Mobile PDA Wars 2008

With mobile PDA at war between giants, who will emerge as the most hot seller in terms of price and stability? Many recommend HTC and Dopods compared to O2.

I have been using Benq P50 (2nd Pic) since one year ago and it serve me well during those periods amidst the contact and data loss due to unstable "English" firmware. In the end, I flashed and reprogrammed into "Traditional" chinese ROM from Taiwan. The local Asia Singapore ceased the support even with emails perhaps due to unresolved much queries. The initial OS is Windows Mobile 2003 & the unit looks like Blackberry Pushmail Edition with the qwerty keyboard. Imagine the frustration when the battery goes sudden off and you are lost at the juncture of receiving important calls, making notes or making decisions.. And the calls to the service support further infuriated your mind and make your blood boils.

Years ago, I was using O2 mini the silver edition and it was impressive for the size. But as being a businessman, I had the habit of selling and buying improved products. Indeed, products depreciated in prices with time and the support gets diminished. It is saddening that a good item dies when there isn't further publicity or funding for the support. Or it can be due to lack of technological expertise to handle problems.

On my birthday, I had a new O2 Zinc from my spouse. On the initial startup, it appears fine until it jams more frequent. Starhub staffs were quite fast in pushing soon obsolete pda phones until the next Starhub promotion with O2 Atom. Nevertheless, not even the taken over company MWG for O2 and Starhub realized that the phone can be revived by proper firmware. It is in hand with their discretion of whether the product lives or attain more commercial profits. It is again disappointing that the kind of "ART" don't mix well with "Business". Too much "Art" makes one a pauper when the originator does not know how to blend and be flexible.

I was quite frustrated when going around the bush that fateful day drive to Jurong and to Orchard area for O2 support when they (MWG) points their technicians do not deal with clients direct and it takes a week for the lead return. The Malay girl at the counter was quite smug in holding me for the wait while she talks on the phone about 10mins. Finally on my return home, I search the forums and successfully reprogrammed custom ROM base into Mandarin Chinese from China. Apparently, I can say China does have a wide group of expertise to challenge and handle problems. Even for hackers and classified programmers for commercial reasons. The overall function improves leaps and bounds on zero or less "Hung" issues. The query and conjuring jurisdiction is how many can read and write proper Chinese or in other native languages?

I have tried Video 3G calls and it is impressive. I do wonder when is my next change, perhaps next year? The statistics of Asia changing mobiles are more frequent than ever and this marks the turnover of a huge market trend. Will the merger of companies like Benq Siemens or other likewise produce better products and lasting support? Time will tell. People change, system change. And the route is dependent on environmental and market factors other than the "intranet structure" reasons.