O2 Atom Life

If you’ve seen one Windows mobile you’ve pretty much seen ’em all. There’ll be no grand changes to the UI, if any. Essentially, the Windows Mobile OS is designed to be a business-person’s delight with the multitude of services it provides. We would naturally presume it’s a portable computer. Of course each company that develops a new Windows Mobile device, will have a few specific programs that resonate the company’s presence in that phone. Lets see how the Atom Life, O2’s latest, fares.

Form Factor

It looks like most of the other O2 XDAs conceived before. But it looks a little better with its matt black and silver finish. It has a VGA camera mounted in front for video calling and a 5 way nav-pad at the bottom of the 2.7-inch touch screen display that sports a 240x320 pixel resolution with 262K colors. On either side of the pad are 2 Open keys, the call Take and End keys and 2 dedicated keys for the Start menu and O2 Media Plus menu. They’re placed dead center of the 2 stereo speakers.

The top of the phone is where the Hot-Swap miniSD card slot and the power key are located. On the right hand edge is where you’ll find the stylus. At the bottom of the phone is the mini USB port for PC connectivity and charging and the 2.5mm earphone socket. The rear has the 2.0 megapixel camera, with flash.

On the right hand side of the phone there are 2 keys. Both dedicated to serving certain specific functions like the camera and voice recorder. And on the other side are the volume keys. Funny, I thought they’d also work as the zoom keys, I was wrong. And at the bottom of the left side is the Infrared sensor.

Tech

The O2 Atom Life runs on an Intel XScale PXA 270 Processor at 624 MHz. It’s equipped with 64MB RAM and 1GB ROM. Memory can be upped using using miniSD cards. It’s a GSM phone that supports GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA and Wi-Fi. So connectivity-wise you can’t ask for more. The Atom Life operates on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 PocketPC edition and thus far I wasn’t able to find any hang-ups.__PAGEBREAK__

Features and Performance

What I do like is that O2 has quite conveniently provided its users with quite a few O2 software that aren’t great but they do come in handy from time to time. Like the Auto installer, SMS and Phone Plus and the O2 Connect that takes you to the O2 site for downloading updates but of course you need to be registered. Two of my personal favorites are the O2 Media plus and O2 Menu option that’s on the main screen. It allows you to see all running programs and either close them or open them directly from that one point. The Media plus has a dedicated key that I mentioned earlier and it allows you to access all your videos, music, images and the radio from one place. Very Handy.

WorldMate may initially seem like a bit of an odd software once you take a closer look but nevertheless it’s another handy software for world travelers. It not only allows you to keep world time, but also acts as a converter for various measures, it shows you country telephone codes, international sizes for clothes, and a reminder list for your packing clothes before a trip. Awesome!

Among the other warez is a GPRS monitor, SMS back up image editor and a self-diagnostics software. And then of course you have the regulars for business viz. Word, Excel, .PDF viewer, PowerPoint viewer and a few games, a notepad, calculator wallet with a code, file explorer a file manger and Pocket MSN. So it’s quite a feature packed device. Plus you can use Active Sync to sync the phone to your PC.

Messaging isn’t tricky using the onscreen keyboard. Since the keys are rather small it’s not easy typing with your fingers nor with the stylus unless you’re absolutely stationary. The handwriting recognition software is great when you set it right. So you’ll have to “download” your handwriting into the phone with the in-built software and you shouldn’t have too much trouble then. But again, it’s not all that easy to use while on the go.

Internet connectivity through using Wi-Fi is a bit of a pain to set up initially. So if you’ve never done it before, you could have a problem. But when you’re good to go, it’s quick and easy to use. You also have the option of viewing pages on the full screen. The phone is also fully rigged for Infrared and Bluetooth with A2DP support.__PAGEBREAK__

Multimedia

Starting off is the FM radio, which to be frank is not really “All Dat”. It’s ok when you’re stationary but not while commuting. So if you don’t get a clear signal most of the time the recording function really doesn’t make sense now does it? But it’s there, should you be in a place that gets clear reception and you feel the need to record some hindi song. In case you like taking memos, or just happen to like the sound of your own voice the voice recorder is handy.

The Windows Media player is good though and plays MP3s and AAC formats. Acceptable video formats are – WMA and MPEG4. The best thing is the live video streaming from Windows media so you can check out the latest music and movie trailers. Just like you’d have on your PC, the media player is equipped with a full fledged EQ and sound setting software for your media with TrueBass, and SRS WOW HD. Sound quality is enhanced and it’s pretty darn good.

Another odd thing is I couldn’t seem to use any of my music as ring tones or any for that matter that weren’t in the phone already. I tried copy pasting the files into the same folders but no option presented itself. This was until my esteemed colleague Nikhil, an O2 user from way back, downloaded a software for me that allowed me to use my MP3 files as tones. Good on you Nick!

Camera

The 2.0 megapixel camera with flash and 2x zoom is not great but it’s just ok. It takes around 3-5 seconds sometimes to start up, which obviously negates any candid or spontaneous shots. Night mode is rather sluggish and without steady hands I’m afraid it’s quite useless.

The macro mode for close–ups is no good. The pictures look burnt out in normal daylight. The colors look burned out and cheap. Indoors however the pictures are ok. The colors are fine.
Outdoor pictures look clear at first glance but when you look again it looks like the entire image has been painted with water colors. Not Good at all!__PAGEBREAK__

Battery

You’d think the large 1530 mAh battery would provide for an extremely lengthy battery life, but you’d be mistaken. All you’ll get is a little more than three and a half hours of talk time and yes around 200 hours or so of stand by. This is a major disappointment.

Conclusion

Although I do like the many applications and the chic design of the O2 Atom Life, the Bottom Line is for a price of Rs. 34,900 it ain’t worth it. The battery life is not good enough for a phone of this magnitude and the camera is a total waste. Had these two points been of higher merit, and had the O2 had a normal keypad (like the Stealth) this would be a great phone for business or otherwise for those of you who like the Windows Mobile, Touch Screen genre.

Shayne Rana