XDA Flame

Specifications

As of 2010, the specifications are these:

Brief history

In May 2007, O2 Asia Pacific & Middle East released the XDA Flame. O2's cooperation with nVidia and CodeMonkeys allowed this company to advertise their new product easily, because there was a big demand on the market for a 3D graphics enabled PDA, with a lot of internal memory and many additional functions like USB On-The-Go and TV-out. However, at the end of 2007, O2 began to release new products and they stopped supporting this device, passing all copyrights to a new company called Mobile & Wireless Group (MWg). MWg has released XDA Flame under its own brand with Bluetooth 2.0. Many Flame owners felt a relief knowing that someone will still support their devices. Yet, after a half year, MWg resigned from further supporting this device on its main site and created O2 Asia Support where users can still get a support. In the near future Mwg is planning to release a Flame successor called Flame II with probably Windows Phone 7.

Device issues

XDA Flame has several software bugs. From the beginning MWg's support center have not released a new Windows Mobile 6 version since it appeared on the market. After some time a class action lawsuit page was established to raise awareness of the problem, similar to HTC TyTN II case. In The Point, Tim Osborne wrote:

(...)"We as customers have the right to demand fixes and support for a device that retailed for around $1500 dollars (expensive to say the least). We will also investigate a possible class action suit against O2 / MWG for this as well as lack of support. The class action law suit will only be a last resort if all else fails and information is been seeked on such an action at the moment. We hope that MWG shows itself to be the leading edge company it promotes itself to be and this not be necessary. However as of yet we have had only vague promises of Windows Mobile 6 coming to this device. What we ask is that MWG/O2 do as promised and publicly announce that they will “attempt” to fix these issues and deliver Windows Mobile 6. We are all just looking to use what we purchased nothing more."(...)

Battling with the lack of support by MWG and nVidia, community users have repackaged many Windows Mobile ROM images by their own. After several months dealing with some issues (as sleeping beauty, which caused the device not to wake up from suspension; or a long-standing SDHC problem with Wifi), there have aroused stable and fully functionals ROMs including versions with Windows Mobile 6.1 and SDHC. As of October 2008, community driven support for the Geforce 5500 GPU is still improving but far from fully functional.

Maintenance

To perform soft-reset on XDA Flame - put stylus in a hole next to a microphone.

To perform hard-reset on XDA Flame - while pressing Camera and Comm buttons (two buttons on the left and right at the bottom of the device) soft-reset device. When asked, user should press left soft-key (YES).

OS updating

Operating system (OS) updating, which is also called flashing, is a process similar to installing a new Windows on a PC.

On PDAs, Windows Mobile "disk image" or "ROM image" (archive containing OS files) is installed in internal flash memory.

XDA Flame OS updating steps:

1. Micro SD card format (FAT, default cluster size).
2. Creating empty .txt file and renaming it to 1xdtgklo.kez.
3. Copying created .kez file and diskimage.nb0 (new ROM image) to a micro SD card.
4. Charging device battery over 50%.
5. While keeping pressed both soft key buttons (buttons at the top of keypad with a horizontal line), soft resetting PDA (buttons should be released after the appearing of a bootloader screen).
6. Waiting for the device to finish and soft-reset itself.

Internal devices

1) Intel XScale PXA270
Application Processor
Vendor: Marvell (or Intel, which sold this processor family to Marvell in June 2006)
Product code: PXA270C5C520
Developer's manual: https://web.archive.org/web/20080820054727/http://balloonboard.org/hardware/300/ds/PXA270-dev-manual.pdf
Developer's guide: http://upload.caxapa.ru/books/arm-system-developers-guide-desi.pdf

2) 2 × 64MB Hynix low power SDRAM
Vendor: Hynix
Product code: HY5S7B2LFP-H
Frequency 133 MHz, CAS Latency 3, 4banks × 4Mb × 32, interface LVCMOS
Datasheet: https://web.archive.org/web/20071019045810/http://www.hynix.com/datasheet/pdf/dram/HY5S7B2LF(P)-xE_series(Rev1.0).pdf

