The saga of Sendo and its 'X' smartphone could fill a book. Possibly two. Starting out with Microsoft, getting (ahem, now what was Ewan's word? - no, can't possibly use that officially...) err... let down by them and starting (more or less) all over again using Symbian OS and Series 60 as its base, the Sendo X was at best visionary and at worst too late and too full of issues.
As one with a soft spot for the Sendo X, I'm inclined more towards the 'visionary' end of the scale. The X's specifications, although looking a little dated now, were certainly fairly impressive even in late 2004 when the device was finally launched. Over and above the specs of Nokia Series 60 smartphones of its time, the X offered:
- Separate GraphiX/SoniX processors, handling screen display and stereo music playback, with a built-in MP3 music player and a standard 2.5mm headphone/audio socket
- Infrared as well as Bluetooth connectivity
- A camera with a 'flash' (actually a very bright LED)
- A built-in Now! screen, bringing lots of info together and providing a mini-desktop, with user configurable 'panes'
- An extra-high screen, giving an extra 12 pixels for a permanent status bar of battery/network strength and operation icons
- DocView and Opera in ROM
- User-installable firmware upgrades. These work brilliantly over your standard USB serial cable and don't even wipe any of your settings or files (the way every manufacturer should do it)
- Oodles (32MB) of internal flash memory
- A hot-swappable expansion card (no rebooting needed to swap cards), and every variety of both SD and MMC are accepted
- An optional plug-in keyboard with fabulous 'gotta try it one more time' 'Butterfly' expanding action
Which certainly impressed me when comparing it to, say, the Nokia 6600 or 7610. Of course, to get all this working on top of Nokia's Series 60 interface and Symbian's underlying OS 6 meant quite a lot of custom code. Since the X's launch, there have been numerous serious and not-so-serious issues (crashes, clashes, that sort of thing), plus the fact that with Series 60 v1 and OS 6 being the base, some of the Series 60 software being released these days simply won't run on the 'X'. Notable examples being Quickoffice and TomTom MOBILE, two of the 'killer' apps for the platform.
Still, despite a few quirks, the X mostly did a good job for its fans. It was sold by Vodafone, though never pushed as it ought to have been, and it never accumulated user numbers big enough to set the world alight. Yes, the screen was a bit dim (even set to 'Ultra bright'), yes the PIM software was stuck at Series 60 v1 status and yes the camera was about as bad as VGA cameras get, but we loved it anyway, if only because it was different. And British. With a capital B.
So what if we had to reboot every now and then just to get things working again. Sendo's limited software team were beavering away fixing issues and writing new code but somehow most of their efforts never made it into official firmware releases, possibly for political reasons. Then came the announcement of the X2, with music very much at its heart. The X was already pretty darn good at playing back music, what with SD support, proper headphone jack and a choice of several different music players (the built-in 'MP3 player' and the freeware OggPlay). But the X2 promised to put dedicated music control buttons right up front, with nice extras such as a revamped themes engine, OS optimisation, new Now! screen features and an 'Easy Start' application to help new users get connected and working online.
Then came Black Wednesday, June 29th 2005, when Sendo went into administration. I'm not going to dwell on the reasons for the company failing here, these things are inevitably complex. But, as chronicled on SendoSmartphones.com, the engineers at Sendo (henceforth referred to as 'the good guys') saw the writing on the wall and determined that if nothing else, they were going to get all their hard work released in one final uber-firmware upgrade or die trying. And, aside from a false start, the new firmware, 1.198.8.2, was released for the Sendo X, bringing many of the improvements that were destined to arrive with the X2.
1.198.8.2 effectively turns a Sendo X into a Sendo X and a half, with quite a bit that's worth commenting on. For starters, the 'X' is now faster and more stable, with over a Megabyte more free RAM now that the extra Sendo layers (over the OS) have been well and truly optimised. The Camera algorithms have been tweaked, it's still a lousy camera but at least the photos come out looking the correct colour (and 'night mode' has gone, not being needed anymore) and video capture and playback are now smoother. The Speed Dial system has been extended to include launching applications (giving you no less than three alternative application launching systems in the one device - you're spoilt for choice here). Finally, in addition to a number of bug fixes and tweaks, there's a new application, Easy Start, a wizard to help beginners set up MMS, WAP, GPRS and so on.
Aside from the limitations of the camera, the 'X and a half' firmware help make the Sendo X a valid option in the smartphone world, mid-2005. Of course, there's the immediate ramification of there not being any official support or warranty, but there are plenty of Xs on the second hand market and being able to pick the Sendo X up for well under £100 and then flash it to 1.198.8.2 yourself makes for a cheap well-specified smartphone.
What of the future? Motorola haven't bought up Sendo for its current handsets (they're probably after Sendo's talent, ideas and systems for customising handsets for different operators), so the X and a half is probably as good as a Sendo is going to get. But as smartphones come and go in the AllAboutSymbian (virtual) office, I keep picking up my Sendo X and admiring its many good points. If only... If only...
Steve Litchfield
Links: Sendo X top tips, SendoSmartphones.com