O2 XDA II, i-mate Phone Edition, QTek 2020, HTC Himalaya, T-Mobile MDA II @ MTekk

You can see the MTekk IT Services First Looks review here.

Thinking of purchasing one in Australia? We strongly recommend Press Digital. They are genuinely enthusiastic about these devices, and have a very strong committment to supporting their customers. This can't be said of many resellers of these devices, and they've certainly impressed us!

Known Problems

This list may not be complete - but should serve as a useful reference to some of the more serious problems we've noted. Other problems may be found in our forums - why not pop in and ask?

Jabra BT200 headset has to be rebonded with the XDA II each time the Jabra is switched off or back on (fixed in O2 Asia 1.60 and Carrier Devices 1.72 ROM)
If you press the Call button on the Jabra at any time the phone is idle, bluetooth headset operation appears to be disabled. (fixed in O2 Asia 1.60 and Carrier Devices 1.72 ROM)
Sometimes the device needs a soft reset to bond with the Jabra (fixed in O2 Asia 1.60 and Carrier Devices 1.72 ROM)
Periodic problem with password screen - flickers continuously and device has to be soft-reset. Appears related to receiving calls or messages while the device is in standby. Doesn't happen too often though (has not occurred to date with O2 Asia 1.60 and Carrier Devices 1.72 ROM)
Radio stack can still hang, although this appears so far to be very rare and capable of rectifying itself as a rule. Reception would have to be exceptionally poor to even have a chance of seeing the problem (no hangs noted to date with O2 Asia 1.60 and Carrier Devices 1.72 ROM)
Documented problems with maximum number of running processes. It's possible to reduce the number of processes running on the device to 15 or less, as we've discussed in our forums (improved in O2 Asia 1.60 and Carrier Devices 1.72 ROM)
Problems with Bluetooth GPS, which are fixed by a hack, as well as the next ROM update (fixed in O2 Asia 1.60 and Carrier Devices 1.72 ROM)
Problems with Transcriber when the device memory is reasonably full, as reported by djwhyte in the forums (reported fixed in O2 Asia 1.60 and Carrier Devices 1.72 ROM)

Recommended Firmware

i-mate Pocket PC Phone

The 1.72 ROM eliminates the majority of problems from the 1.66 ROM such as:

Increased battery drain
Device slows down
Bluetooth GPS devices don't work, even with Pocket Bluetooth Tools

The following problem still exists, but is resolvable by using a file from older ROMs.

ClearType fonts look .. err, terrible

You can download the English language update for the Carrier Devices brand i-mate Pocket PC Phone here (HTTP, 25Mb) or here (FTP, 25Mb) .

With 1.72, Carrier Device have made a separate extended ROM available to apply customizations. There are three versions; an English version, Arabic version, and a version especially for Telstra customers. These will reapply things such as custom applications and carrier settings.

English: http://www.clubimate.com/Support/RUU172800WWE_CDL_SKU1.exe
Arabic: http://www.clubimate.com/Support/RUU172810WWE_CDL_SKU2.exe
Telstra: Login to Club i-mate and visit this page.

Carrier Devices may change the above links at any time, and therefore if you get a 404 (File Not Found), you should login to Club i-mate to obtain the updates.

WARNING 1: HTC have implemented changes in the 1.66 and 1.72 updates which may - and probably will - prevent you from reverting to an older ROM, especially on devices which came with these ROM revisions. Therefore, be prepared to stick with the new version, and don't try to go back to an older version: your device could be rendered inoperable, or alternatively it could cause some pain and frustration to get running again.

WARNING 2: We do not under any circumstances advise you to attempt to load an O2 XDA II ROM on your i-mate: especially given the security features of 1.66 and 1.72. Flashing ROMs is dangerous and ideally should be done only with the official update from the distributor of your "branded" HTC Himalaya.

O2 XDA II

O2 have done some considerable work in their v1.60 ROM. It improves the device quite considerably, especially in Bluetooth headsets, native support for Bluetooth GPS, standby battery life, radio stack, Autoconfig including Vodafone Australia, MMS application improvements, introduction of a Java Midlet application ... So many improvements, and not much to complain about thus far.

There are three versions of the ROM thus far - a German language update, Asia (including Australia) English and Chinese language updates, and UK update. The Asia updates (which are applicable for Australian sold XDA II's) require registration at the My XDA site with a valid IMEI to download(although sites such as XDA Developers have copies available from download - not sure on the legalities, but you might find the links here of use).

You can download the UK update here, and the German update here.

Purchasers of new XDA II's have recently been getting a 1.66 ROM on the device. This ROM suffers much the same issues as the i-mate 1.66 ROM. One issue in particular has to do with a file, missing from the 1.66 ROM but present in both the O2 1.60 ROM and the Carrier Devices 1.72 ROM: OEM_WWE_04021004.sa.CAB. This file applies modifications to the Bluetooth stack which fixes Bluetooth operation, especially for GPS and (I think) headsets, and its absence from the O2 ROM is inexplicable given that it made such a difference with 1.60. My theory is that this ROM was not intended for release, and was done in error.

This file can be obtained from the 1.60 ROM or 1.72 ROM, but users who need it and don't feel confident to extract the file can send a Private Message to me (MattM) in our forums for a link to download it. We will not publicly make this file available due to copyright and ownership issues, not to mention bandwidth considerations.

WARNING 2: We do not under any circumstances advise you to attempt to load an i-mate ROM on your XDA II: especially given the security features of 1.66 and 1.72. Flashing ROMs is dangerous and ideally should be done only with the official update from the distributor of your "branded" HTC Himalaya.

Third Party Utilities

Users of older ROMs, or those who might wish to enhance operation of Bluetooth on their device, might like to download Pocket Bluetooth Tools, especially for using Bluetooth GPS devices. This has recently been enhanced to include Headset and Handsfree support, and has proven to fix a number of problems for some (although for others, such as myself, it has actually re-introduced old problems fixed by the new XDA II ROM and proven to be quite difficult to fully remove without a hard reset).