The Serra is one of two similar smartphones that now sit at the top of the XDA range of devices from mobile company O2, along with the recently launched Ignito. The Serra is a natural step up for anyone who has previously owned one of O2’s Orbit devices but also anyone looking for a business-class smartphone.
Despite its small footprint, the Serra has a full qwerty keyboard tucked away behind its screen. Turn the device on its side, slide the screen up and out it comes with a satisfying clunk. As you would expect from a device this small, the keys are tiny – measuring just 6mm square – but bigger than that on most BlackBerries. It is perfect for anyone who hates having to use on-screen virtual keyboards or handwriting recognition to type messages on the go. It is this sliding keyboard that is one of the major differences from its sister smartie, the Ignito.
The Serra is slightly fatter than its Orbit predecessors because of that keyboard but shaves a few millimetres off the height and width. Despite this, the device’s 2.8 inch touchscreen remains the same size and Orbit users will be glad to see that the Serra’s native resolution is 480x640, compared to its predecessor’s 240x320. Processing power has also received a boost with a Qualcomm 528MHz chip instead of the 400 MHz engine in the Orbit 2. As for its looks, the Serra is a winner. The device has a smoky black exterior and very few external ports and buttons to trouble its slick design. The screen extends to the edge of the device too, making you want to dive in like one of those infinity pools.Despite its small footprint, the Serra has a full qwerty keyboard tucked away behind its screen. Turn the device on its side, slide the screen up and out it comes with a satisfying clunk. As you would expect from a device this small, the keys are tiny – measuring just 6mm square – but bigger than that on most BlackBerries. It is perfect for anyone who hates having to use on-screen virtual keyboards or handwriting recognition to type messages on the go. It is this sliding keyboard that is one of the major differences from its sister smartie, the Ignito.The Serra is slightly fatter than its Orbit predecessors because of that keyboard but shaves a few millimetres off the height and width. Despite this, the device’s 2.8 inch touchscreen remains the same size and Orbit users will be glad to see that the Serra’s native resolution is 480x640, compared to its predecessor’s 240x320. Processing power has also received a boost with a Qualcomm 528MHz chip instead of the 400 MHz engine in the Orbit 2.
As for its looks, the Serra is a winner. The device has a smoky black exterior and very few external ports and buttons to trouble its slick design. The screen extends to the edge of the device too, making you want to dive in like one of those infinity pools.
On firing up the Serra, you first come to the home screen which, by default, shows a large digital clock, quick links to call history and the calendar and a scrollable ribbon of icons to access the most regularly used applications, including contacts, email and the web browser (now using the superior Opera Mobile instead of Pocket Internet Explorer).
Scrolling will come as a pleasure to anyone who has used Windows Mobile before. The Serra uses TouchFlo 3D technology to scroll around on the touchscreen. Dragging a finger in a particular direction, scrolls it that way. If you are in Opera browser, a double tap zooms in (and then out again). If you are looking at photos, drawing a circle with your finger zooms in (clockwise) or out (anti-clockwise). I still don’t find the gesture functionality as good as the interface on the iPhone but it is a huge leap forward for people brought up on Windows Mobile and its menu-based interface.
Sliding out the keyboard automatically switches the orientation of the screen from portrait into landscape mode. If you are in an application, it just switches to the wider view but if you are in the Home screen, it takes you to an eight-icon quick launch screen showing the most commonly used applications.
When you connect the device to your computer using the included USB cable, it prompts you to choose between using Microsoft’s ActiveSync, which lets you synchronise specific files or personal information data but does so slowly, or treating the Serra as an external disk drive, which offers faster data transfer.
