as a Brick as your old Nokia though, my advice would be to pop into your nearest O2 shop and take a look at a IIi, a Exec and a Mini s for comparison.

Another benefit of the Mini s is that it runs Windows mobile v5 which doesn't utilise volatile memory for the file system. this means when you battery dies you don't loose any data. Worth thinking about as I used to get 2-3 days max out of my IIs, less if used hard!

Pick up my Mini S on Tuesday!

For more advice and info in HTC rebranded pocket PC phones check this site out http://forum.xda-developers.com/front_page.php by far the best pocket pc phone resource on the interweb!

[peanutS]

thanks thats just the info I was looking for. The extra features and smaller size of the Mini S sold me and I so I ordered two of them on O2


There was some confusion however as their website said XDA Mini but showed a picture of the XDA Mini S .
I have found out that there is a Mini version that has no wifi or pullout keypad . Also there is another new one due out but I forgot the name now

I took 2x £30.00 200 min tarrifs as you can apparently upgrade immediatly without penalty but cannot downgrade for first 6 months ??????

I just hope this turns out to be better than the Nokia 6600 which was an expensive pile of poo which never had a decent interface or software package for PC sync.

Thanks for your help and advice. I'm sure to be back soon asking how to turn it on doh!

[Uridium]

You got the XDA's yet, what do you think?

Only got round to ordering my XDA Mini S today, O2 wanted £80 for the upgrade and they wouldn't budge on it, even with threat of cancellation but I managed to get £5 off my line rental for twelve months out of them, so essentially got the XDA for £20!

They sell for £425 on Expansys!

[peanutS]

nightmare!
ordered them on sat Monday night there is an email saying they wanted security info to check up on my Wife. This meant I had to tell my Wife what her xmas present was going to be . Worse still they demanded her credit card details even though I was paying for both fones .
Now they have taken 2x £99.99 for the fones and 2x £30.99 twice because they want 2 months rental in advance.
Their website won't recognise my passwords so I can't check the staements .

Really cannot recommend this bunchof cowboys

[Demon Radge]

peanutS - you don't know what the XDA mini version with no keyboard and no wifi actually is?

I'm hoping it's the i-Mate Jam... been waiting 9 months for O2 to get round to launching it in the UK.

[peanutS]

as far as I can make out these are all Qtec rebadged,take a look at this site which has a very good review of the XDA mini S
http://www.gsmarena.com/qtek_9100-re...0.php:smashin:

[Uridium]

All of these phones are made by a very secretive company named HTC, other companies such as Qtek/O2/Orange then re-brand them for their own use.

Best place to see the full range is with HTC's closest partner I-Mate here

http://www.imate.com/t-devicedetails.aspx

It's highly unlikely that O2 UK will EVER release their branded I-Mate jam in the UK (O2 released it everywhere else in the world some months ago) and the XDA Mini S is actually the successor to the Jam so you will probably find the Jam gradually being phased out now by most companies now

The Orange M500 is a slightly modified Jam so you could go for one of these or a Tmobile MDA Compact (in a choice of colours!) they are easily unlocked using a freely downloadable tool from the XDA Developers forum (link posted in earlier post in this thread)

Take a look at the Mini S in a O2 shop though, I was after a Jam myself until I saw one.

5 Minutes palying with it though and I was smitten! Build quality appears much higher than Jam's I have looked at and FAR better than my XDA2s

[peanutS]

Mine came the other day but not had a chance to really look at them yet. They feel quite thick but the keyboard is excellent given its small size. I'll try to charge the batteries on w/e and try one out (supposed to be xmas presents)
I am really interested in trying TomTom on them but can't seem to find anything on installing it on these . They use a small SD card I hope they are available in 1Mb cheapish .
I intended using a mini laptop (fujitsu B 10") with a USB satnav receiver but its difficult to use a laptop in a car on the move whatever size.

What sort of software can I use on this ? never had a PDA before so I have no idea really what use it can be put to.

[Demon Radge]

Cheers for tips uridium. Reason I was really asking was... ordered M500 from Orange then phoned O2 to cancel my contract, of course they did the usual why do you want to leave etc. I said "because you don't offer the i-mate jam/ xda mini in UK".

They put me on hold, then came back and said that they are just about to offer it w/c 19th Dec. I said no that's the i-mate k-jam "mini xda s" and I want the original jam (I know k-jam superior spec, but jam is smaller...). They put me on hold again and said defo it is the i-mate JAM because they already have the k-JAM.

Still, don't quite believe them, which is why I posted the question above.... but you never know! I'm calling on Monday anyway.

...and they halved my line rental too!

[Uridium]

well I hope i'm proven wrong and you can get yourself one.

Just a few notes for anyone considering a new PocketPC phone

Been using my Mini S now for 4 days and have to say it's the best pocketPC based phone i've used yet. once you dump all the O2 Active rubbish it seems very stable and pretty fast.

Battery life seems way better than my old XDAIIs as i still have 20% left after 4 days on standby.

Biggest single improvement though is the addition of 2x mobile style soft keys just above the red and green phone buttons. these make one handed "non stylus" use finally possible on a PDA Phone.

As far as Win Mobile 5 is concerned it seems to be a big improvement on 2003

all user data is now written to non volatile storage so if the battery dies you don't have to start from scratch again now. also has a new application called "Com Manager" that is a single app that displays all connectivity (gsm/bluetooth/wifi/activesync) for quick access.

You still have to be prepared to work with the phone a bit more than a standard mobile like a D600/K750 etc.. to get the most out of it but as long as you understand this it probably is the best completely multi purpose device I've found

[peanutS]

Haven't even had mine out of the box yet !
Well they are for christmas.....
I intend to use mine for GPS as I spend most of my time gadding about in `bango' county down here in the South West.
Any idea what sat nav software might be compatable and where I could get it ? I trawled ebay for hours but there seems to be some confusion over the mini as many do not seem to realise there are 2 distinct types.

I am thinking of getting spare memory cards for both the phones (missus & meself) what Mb would you recommend? the biggest app I'm likely to use would be satnav I guess we might use the MP3 player occasionaly if I dumped some MP3's on the cards . Likely to take quite a few pictures I suppose 30 or so before downloading them to PC.
Any setup tips would be very welcome to save a lot of tears on Christmas morning.

[Uridium]

Cable GPS receivers wil NOT work with the Mini S so you will need to get a Bluetooth one, still need to get one of these myself so can't personally recommend one (any one else care to recommend one?)

Go with TomTom5 though for SatNav software, you will need to get the 5.2.1 update to make it Win Mobile 5 compatible though.

a 512 MiniSD card should do you as TomTom only uses abput 100Mg, although if you go for a 1Gb or 2Gb card this will give you plenty of storage for MP3's and Videos.

I picked up a 512Mb off ebay for £20 the other day.

As far as setting it up, when you first boot it up it will ask you to align the screen and set the date. Once it has done this it will hang for a few seconds then start instaling the O2 extended rom with loads of Crappy software that slows the phone down really bad!

So when it gives you the option of what type of installation you want (BASIC/CORPORATE/PERSONAL) make sure you choose BASIC. The extended rom will then only install the standard windows build plus O2 connectivity, without all the crappy O2 Active stuff.

Any problems check out the "Wizard" forum (HTC codename for the XDA Mini S/MDA Vario)

Here. http://forum.xda-developers.com/