O2 XDA Flame

The Flame is the latest device in the O2 range. It has a rather large screen and is probably the largest of recent O2 devices with a 3.6-inch display.

In the box
Handset Transceiver
Battery
Charger
Headset
Manuals & CD
2 Data cables

The phone
The initial impression on taking the Flame out of the box is that it does rather look like a slice of bread. It is large, flat and a few people I showed it to did wonder who the maker was. That was because the logo is black on black and not very noticeable.

Many also remarked on the obviously large device, which I had pegged to be ideal for watching videos on. A TV cable is in the box, so I guess that one is supposed to plug the Flame into a convenient TV set and show pictures, videos and probably powerpoint presentations on the TV set.

The entire device is in black, with a checked pattern on the battery cover as a result of etching alternate squares in one direction. The camera lens bulges out of the back, which isn¡¦t a very good idea because there will be a lot of wear and tear on the camera lens over time. The idea should have been to protect the lens, not to expose it.

The screen, as we mentioned earlier, is very large. While this is excellent, the Flame drains the battery faster than a bunch of roughnecks go through a case of beer. Charging takes a rather long time, around five hours to charge up the Flame from a totally flat battery. After 24 hours of leaving the Flame alone to sulk by itself, nearly half the charge was gone. Imagine what it would be like if you made use of the voice and data connections, not to mention turning on WiFi or Bluetooth.

Chances are, you will need to buy a second battery, and your Flame would spend much of its time attached to the wall charger or your PC USB. Oh, there is no cradle for the O2 Flame, but there is a nice little USB-On-The-Go cable which lets you plug a thumb drive directly into the Flame¡¦s USB port. That is a pretty good idea because I can put my larger video clips onto a thumb drive and just plug and play when I need it.

Games
There are two games in the phone. They are Bubble Breaker, which is also known as Jawbreaker in other PDAs. The second game is Solitaire. Both of these are pretty much standard with any Windows Mobile device these days.