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T-Mobile SDA uncovered September 23, 2004 [MS Smartphone] | By Lutzh Haedrich. Just a couple of days from now T-Mobile will start selling its first Windows Mobile powered Smartphone – the SDA. It is time to take a look at the Orange c500’s brother to unveil the differences between both phones. 
The SDA continues the line of T-Mobile’s MDA (MDA stands for Mobile Digital Assistant, SDA for Smart Digital Assistant) and is the first Windows Mobile Smartphone in T-Mobile’s product portfolio. 
What’s in the box? We can’t really say at the moment what will be in there since the SDA we are testing is still a pre release sample. It comes with charger, USB connector cable, headset, battery and the SDA. It is possible that T-Mobile will add a 16 MB miniSD card like Orange does but we have no information regarding the final content of the box. 
Now let’s take a closer look at the hardware of the SDA. Beside the fact that the SDA comes with a joystick like the sticks we know from SPV Classic and the Tanager it has a very different keyboard compared to the Orange c500. Little bumps on the keys make handling much easier then the very plane key layout of the c500. 
At night the keys shine with a white backlight. Just like the Orange c500 the actual ROM on the SDA faces the same issue with the so called light sensor that usually should enable keypad backlight as soon as you move your fingers on the keypad. It simply reacts not or only in very dark areas so we would call that useless. To bad you have to disable the light sensor in the settings and you can’t set the timeout for the key backlight manually. We will see if T-Mobile will have that fixed before the release of the SDA. 
While nobody really knows why the manufacturer of the Orange c500 (HTC) did move to the navigation pad instead of the joystick the SDA comes with a very easy and perfectly working joystick. Its just 5 ways and the multipress issue of the current c500 ROM is also available in the SDA (the phone can only handle one keypress/joystick move at the same time – bad for game play) but it is better for those who want to play the jawbreaker game or other nice stuff that is better handled with shorter input ways. We fell in love with it from the first minute and like it much better than the more rubbish c500 navigation pad. 
The sleek finish of the SDA may be a question of taste. We love the Orange c500’s black stealth like finish and we think the SDA looks more like a bright shining powder box. The bad thing on the SDA finish is: you see every finger print on it. If you carry it in your Levi’s pockets you’ll have all kind of fuzz and tobacco crumbs on it. Brand new at a Smartphone near you is the little hook on the side that will allow you to wear the SDA with a key lace around your neck. 
The two new extra keys on the SDA are special T-Mobile features. The left pink key leads you to the T-Mobile portal and the right key to your messages inbox. People discuss this feature a lot and we are very sure that there will be a registry hack that will allow the user to reprogram that keys for own use or to navigate to other bookmarks. We found the keys useful to quickly start browsing the web or getting to the inbox with just one click. 
Beginning our travel inside the SDA we start at the home screen. As you can see quite clear the design is the T-Mobile style. The T-Mobile trade mark colour “Magenta” rules the home screen and the entire system. We think the home screen background image is too dominant and the text is just too small to be good readable. But we are very sure that most SDA users will install their own skins and home screens anyway. While scrolling to the program list you’ll recognize the new or revised program icons. Coloured shadows and different icons for Messages, Contacts and Camera compared to the c500 mark the own branding of T-Mobile’s SDA. 
The ROM of the SDA is very similar to the Orange c500. That may depend in the fact that the beta ROM boot screen jumps up with telling you that there’s a Typhoon booting up – the “code name” for the c500 series. So the SDA is very much the same device with just a hand full of hard and software changes. We found an Email Wizard on board that includes most mail services around the planet (MSN Hotmail is one of them!) but the biggest difference compared to the c500 is the option to change the assignment of the right soft key. You can add any application you want to be launched by pressing soft key 2 in home mode instead of the classic “Contacts”. Very useful for those who need their calendar more often or use any other application more frequently. 
The camera does a good job. Bluetooth profiles are hands free and headset (still missing Sim Access Profile or Audio Profile). Call quality is good; we never had a problem to understand the caller or to be heard by him. If you don’t like the colours and the home screen layout you can totally replace the T-Mobile brandings with your own home screen layout, background images and colour schemes. The device we have tested has no application lock but a partially locked registry. Also there is no Sim lock on it. But we don’t know if application or Sim will be locked on the release SDA. 
Now its up to you what phone you like more. Here's a short shot on Good / Bad list of the SDA. Good: - very well finished device - joystick - keypad - quick and stable even in beta stage - customizable right soft key - price below 400 Euro w/o contract Not so good: - Gapi bug (like c500 - some games end up in a flickering screen. We don’t know if it will be fixed until the release) - Light sensor useless (like c500) - Shut down sound (T-Mobile jingle) plays even if the device is in silent profile - Sleek finish (question of taste) - No docking station available (like c500)  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later) [ 7 Comments ]
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