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| Why I've had enough of O2 and Windows Mobile |
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Author: mtb
Categories: News
Published: Friday, 11 August 2006 12:26 PM
Created: Friday, 11 August 2006 12:30 PM
Updated: Friday, 11 August 2006 by mtb
Views: 4135
Mike has had enough of his unreliable and unstable O2, Windows Mobile based device and he's going to buy... a phone, a pure and simple mobile phone, which does NOT use Windows Mobile and is not from O2.
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Well, that’s it... I have had it with crappy O2, Windows Mobile based convergent devices!
This morning I was not woken by my Xda IIi, but then again that’s no surprise since the first alarm only works perhaps 50% of the time anyway – nice one Microsoft! What annoyed me was that when I turned the device on, it had clearly been on all night having locked up at some point and even my big Mugan Battery was down to about 25% (despite being charged last night). The really annoying part was that it then hard reset, requiring me to recover a backup while trying to get the kids and myself ready for school/work – I didn’t even get time for breakfast.
Even with Sprite & Spb Backup & Sunnysoft Backup, recovering my device has become more troublesome since before I got the IIi, requiring segments of the backup to restored in sequence otherwise it locks up and has to be reset. Obviously this is as a result of a combination of my ever DEcreasing (not increasing, that causes too many problems) selection of software on the device, but a restore should be possible nonetheless - the O/S should be able to cope with a simple restore without hanging... but then, this is Windows!
Then, just as I arrived at work, the damned thing decided to soft reset... and soft reset... and soft reset. Eventually I decided to intervene and tried to soft reset it myself in an attempt to interrupt the cycle – this resulted in a full lockup! Hard reset time again... except that it won’t, the power button/reset combination does absolutely nothing. It is currently sitting on my desk with the battery removed, waiting for the backup battery to expire so that I just might be able to get the phone working again.
What is the point of having a customisable device if the act of customising it means it no longer works, and why bother having a phone if it is totally unreliable as a result of the failures of the rest of the functionality?
My current work contract expires in a week and right now is NOT the time I need to be without a phone, which is why I shall be going out this weekend and buying a Nokia or Sony Ericsson or any other brand of phone that is NOT a bloody O2 and NOT powered by bloody Windows Mobile, because I am pig sick of them both! With my older Xda II I could be blamed perhaps for the fact that I overclocked it, not so the Xda IIi since I found it acceptible just left on turbo (520MHz) mode so didn’t bother to overclock it.
So tonight I’m going to resurrect my old but reliable Psion Series 5 organiser and transfer my PIM data to it, to cater for the fact that BOTH my O2 devices now need repair and I’ll undoubtedly be without them for some time by all accounts. Then I’m going to package up my Xda IIi, which is fortunately still in warranty, and send to MPS for repair along with the old one for my son to use as a games device. The new one will be sold on eBay once it is returned.
Finally, I’m going to start some serious research on non-Windows Mobile based PDAs, because as soon as I can afford to replace these pieces of cr*p I shall and I will NEVER buy another O2 device again – the Zaurus is looking very attractive just now. In the meantime I shall use my old but extremely reliable Psion.
I am fortunate that I haven’t paid for much of the software and hardware I have for this device – much of it is provided for review purposes – because otherwise I’d have wasted almost $2K on this heap of sh**.
I pity other users who have bought their devices based on the assumption that it will allow them to become more efficient by putting all they need on the one single unit and would say just one thing to potential buyers – DON’T DO IT. The only reason I bought a convergent device in the first place was the perceived convenience, which this shows to be totally wrong because one fault takes away ALL the functionality.
Both my phone at the time and my PDA both happened to need repairs at the same time (they were both over three years old) so I thought I'd buy a combined unit instead - I now consider this to be the worst hardware decision I've ever made. While I have had some good times with the first device, there were always issues and the insurance replaced second device has simply been a pain in the backside. Some of these issues I consider to be O2's responsibility and some Microsoft's - neither will be my problem in the future.
Edit: the device is dead, totally and completely, and refuses to restart at all, just when I need my phone the most - great, just bloody great! How very fortunate that I keep an on-line address book, so I can lookup all my contacts and tell them they can't contact me!
Goodbye M$ and goodbye O2.
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