The Serra comes pre-installed with a range of business-traveller friendly software, including Mobile versions of Excel, PowerPoint and Word, allowing you to read and change documents sent from colleagues or forwarded from your own desktop although many advanced features of the desktop versions of these applications are not fully supported. Another nice pre-installed application is WorldCard Mobile
The Serra has a micro SD slot hidden away in the battery compartment, allowing you to expand storage up to 32GB
The spec
3.2MP camera with autofocus, wireless 802.11b and g, triband GSM, HSDPA, Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, weight 165g with battery, dimensions: 102x51x18.1mm, flash memory 512MB, RAM 288MB. Standby 17 days, talk time up to 3 hours 30 minutes, built-in GPS receiver but no installed GPS software
The hype
They say: “Designed for business customers who want a portable mobile device that delivers all the features of a desktop”
The reality
We say: It’s not quite a portable desktop but comes very close. Push email, Office Mobile and a very usable browser coupled with TouchFlo 3D gesture control makes this the closest Windows Mobile smartphone yet to a PC in your pocket.
From free to £244.67 on a pay monthly contract from the O2 Business Shop
The verdict
This is a slick upgrade for anyone who has previously had one of O2’s XDA smartphones – the fast processor, hi-res touchscreen and slide-away keyboard are all great improvements on previous models. This is also a good smartphone for anyone who likes the looks of the Apple iPhone but can’t abide its limitations – the lack of cut and paste and the inability to use it as a modem with your laptop to name but two. Despite the smaller screen, I find it a more compelling and user-friendly device than the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm too.
The O2 Xda Ignito
Last year O2 announced and brought to the marketplace the Orbit 2 which featured: 3Mpixel camera, fast processor, large RAM / ROM, GPS, Quad band, phone, Touch interface, etc.
This has now been superceded and replaced with the O2 Xda Ignito which serves to enhance and further the popular Xda range. Again a candy-bar design (no hardware keyboard) the Ignito sports:
3.2MPixel camera, 528Mhz processor, VGA (640 x 480 display), Quad band, large ROM / RAM, A-GPS, 3G phone / video phone, Touch FLO 3D interface, etc
We'll look at its features as we move through the review and see if the Ignito does carry on the traditions of the Xda series.....
Once more we extend our thanks to the generous folks at O2 for allowing us to review the Xda Ignito. [view detailed spec.]
O2 Xda Zest
O2’s Xda range is something of a stalwart in Windows Mobile circles. The company’s own label smartphones have been around for many years, and a quick peek at the current range is all the evidence you need of O2’s liking for HTC, because almost every handset in the current line-up is made by them. In most cases you can get something identical both SIM free and from other operators.
But the new Xda Zest is different. It is made by Asus and the design is unique to O2. And perhaps even more interestingly, it is the first Xda to be available on prepay (where it will set you back £249.99) as well as on Pay Monthly where it will be free on some contracts.
This is a decidedly middle-of-the-road Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional device, with some real plus points and a few niggles.
The overall dimensions make it a little squat as it is rather wider than we are used to at 60.5mm. It is 102mm tall and a slightly chubby 16.5mm thick, and weighs very slightly over the odds at 120g. This translates to ever so slightly less comfort in the hand than we are used to, but we don’t want to overplay that point and it is certainly not a deal-breaker.
The casing is pretty predictable in looks. The plastic shell is mostly black with a few silver highlights, most notably the D-pad on the front fascia. The Call, End, Start Menu and OK buttons are all a bit small, but they are neatly integrated into the overall look.
We like a lot that there is a hold button on the right edge. Slide this and it dims the screen and locks out the touchscreen and all buttons. Windows Mobile has its own lock feature but this is software driven and is only accessible from the main screen – and only then if you choose to show it there. The option here is far more useful as you can get to it at any time.
Here comes a niggle. There is 256MB of ROM and 128MB of RAM. These numbers are standard fare and nothing to grumble about. You can add more memory with microSD cards – again a standard feature. But the card slot is under the battery which means you have to power the Xda Zest down to get to it. Really, these days, we expect memory slots to be more accessible than that so we can hotswap cards easily.
There is a GPS antenna and you get a three-month trial of the CoPilot navigation software. We are more used to seeing this bundled for free for good, and forking out for it later on might be irksome to you. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are also built in. The Xda Zest is a HSDPA device and there is a front facing camera for two way video calling.
One highlight of the Xda Zest is its screen. This measures a generous 2.8-inches with a 640x480 pixel resolution. Screens with this resolution are much clearer and sharper than those with 320x240 pixels, and we really found that to be a boon.
