Over 2 years ago I purchased a 12 month contract with O2 which contained an o2 XDA Mini S (Also known as the HTC Wizard), details can be found at XDA Developers Wiki. Now this has been a great little phone (ok, it looks like a brick but I don’t hold that against it), quad band, GPRS, Windows Mobile 5 (and currently 6) not to mention a QWERTY keyboard which is one of the features that drew me to it in the first place.
It has been very durable and survived many accidental drops on to hard surfaces, flash ROM upgrades and other such wear and tear and yet it still keeps on ticking. This is what I like in a phone, in fact this is what I like in electronics, something that can survive without fail and in this day and age such things are becoming fewer in number. Products just to not seem to be made to last any more, we have become a very “disposable” society.
Anyway, I spotted on El Reg today that o2 has announced the newest addition to the XDA family, the O2 XDA Atmos (HTC S730) and so I started thinking about my loyal little Mini S. I compared the spec’s of the Atmos to the 2nd most recent XDA, the XDA Stellar (HTC Tytn II). They both sport the Qualcomm MSM7200 400MHz processor however the Stellar has the better memory (256mb ROM and 128mb SDRAM compared to 256mb ROM and 64mb SDRAM), The camera on the Atmos is only 2 megapixels compared to 3 megapixels on the Stellar. The list goes on, the Stellar is almost better than the Atmos is every way, about the only real upside for me that I could see what the fact it has a numeric pad on it with a slide out QWERTY keyboard.
So, comparison aside I have bought my new phone for the next 18 months, the XDA Stellar won out and will arrive some time this week. I got a good deal on the contract as well making the phone free for only £10 extra a month and double the minutes I currently recieve plus free unlimited landline calls thrown in. I feel quite proud of my purchase.
As for my wee Mini S here, well I know one of my ex co-workers had his eye on it, if he doesn’t want it then I guess I have a spare PDA to play with.
