Matt M reviews his XDA II after a full month of usage - has his opinion changed? Read and find out ...

Radio Stack

I've had some issues with the radio stack - it certainly can go into "Searching for signal" indefinitely, with no chance of recovery until the device is reset, or the radio stack turned off and back on. However, I believe I have successfully narrowed this down to GPRS being connected while in a very low signal area. If GPRS is not connected at all while in the low signal area, the phone stack may lose signal and go into search mode - but it will always eventually find a signal.

The bluetooth stack is very much tied into this same problem, from what I've observed. I've had the bluetooth stack stop responding in a similar way under the same conditions - preventing even a bond of my Bluetooth headset.

I have to point out though, that both of these are very tricky problems to reproduce. You really do have to live in a very low signal area for it to occur, and it's very easy to get into the habit of ensuring GPRS is disconnected (except, perhaps, if you configure MMS - since I've noticed it tends to connect every so often without a reason).

I've noticed that MMS will not send or receive on a low signal.  This is certainly not consistent with other mobiles, such as my wife's Nokia. However I feel I can live with this. I do receive the notification of an incoming MMS - but I can't read it until I go into an area with better signal.

I certainly don't expect to find any further problems at this stage. GPRS is far more reliable and seems to work faster. Call quality, clarity, and responsiveness is good - especially compared to the XDA where I often missed calls due to a slow response by the device. The speaker phone still seems to give some feedback to the person at the other end of the line - not that I use speakerphone much anymore - but the "echo" of the other person's voice has been much less worse than the previous model.

I do believe the signal strength is far better in this unit. Still not as good as some other comparable phones on the market - but certainly no worse than most run of the mill Nokia phones.