I’ve finally given up on the mini-XDA (a rebranded iMate K-JAM) PDA/Phone I got last year, and organised an ‘upgrade’ phone. (OK, technically it’s a ‘downgrade’, from PDA to normal phone-type phone, but there we go)

I got the XDA back in February last year, so I’ve had it nigh-on eighteen months, which counts (to me) as a fair crack of the whip. And as a PDA-type device, it’s great. In fact, in general it’s a pretty good device. The keyboard is great, and has managed to handle my heavy-thumbed style for a year and a half without showing any excessive wear, or any problems with the keys themselves. I can still type text messages and emails with no problem at all, the hinge/slide mechanism is still solid (despite feeling really plastic and fragile) and all told it’s a fantastic bit of kit.

So why am I changing it? Simply, it comes down to one thing. Windows Mobile 5®™. Which is an utter piece of shit, and should be dragged out back, beaten soundly, then shot. Repeatedly. And then (if there’s a voodoo priest around) it should be reanimated, beaten again, and shot again. Just to make sure.

Now in fairness, some of the problem is also down to the (slow) processor and memory on the XDA. But that’s only maybe 10% of the problem. The rest is Windows Mobile. The biggest issue is that it crashes. Regularly. Like once every couple of days. And when it crashes, it does so silently and invisibly. You don’t get a warning, or a Blue Screen of Death, it just completely locks up. This also means that I get to miss calls, text messages and the like. The only way you know it’s crashed is when you try and do something, only to see that it’s locked up, and is in need of a restart.

And that’s the thing I hate the most about the XDA – it needs to have that restart every couple of days at most. One of the things that kills it the most is – are you ready for this – recharging the battery. It’s not the only thing that kills it, but it’s certainly the most regular one. Connect the charger, leave it to charge up, and there we go, crashed. Other things kill it too, but they’re more random. Hell, it’s been known that just swapping the screen from vertical to horizontal format has crashed it.

In short, Windows Mobile 5 is (in the context of the XDA) about as stable as a tower-block made of jelly.

And that is why I’m taking a step back, and getting a Sony Ericsson K800i instead.