I spent about 4 days for this time, rather short but I am happy because my planned itinerary was almost accomplished.

20 May 2005
With the hottest movie in town, we watched STAR WARS EPISODE III (digital edition) at 10am early in the morning. I was wondering how different is the normal version and digital version going to be? And, I was wondering is this happened in KL too? Anyway, it is my remarkable event for the year.

I visited MINYOON at Barclays Capital Office near Plaza Singapore during tea time. It is a nice environment though. His colleagues nearly confused that I was MINYOON while I was waiting for him. How could he change to casual wear so quickly after the meeting? It was a joke to me and it always is!

I took initiative to arrange a casual appointment with Singapore colleagues whom I haven’t known them all. In the evening, I met them at BALACLAVA, right in front of SUNTEC CITY. Surprisingly, colleagues from Frankfurt and London were there too. They are friendlier than I expected.  We talked about the history of our organization, working culture in different cities and so forth.  It was my pleasure to meet them. Hoping there will be a lot of upcoming appointments in future when I travel to Singapore again.

21 May 2005
My auntie told me there’s a chewing gum size BAH KWA (肉干) selling in Singapore. I didn’t believe because I thought that was only happened in the movie called “小孩不笨”. However, I found that it is selling at 美珍香, near Chinatown MRT Station. I decided to grab some my colleagues as souvenirs.

22 May 2005
As planned earlier, we reached at SENTOSA about 6pm. Before that, MINYOON brought me to a very tasty Taiwanese food stall in Harbor Front Shopping Centre, namely Shilim (士林). I loved the tempura and the XXL chicken chop. I will taste it again when I visit Singapore next round.

I never know that SENTOSA is an island until my friend told me. We took cable car straight to SENTOSA Island in order to avoid traffic jam. It was 15 min journey. We enjoyed the scenery while we were having the ride in the cable car. We had been to Under Water World. I am quite disappointed because it is rather small than I expected. However, we get to know a lot of wonderful creatures which we never seen before. I personally like the nemo very much. They are small and cute! Further, we enjoyed the scenery on the Siloso beach and also the temple.

23 May 2005
We had a farewell lunch at 翡翠小笼包 restaurant, Suntec City. The ramen and other Dim Sum are delicious. Subsequently, we went to the Buddhist temple near Bugis MRT station to pray for a little while. The weather was extremely hot. We couldn’t stay any longer as there was too crowded.  At 6pm, I headed back to KL.

Although the journey is rather short and hurry, nevertheless, I enjoyed it very much, particularly with my lovely brother and lovely friends too. It was a meaningful journey to me.

I spent a good weekend with Min.yoon™.

The purpose Min.yoon™ is back this time around is because we are looking for new house at Kota Damansara area.

This is the model house that we plan to buy.

Intro

Xphone II is launched in Malaysia in December 2004 before Christmas. It is a good reason to purchase a gift for myself during this festival season.

It is selling at RM 1,888.00 (retail price) in the market. Whether or not it is expensive, cheap or reasonable price? It is too subjective to comment. I leave it to your discoveries on Xphone II and some analysis on other mobile devices.

Xphone II is definitely better enhancement compared to Xphone in terms of functionality as well as the outlook.

Outlook

Although some of you might comment it just looks like Sony Ericsson T610 or C500 in general but I must say that you may find there are apparently not entirely same in general if you discover it more thoroughly.

Black and silver are the best colour combination plus the slimmest design to make Xphone II "CLASS" which is the best word I choose to describe it.

Storage

It is vital that I always stress on storage capacity. Mobile phone storage is always a limitation issue to every advance users.

Xphone II has a storage slot to overcome the storage issue. It contains mini-SD card which located at the back of the phone, covered by a battery whereas, Xphone has a storage slot which is located on the surface. For convenience factor, Xphone is certainly prevail which it allows you to insert and eject the SD card right on the spot without switching off the phone.

