News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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O2 has bucked the trend of ever-shrinking smartphones with the XDA Flame. Weighing in at a hefty 190g it manages to pack in a VGA screen powered by the 3D NVIDIA GoForce 5500. In fact, the multimedia capability is a real highlight and even supports output to a TV via a 3.5mm port.
The left edge of the Flame has a small Infrared transmitter. That’s matched to O2’s Remote Control application so you to use the Flame as a universal remote control for your AV setup. You can even train it to replace the Apple Remote that ships with your Mac.
Connectivity is well covered with WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G mobile comms. Connecting to a Mac is covered with a standard USB cable that’ll also charge the unit while it’s connected. You’ll need a copy of Missing Sync or PocketMac for syncing to Entourage or iCal. As a bonus there’s a USB host cable that allows you to connect USB thumbdrives, making it easy to share files between the Flame and other storage devices and to provide a short-term boost to the 2GB of internal memory.
While the Flame has a foot firmly planted in the multimedia camp, it’s a serious business machine. In addition to standard complement of Microsoft apps bundled with Windows Mobile O2 has bolstered the package with Adobe Reader, O2 SMS Plus, O2 Menu, O2 MediaPlus, Worldmate and Codewallet Pro.
Australian Macworld’s buying advice. You do get a lot in the package but the premium price is a little steep for a device running an older operating system.
wrote on January 14, 2008 6:31 PM
Some nice features, but the iPhone has now set a new standard.
The Centro looks like another in the long line of Treo smartphones although, at 54mm wide, it's a little narrower and consequently easier to hold than its Treo forebears. There's the familiar Palm QWERTY keyboard sitting below a very nice 320x320 display. Typically, entry-level smartphones skimp on the screen but Palm has delivered an excellent touchscreen with good colour depth and brightness. However, will any of that be enough to counter the comin iPhone onslaught?
Anthony Caruana | Jun 17, 2008
It's coming up to two months since the iPhone 3G launched in Australia. Over that time I've been keeping a close watch on music applications available on the iTunes App Store and as of today there are 75 music-related applications to choose from. That sounds impressive, but once you remove the tuner and metronome variants plus the numerous novelty applications (does the world really need two cowbell applications for iPhone?) the pickings get a little slimmer. One application that launched this week that shows some real promise is BtBx (short for Beat Box). It's a fairly comprehensive sequencer that allows you to compose via steps or patterns.
David Holloway | Aug 26, 2008
HP's iPaq 912c promises plenty but doesn't quite hit the spot.
Anthony Caruana | Oct 8, 2008
