MWG Atom Life phone on the Three 3G network

I have been using Windows Mobile based phones
for a good few years now. My first was a Compaq iPaq and then an i-mate JAM all of which ran Windows Mobile 2003 SE.

I picked up one of these Mobile Wireless Group (MWG) Atom Life phones. First of all for the features it provides at €230 ex VAT its a bargain. I paid around €500 for the iMate JAM when it first came out. Windows mobile 6 is a BIG difference to windows 2003 but still not as slick as the iPhone which i got to play with for a while. This is the same phone as the o2 atom life. The headphones have an o2 logo on them and there is a MWG sticker covering the o2 logo on the front of the phone.

Everything I had trouble with on WM2003 "just works" now with Windows Mobile 6. Some nice new features too like calling contacts via Bluetooth headsets by setting a voice recording for the contact (very handy in the car) etc.

It has 3G connection coverage using the HSDPA network which can potentially provide 3 Mbps data transfer but I suspect in reality its much less. I have no real stats on this yet

Anyway, I dumped my pay monthly o2 contract and signed up with 3 Ireland to try and reduce my bill. Its early days but my experiences so far are :

1. 3 do not support any windows mobile devices on their network so your out of luck getting network setting for it.
   
2. WiFi access is simple and easy to setup, detects the network, enter security key and then your connected. Usual battery drain applies. I have noticed some problems reconnecting to the WiFi network in work after the device has gone into standby.
   
3. By setting up a network connection for the "Celular line (GPRS)" called "3ireland.ie" it allows data access to the HSDPA network. This provides
   
   1. Windows Live Messenger access (free)
      
   2. Skype access (although the device or connection is too slow to properly talk even when connected via WiFi) (free)
      
   3. Web browsing (data charges apply)
      
   4. POP3 and IMAP email support (data charges apply)
      
   5. Exchange and Hotmail access (data charges apply)
      
4. Vodafone and o2 have the push email access and charge €20 per month with it. As a result they block people that are not signed up to it from connecting to POP/IMAP servers directly to download their email the old fashioned way. I assumed that connecting to POP and IMAP servers would be blocked on Three but there are no such restrictions so I have mine scheduled to connect every 5 minutes which is close enough to instant.
   
5. Live Messenger IM's come in the same way SMS messages do which is cool and gives a consistence approach and standard interface.
   
6. Battery life with "everything on" is not great, need to charge nightly if connected to 3G network all day, otherwise you can get 3 days before charging.
   
7. Three have a website accessible for free called "Planet 3", this has downloads of TV shows, none of these work with windows mobile, you get a message saying that "This service is not available on your device. Please use your 3 handset to access this service".
   
8. You can get access to the My 3 section of planet 3 by using the following URL on your device http://mobile.3ireland.ie/837_sc I tried lots of different URLs for different devices found on the internet but this is the only one that worked
   
   1. This allows you to "check my usage" in terms of flexiunits uses so far this month
      
   2. View your price plans and change roaming settings
      
   3. Buy Add-ons for your price plan
      
   4. Other handy stuff…
      
9. I'm missing the iMate/HTC phone pad input method. I tried to install the Resco Keyboard but after a reset the device failed to boot and required a Hard reset and wipe of all the data. I tried this a few times with no success.
   
   1. What I was really missing was the keypad T9 predictive text input that was available as a HTC application on the JAM, turns out other people think it's the best way to input using a touchscreen device too. Here is a good overview of the different types of input options under windows mobile. He comes to the same conclusion I did, the T9 input panel is the best.
      
   2. You can get a customised version of this from those dedicated people at xda-developers.com
      
      
      
      

      
      

I will post other comments as I experience them, including phone bills.

Update: 3 Ireland have just added their 1^st windows mobile device the HTC Tytn II so perhaps some of their online services will start to become compatible with windows mobile devices.

Windows Mobile 6.1 support:

This phone comes with windows mobile 6 but there is a newer upgrade to version 6.1 which has some nice new features including a windows messenger like threaded message view for SMS's

There does not appear to be any official ROM upgrade for this yet on the MWG site but there are some unofficial builds from XDA-Developers.com if you fancy risking your phone with them.