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Review of Pocket PC phone: T-Mobile MDA II
Read about faster Pocket PC phone that features now also built-in Bluetooth and built-in camera.


We have been at IFA Berlin trade show and we were playing with the new Pocket PC phone, that T-Mobile wants to make available for consumers at the end of year 2003: the T-Mobile MDA II. It runs Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Phone Edition software, features built-in camera, built-in Bluetooth and thanks to XScale CPU of 400 MHz is also a very fast PDA. Apart from that it is simply a good cell phone that features tri-band GSM and GPRS.

The phone was fixed so that nobody could steal it:

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... but it was possible to play with it at will. First we have checked the version of the software that it was running:

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... and noticed nothing special there, but then we check the device configuration:

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... and it was impressive! Although it had only 64 MB of RAM (T-Mobile promisses that by the release time it will have 128 MB RAM), it had very fast processor: XScale PXA263 running at 400 MHz. ROM size is 32 MB and other characteristics are typical for each Pocket PC: 240x320 display and 65536 colors.

Here one can observe that we are actually talking about Pocket PC device:

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Here you can see a dialog with call duration (apparently this unit was not used very much by now):

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After pressing green button (call) this dialing dialog appears:

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After selecting Programs (or in German "Programme") one can observe the programs pre-installed in the phone:

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Since this cell phone has built-in camera such applications like "Camera", "Photo Contacts", "Album" and "Bilder" (German for "images") can be useful. One can observe also MMS aplication, PDF Viewer, Pocket Excel, Pocket word, MSN Messenger and, something that attraced our attention: IBM Java!!! After tapping on the IBM Java one can actually download Java midlets (programs in MIDP standard):

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... so this phone has also pre-installed Java!

Then we have noticed that it has also built-in Bluetooth:

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... because the icon "Bluetooth" is available in Settings (Einstellungen = German for "Settings"). After tapping on the icon one could even search for Bluetooth devices:

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Please note: Bluetooth is extremely important for PDA phones in T-Mobile Germany because already now it offers car navigation solutions based on Bluetooth equipped smartphones (by now: Symbian phones) and now T-Mobile announced also that this Bluetooth car navigation solution will be available also for MDA II users.

This phone has also built-in camera of quite good quality. With this camera one can make photos (Images), record Videos or make "Compositions":

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Furthermore in camera settings one can adjust capture size (the biggest is 640x 480 pixels) and ambience (Auto, Daylight, Fluorescent, Incandescent, Effects):

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While making photos one can use the whole big display as a camera viewer:

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Then one can browse pictures taken:

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A nice thing was that IA Caller ID application was preinstalled in the phone so one could see the photo of somebody who is calling:

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Conclusions

All in all it looks like "T-Mobile MDA II" will be one of the best Pocket PC devices ever! It has the same construction as "xda II" also to be released by the end of year 2003, but while "xda II" is made for O2 operator, the "MDA II" is made especially for T-Mobile operator. If only the SD slot would allow for attachment of Wi-Fi SD cards, then it would be an almost perfect cell phone.


Photos made by: Waldemar Godel.