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O2 Xphone II

By Jeremy Roche on 05 November 2004

The XphoneII is a classy Smartphone that will appeal to professionals, but could do with a few basic improvements to justify the price tag and secure its place as the only phone in your pocket.

User rating:8.8
  • Good: Large, bright colour display • Compact & classy • Sophisticated features • Camera, video, MP3 • Memory expansion slot
  • Bad: Slow menu navigation • Low speaker volume • Occasional glitches • Lack of function shortcuts
  • Specs: Candybar • Bluetooth • VGA • See more specifications
  • RRP: AU$749.00 • Where to buy? Check price listings
Upside: O2 claims the Xphone II is the slimmest smart phone in the world; 26 per cent slimmer and 22 pe rcent lighter than its predecessor, measuring 44.5 x 107.5 x 18mm and weighing in at 102g. It certainly looks a lot more stylish and sophisticated that the original Xphone, with a design that is somewhat comparable to Sony Ericsson's ever-so-popular T610. The predominantly black case is complemented with a graphite-coloured tiered keypad, which features two soft keys, Home and Back keys and a navigation joystick.

Running the Second Edition of Microsoft's Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphone operating system, the Xphone II allows you to send e-mail, access the Web, listen to MP3 files, take photos and capture videos.

Downside: Aside from an exceptional makeover and an updated OS, the Xphone doesn't bring many new features to the table. Still the features it has are nothing to turn your nose up at: tri-band support; substantial memory (32MB SDRAM, 64MB ROM) to store loads of contacts, documents, and messages; and a miniSD slot to boost storage capacity.

Outlook: The Xphone II is will appeal to consumers looking chiefly for a phone that has PDA functionality added-on. The opposite could be said for O2's Xda IIs, which is a PDA first, with phone ability attached.

Subsequent to looking at the Xphone last year, a bundle of identical looking devices manufactured through HTC came onto the market confusing some consumers with their different branding. It looks like O2 is going to beat any potential competitors that may be planning to bring HTC-manufactured devices to market by releasing the Xphone II at the end of November at a recommended retail price of AU$749. Check back for the full review soon.

Topics: mobile, phone, smartphone, 2, ii, o2, smart, xphone

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Comments (25)

  • lokesh gave 7/10 on 19/06/2007 19:32

    hi this is lokesh iam using o2 x phone II model i want 2 change keypad & joystick where i can get it please reply me

  • anilkool gave 8/10 on 02/01/2007 03:23

    • Good: win2003 os..good ..lot of application like clearvue avl for office dox reading..msn chat works perfect..as also yahoo mail/gmail..i am happy.
    • Bad: 28MB memory builtin is pretty bad..ad i am not sure whats the max size it can support..some say 512 and some 1 gb..well chking it with o2 beforebuying

    Just bought one at 15k at bangalore,india ...thrilled that i can connect via usb cable to laptop and browse/download etc without gprs..and all my outlook/imap mails are downlaoded perfectly..

  • John gave 8/10 on 23/08/2006 23:57

    • Good: good solid phone. Just got it and so far im loving it.
      came from a HP Ipaq smartphone and the biggest thing that does it for me for the O2 is the size. So what if it doesnt have Wifi, spreadsheet, Word and a Stylus. When i had the Ipaq i realized i hardly used anyway. So so far the 02 is really something i enjoy.
    • Bad: the joystick lacks feels. sometimes its difficult to really know which is center. they should have made the joystick like the center navi key of the treo. Start up is a bit slow but im not such an impatient person so i forgive it for that. Coming from such a big phone im still readjusting because of the size. this phone would have been a 10 for me if not for the joystick gripe and the OS speed

    Good solid smart phone at a good price

  • Anonymous gave 1/10 on 26/03/2006 17:53

    great

  • Anonymous gave 1/10 on 26/03/2006 17:52

    excellent

  • Anonymous gave 1/10 on 26/03/2006 17:52

    very good

  • gobi gave 1/10 on 17/11/2005 20:55

    see this

    out look lovely!
    and others is ok. not bad

  • xeryus gave 1/10 on 30/08/2005 19:11

    Good Phone/PDA combination

    Good compact professional looking phone. Much smaller and lighter than the other PDA/Phones. Does one really Need to view an Excel Spreadsheet on your phone on the go?? Hardly ever..so I think it's captured the basic useful features.

    Buttons are small but surprisingly manageable. Included Predictive Text helps heaps. Terribly let down by a flimsy joystick though. Hopefully next version will improve on this and also increase speed of OS a little.

  • Anonymous gave 1/10 on 11/08/2005 22:50

    awesome little phone

    this phone is awesome and yet it is small for the amount of features it has. it can be compared in size with non-smartphones. it is very convenient for alot of people and it fits in your pocket perfectly.

  • snoop gave 1/10 on 12/07/2005 08:06

    awesome phone

    i have used a large number of phones from nokia, samsung etc... but the Xphone II is the best one by far. im positive that its the best decission i have ever made. i would recomend it to everyone who want cl**** and style with no compromise of performance. and the features you can pack in it are limitless thanks to the windows platform.(only limit is the size of your memory card). the only thing i would like changed is the screen colours from 65k to 256k clolurs.

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