Mini SD card popularity is still new in the Malaysian market. However, O2 takes the challenge to apply the technology to fit into Xphone II. Probably, due to Xphone II form factor, mini SD card is the best size to fit into it. The price is reasonable and affordable. If you are thinking about the mini SD card is not commonly used (in Malaysian market) and it has problem on other devices which SD card is more prevail. Well, you could have “SD card size” adapter and it is bundle in it while you make that purchase.

Bluetooth

You might be quite happy with Bluetooth technology on Xphone II if you previously suffered from Xphone. Well, I would say Xphone II has done some slight improvements on the Bluetooth but I still feel it is still not up the par level as compared to other devices. i.e.: Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

You would notice the File Manager does not support Bluetooth file transfer. It is only limited to IR and email. However, this would overcome by downloading and installed an application called Smart Explorer EN_2.0b.CAB (3rd Party Software). [Updated on 2/1/2005]

You could listen to MP3 and watching MTVs or some short movie clips by using Windows Media Players 9 series (WMP 9) or Pocket TV with Bluetooth headset now. Please turn on ENABLE mode in “Bluetunes” in order for you to enjoy it. [Updated on 22/3/2005]

A few enhancements have developed this time. It could stay connection for longer distance now. Nevertheless, I must stress, again, it is still not up to par level. i.e.: detecting speed is still considering slow and I hope O2 could seriously look into this matter to produce a quality product in the future.

Voice Dial

Xphone II has voice dial feature embedded. It allows not only voice dial but also act as a voice command. For e.g.: if you log on to Agile Messenger, you could instead of pressing the shortcut key (speed dial) but you could rather now use voice dial to activate it.

Battery life

Xphone II by default, the battery life does not cope up with the excessive power consumption. Sony Ericsson K600i also facing the battery life issue and hence please do not condemn particularly in comparing with other devices. However, there is a way to reduce the power consumption if you are not fancy about the photo caller ID. It might last about 1 ½ day for normal usage. The following link would guide you the steps to move the IA Caller ID start up file to somewhere else in order to reduce the battery usage (Thanks to Marauderz in providing such valuable info).

http://www.marauderzstuff.com

Ringtones

For those who are extremely fancy about MP3 ringtone, Xphone II is in a weak position as it supports WAV, WMA, and 32 chords polyphonic only. However, you still could convert MP3 to WMA by using Windows Media Encoder. It is FOC.

If you are facing ringtone storage in the phone, then here is the plus point of Xphone II. You could store your lovely ringtones (WAV, WMA, and 32 chords polyphonic) as many as you can without bordering the storage in the phone because you could simply create a folder namely “My Documents” and save them all in the storage card.

Display, Camera and Video Capturing

As you aware that Xphone II display is not vary from Xphone. Both are having 176 x 220 pixels and 64K colours, I do not understand why O2 still stick to 176 x 220 pixels and 64K colours while other phones have bigger pixels and more colours already available in the market.

Xphone II has a better photo quality compared to Xphone. Please see the following link to see the comparison (courtesy by Marauderz).

http://www.marauderzstuff.com

Camera is VGA based instead of mega pixels. I am looking forward from O2 to develop a mega pixels smartphone. Hopefully it won’t disappoint those “die-hard” O2 products supporters.

Radio

Unfortunately, Xphone and Xphone II do not have radio build in. Many other brands are currently with radio enabled. Hopefully O2 would seriously look into this matter for a better enhancement that users are waiting for. [Updated on 12/1/2005]

Miscellaneous

You could install plenty of 3rd party applications which makes it more powerful device. Dictionary, Agile Messenger, CStar Chinese input, Pocket TV, RJV Send Contact, Spreadsheet PTab (Spreadsheet Software) [Updated on 3/5/2005] and so much more.

Summary

Well, in short, I think Xphone II is still a smartphone and not PDA phone. Please do not compare between them as they are totally different categories. For further info about Xphone II, please feel free to browse through the following links:

http://www.seeo2.com

http://www.marauderzstuff.com

http://www.mypdacafe.com

http://www.ppcsg.com

http://www.airfagev.com

http://www.modaco.com [Updated on 22/3/2005]