Following the trend to hide the now rather dated Windows Mobile interface, O2 has put its own alternative on board. From the standard Windows Mobile Today screen you can choose the softmenu marked ‘O2 Menu’, and from there you have access to three screens, either by tapping their icons on the bottom of the screen or by finger-sweeping on the horizontal plane.
The screens offer a 4x4 grid of photocontacts, a 3x3 grid of shortcuts to applications, tools and settings, and a main screen that shows the time, weather and information about messages, emails, missed calls and so on. There is nothing revolutionary about the system, but it has a graphical design that appeals and the finger-sweeping is smooth and efficient.
There is a camera on the back of the casing and this shoots stills to 3-megapixels. Again this is nothing revolutionary, but the right side mounted button makes it very easy to use as do on-screen tappable icons for everything from zooming to choosing the image resolution, switching into macro mode, using the self timer and selecting shooting modes.
Another significant niggle is that there is no dedicated headphone socket. Headsets have to use the mini USB connector that is shared by mains power and the PC cable. This is far from ideal, and for us it is bit of a deal breaker as it means we need an adaptor to use our favourite headphones.
We are pleased to see O2 offering an Xda on Pay&Go as well as Pay Monthly, and we like the high res screen, finger-sweep interface and HSDPA. But we do have some niggles too. There is a lot of mid-range competition out there to check out before taking the plunge. [view detailed spec.]
O2 XDA Guide
O2 is making a strong attempt to be all things to all people with its increasingly diverse range of Xda smart phones. The latest is the O2 Xda Guide and it places the emphasis firmly on sat nav and location-based services, thanks not just to it's built-in A-GPS transmitter, but also the CoPilot Live 7 sat nav software which comes with it. 
As with the rest of the Xda series, the Xda Guide is actually made by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, which produces very similar devices under its own Touch brand, the nearest match to this handset being the HTC Touch Cruise. They are in fact more or less identical, but you'll only get CoPilot Live 7 with the O2 model.
Also on board are a 3.2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, Opera web browser and HTC's attractive TouchFLO interface, which brightens up the versatile but awkward Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system that lies beneath it. [view detailed spec.]
The O2 Xda Orbit 2
O2 have been renowned for innovation over the years with the creation and development of the Xda series of machines. Twelve months or so ago O2 launched what was arguably the best Xda machine - the Xda Orbit. This developed a massive following despite it having a few shortcomings such as too fast a trackball and a relatively slow operational speed. 
O2 have now launched the replacement for the Orbit which has been imaginatively named the Xda Orbit 2. This is again based on a generic HTC design (the Polaris) but has been fitted out with an O2 designed housing as was the original Orbit. This resultant blend of HTC technology and O2 style serves to produce a modern looking and attractive machine.
The Orbit 2 serves to bring to the user a high level of features; 3Mpixel camera, fast processor, large RAM / ROM, GPS, Quad band, phone, Touch interface, etc.
O2 are back with another revolutionary Orbit design, but will it follow through and gain on the success of the original Orbit or will it be found lacking?
We'll look at its features as we move through the review and see if the Orbit 2 does carry on the traditions of the original Orbit.....
Once more we extend our thanks to the generous folks at O2 for allowing us to review the Xda Orbit 2. [view detailed spec.]
O2 Xda Stellar
O2 have been renowned for innovation over the years with the creation and development of the Xda series of machines. The last twelve months or so however have seen few machines being released which look to be current compared to machines being offered by other carriers. However this is now being addressed with O2 bringing to the marketplace the O2 Xda Stellar which is based on the design of the HTC TyTN II - one of the latest machines created by HTC.
The Stellar serves to bring to the user a high level of features; QWERTY keyboard, 3Mpixel camera, fast processor, large RAM / ROM, GPS, Quad band, phone, etc.
Once again O2 are back in tune with what the user wants. We'll look at these features as we move through the review and see if the Stellar does deliver the features demanded by today's user and whether it serves to extend the proud line of Xda branded products.
Needless to say that once again we extend our thanks to O2 for allowing us to review the Xda Stellar. [view detailed spec.]
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