3) 2 × 32MB Intel StrataFlash wireless memory L18 in stacked chip scale packaging
64MB stacked together into one chip
Vendor: Intel
Product code: 4400L0YTP0
NOR, 1.8 Volt I/O, Individual Chip Enables, Non Mux, x32 Ballout
Quick reference guide: http://sunsite.rediris.es/pub/mirror/intel/flcomp/linecard/qrg.pdf
Resources: http://www.intel.com/design/flcomp/prodbref/251890.htm

4) mDOC H3
2GB NAND Embedded Flash Drive
Vendor: M-Systems (bought by SanDisk in 2006)
Product code: MD2533-d16G-X-P
Extensive datasheet: http://www.koningenhartman.com/NR/rdonlyres/5FC598EF-9CF6-4F5E-8885-E5A5A14633C7/0/mDOC_H3_Data_Sheet_Rev1.pdf
Brochure: https://web.archive.org/web/20110716002732/http://uk.sandisk.com/Assets/File/OEM/WhitePapersAndBrochures/iNAND/EFD_brochure.pdf

5) LP3971 National Semiconductor power management unit
Chip sign: VM67RA 71-B410
Datasheet: https://web.archive.org/web/20110710170059/http://www.ed-china.com/ARTICLES/2006JUN/3/2006JUN13_PM_POW_TS_4.PDF?SOURCES=DOWNLOAD

6) TSN74AVC16T245 16-bit dual-supply bus transceiver
Chip sign: 61A4R4J G1 WF245
Resources: http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/sn74avc16t245.html

7) bq24032A dual-input Li-ion charger
Chip sign: BPE TI 6BK AHL J
Resources: http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/bq24032a.html

8) TPS65110 Triple Chargepump for LTPS LCD
Resources: http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tps65110.html

GSM parts:

Ericsson integrated circuits (IC)
A) DB2020 R2A/7 (Baseband processor)
B) DB2102 R1A (Application processor)
C) RF2111 R1A (Radio Frequency processor)
D) RF2101 R1B (Radio Frequency processor)
E) RF2001 R1B/3 (Radio Frequency processor - transmitter)
F) AB2012 R1A (Power management IC)
G) Intel Flash Memory 3050L0YTQ2

H) NVIDIA GoForce 5500 GPU with 8MB stacked memory
Core speed: 200 MHz
Embedded SRAM: 640KB
Stacked memory: 8MB
Technical specifications: http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20060207466624.html

I) Wolfson WM9713G Audio and Touchscreen Controller
Resources: http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/products/WM9713/

J) BlueCore4 WLCSP Single Chip Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR System
Vendor: Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR)
Datasheet: http://www.csrsupport.com/document.php?did=1932

K) SyChip WLAN6101
Vendor: SyChip (subsidiary of Murata)

L) Imagis ISE2200 Video Processor for TV-Out
Technical specifications: http://www.myungmin.com/products/encoder_ISE2200.php

M) Si4701 FM Radio Receiver

Vendor: Silicon Laboratories

Technical specifications: http://web.archive.org/web/20070308132512/http://www.silabs.com:80/public/documents/tpub_doc/dshort/Broadcast/Radio_Tuners/en/Si4700_01_short.pdf

Registry tweaks

Windows Mobile, like any Windows version, has a Windows registry. Tweaking a registry refers to changing registry entries so that many OS functions will work differently. It's commonly used among Pocket PC users to get the best performance from devices and to get to OS hidden settings.

Known tools for Pocket PC registry editing:

WM registry hives:

Editing WM registry steps:

1. Navigation to the proper registry entry.
2. Changing its value / creating a new one.
3. Acceptance of all made changes and suspending device for about 30–40 seconds.
4. Soft resetting device.

Most registry entries can be changed by using special .cab files. Those can be made with the help of WinCE CAB Manager for PC (for example). An option that allows user to uninstall such cab file should be unchecked.

The second option for quick registry entries import is through .reg files. Those are standard .txt files saved in Unicode that can be pasted in Total Commander or imported in Resco Explorer.