The Xda Flame’s generous dimensions are a throwback to the original Xda smartphones of five years ago, minus the awkward antenna.
This form factor has largely been superseded by smaller, more pocket-friendly designs, but there are perks to having such a spacious screen. On the Flame’s 3.6in VGA-resolution display, you can view more of Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and web pages, and video playback looks fantastic.
A bigger footprint also allows for more features, and O2 hasn’t been shy about cramming those in. The Flame is the first Windows Mobile handset we’ve seen that supports USB On The Go, which lets you connect flash drives to the device using a supplied adapter. We’d have preferred the full USB slot on-board, given the ample room available, but it’s nevertheless a great feature for transferring files to and from the Flame without a PC.
Other features include composite TV out, 2GB of storage (as well as microSD expansion), an infra-red remote control application, built-in FM radio and an Nvidia GoForce 5500 3D Hardware Accelerator for boosting video and gaming performance.
The latter is a tad gimmicky — the only game that supports it is the included Siege: Catapult Assault, and Windows Media Player Mobile is already optimised for video playback using the standard ARM, Samsung and TI processors.