A higher resolution screen, Windows Mobile 2003 SE and Opera-based surfing signify T-Mobile's successor to its SDA smartphone - the SDA II. Jørgen Sundgot takes it for a spin.
What do you do when you have a product that works reasonably well? Either go safe, or go wild. As good as T-Mobile's SDA smartphone was, it certainly had its drawbacks - and we're very pleased to see that its successor, the SDA II, corrects several of them. The fact that it adds some curious niggles of its own, though, is another matter entirely. Luckily, though, none of them are showstoppers - but enough with the teasing already. Let's take a look, shall we?
Still a tad clunky
At 108 x 47 x 20 mm and 100 g, the T-Mobile SDA II is nearly an exact match for its predecessor, the SDA, with regard to size. Retaining its colour scheme and somewhat bulky appearances, the smartphone's true claim to fame is its 65K colour QVGA display, which nearly doubles the resolution of its predecessor. Beaten to the punch only by the Orange SPV C550, it is a pleasure to behold in all of its crisp, 240 x 320 pixel glory, yet not the brightest and most high-res we've seen - an honour currently bestowed upon the Nokia N90 - but it'll give most any smartphone a run for its money.
Unfortunately, the remainder of the front of the handset isn't quite up to par. Although the keypad features comfortably large keys, it's a bit too clicky - and the inclusion of four hardware shortcut buttons just above it comes at the expanse of annoyingly small soft, home and back keys. Furthermore, the joystick is just slightly too short for comfort, but at least we can give thumbs up to the dedicated volume buttons and the hard buttons for opening Pocket Internet Explorer and the integrated camera.
Now at 1.3 Megapixels as opposed to 0.3 MP in its predecessor, the camera of the SDA II offers improved colour representation and higher resolution despite results being entirely mediocre as compared to the competition - but at least late is better than never. Also, the lens is slightly recessed, which should prevent it from getting scratched in the first 5 seconds of use.
Blasted cobwebs
Sporting tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz and GPRS Class 10 as its sole WAN proponents, the connectivity of the SDA II is looking rather dated by now; EDGE or 3G are nowhere to be seen - except from afar in the collective rears of Nokia smartphones. Infrared and Bluetooth 1.1 are adequate, but nothing more - which can also be said about the inclusion of USB 1.1 as opposed to 2.0. Still, we do get a bit warm and fuzzy over the inclusion of USB charging and a 2.5 mm earphone jack.
Speaking of earphones, the SDA II comes with a slightly reworked handsfree kit which is of better design than its predecessor. Audio quality is quite good, but those bent on music playback should look elsewhere. On a more general note, signal reception and voice quality in the SDA II are more than adequate, which also goes for the loudspeaker mode.
Overall performance also seems to have been improved in the SDA II, which - alongside the Orange SPV C550 - is among the first Windows Mobile smartphones to actually keep up with rapid-fire, multi-tap text input without losing presses along the way. Despite this and the improved screen, however, battery life is nearly as good as its predecessor on average and ranges in the three to four day range.
As for memory, the miniSD card expansion slot of the SDA II should come in quite handy as it allows for the somewhat limited 32 MB of onboard memory to be expanded up to 1 GB; a 64 MB card is included in the sales package.
Two steps forward, one step sideways
An improvement here, an improvement there - even though the SDA II doesn't run on Windows Mobile 5.0 as T-Mobile had hoped at its unveiling, its QVGA display combined with a number of minor upgrades renders it a better proposition than Windows Mobile smartphones running earlier versions of the platform. The inclusion of Pocket Windows Media Player (WMP) 10 is one, allowing for greatly improved synchronization with Windows Media Player 10 on the desktop courtesy of smart playlists and the likes.
Similarly, Pocket Internet Explorer has seen some welcome improvements - yet is outshined in most respects by the pre-installed Opera 8 microbrowser. Easily surpassing the adaptation algorithms of Pocket Internet Explorer, the browser trumps its Microsoft counterpart in most areas - yet is not without faults. For one, Opera is not configured as the default browser, which means you're in a world of hurt if you want to use it to open URLs from e-mails, instant messages or the likes - and second, font sizes cannot be changed, resulting in repeated squinting. To be fair, though, the latter also applies to Pocket Internet Explorer.
Also worthy of note, the SDA II includes a few handy utilities such as a file manager, task manager and one allowing for the use of the smartphone as a dial-up modem. These aside, 3rd party software is completely nonexistent, leaving Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition to stand on its own two feet - as it does tolerably well.
Availability
The T-Mobile SDA II is at the time of writing exclusively available from mobile network operator T-Mobile in Germany and the United Kingdom, selling from €50 EUR with subscription or €380 EUR without subscription.
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