O2 X1i

Discontinued
11th October 2004

O2's fairly low key announcement of the O2 X1i almost slipped by unnoticed by most people, and indeed it has appeared on the market without any particular fanfare. Manufactured for O2 by Benq (in common with the X2 and X3 handsets), the X1i can very broadly be thought of as a bargain rival to the Vodafone-branded Sharp GX15.

This is about as basic as camera phones get, with a 352x288 pixel camera, combined with a 128x128 pixel 65,000 colour display. Benq are proud of the display panel in the O2 X1i, citing their "Transmissive Micro Reflectance" technology, presumably a type of transflective display.

Layout is simple and functional, with a large 5-way navigation key. There's an anti-slip stripe around the edge to make the O2 X1i easy to grip. The X1i is a tri-band GSM phone with class 10 GPRS, a WAP 2.0 browser, MMS and polyphonics. It's light too, at just 86 grams, and fairly slim at 18mm thick.

Price at launch is around €125/£80 for pay-as-you-go customers, and the O2 X1i is available in the retail channel now. That's only a little cheaper than the technically much better GX15 though, and compared to the GX15 the O2 X1i looks a bit basic.

The latest Benq designed handsets for O2 have met with a mixed response in terms of build quality and capabilities, however at this sort of price these issues are much less important, as the O2 X1i offers good value for money in the low-cost end of the market.

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