Get active with O2’s X1

Pro

1 April 2005

Camera phones have become the must-have accessory over the past year. Most of the phone manufacturers – if not all – have produced some sort of camera phone, and now the networks are getting in on the act.

The X1 handset, exclusive to O2, is a silver clamshell phone weighing no more than 90g. What sets the X1 apart from its competitors is the rotating camera lens. An integrated 204k camera rotates so you can take an image of yourself without having to line up the picture in a tiny mirror – invariably cutting out half the image in the process. It also has a function that allows you to flip the orientation of the image, so you don’t end up with upside-down pictures when you rotate the lens.

The handset comes with a 65,000-colour screen, which is perfect to use as a viewfinder for your photos, or for playing the Java games included on the phone.

Users can access the Internet on the move, as the X1 is WAP and GPRS-compatible. It even has a ‘hot key’ to access the O2 Active service. Other hot keys allow you to access the camera function, sim contacts and text messages.

The X1 has 2Mbyte of internal memory – enough to store about 100 high quality photos, or 10 Java games. Polyphonic ringtones are also a must; the X1 has 40 to choose from and more can be downloaded from O2 Active.

Battery life is an important factor when choosing a phone; no one wants to have to recharge their phone every day. The X1 has a decent amount of talk time – up to five hours – but standby time was a less impressive 72 hours. The problem we found was that using the O2 Active service regularly ate into your talk time. A higher capacity battery would be welcome, but not essential.
There have been questions raised about the quality of the handset, but we didn’t experience anything more than teething trouble with the phone. The handset shut itself off once or twice, but the problem didn’t persist. In fact, the only problem we had with the phone was adapting to its menu system. To select options, you can use the ‘Ok’ button or the ‘Call’ button. At times, it was a case of trial and error to find out which button worked. The predictive text also took a little while to get used to, but that’s to be expected when you change mobile phone manufacturers.

O2 X1 – EUR129 Bill * EUR199

Screen: 65,000 colours
Dimensions: 90 x 40 x 23mm
Weight: 90g
Battery: Up to 300 minutes of talk time; up to 72 hours of standby time
Other features: Rotating camera, polyphonic ringtones, predictive text, vibration alert.