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Major bugbears? Only one, and its the usual one: no 3.5mm headphonesjack. We are going to keep on pissing and moaning about this, loudly,until HTC decides to do something about it. Sort it out, guys.
Sadly O2 has seen fit to have dispense with the HTC home screen
VerdictWhat's not to like about the O2 XDA Orbit 2? For the money, you'regetting a perfectly decent Windows Mobile smartphone and a capablesatnav system. When you consider that you can get the thing free with a£45-a-month contract or for only £50 with a £35-a-month contract andthat it comes bundled with £80-odd worth of CoPilot 7 software, it'salso quite the bargain.
What we have here is basically a traditional Windows Mobilesmartphone loaded to the gunwales with Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 3.6Mb/sHSDPA, quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge, three-megapixel camera, FM radio,8GB-capable MicroSD slot and a touchscreen.
Under the hood the Orbit is driven by the same 400MHz chip as the Touch Dual,and comes with the same 256MB of program memory and 128MB of storage.It's once again powered by Windows Mobile 6 Professional.
The Orbit 2 doesn't look too shabby on paper, and it's not tooshabby in the real world, either, the fully flush screen and surroundcombining to make the Orbit 2 look just a little out of the ordinary.
O2's XDA Orbit 2: not shabby
The Orbit 2 isn't that much more of a chunky monkey than its HTCTouch brethren, weighing 130g and measuring 110 x 58 x 15.5mm. Therubber-coated plastic back and front bezel gives a secure feel in eventhe sweatiest of palms, while the solid build quality is par for theHTC course. Centre-stage on the handset is a 2.8in, 240 x 320 screenbelow which sits a circular navigation pad flanked by buttons to startand end calls, a Start Menu button, and the customary Windows Mobile OKkey.
The rim of the navigation pad rotates endlessly so you have thechoice of either pressing the top or bottom of the pad to move up anddown through menus or to roll your rim clockwise and anti-clockwise.OK, this is not a revolution in UI navigation, but it's a nice touchjust the same.