If mimicry is, indeed, the best form of flattery, then the revolutionary O2 mini must have its head among the clouds. Despite a glut of mini doppelgangers like its sibling, the Dopod 838, and O2′s own Atom, the 818 Pro is the closest clone yet. This isn’t particularly surprising, since both the 818 Pro and O2 mini are produced by the same OEM company, High Tech Computer (HTC). As a result, you still get a clean, sleek-looking metallic frame that’s smooth to the touch, fingerprint-resistant and retails with a choice of five color shades. Slightly differing is the smooth rubber lining along the circumference instead of the mini’s ridged version, though both offer sufficient and comfortable grip.Likewise, we have no gripes with the Dopod’s size and weight. Traditional phone users thinking of going convergent may inevitably compare this with pint-sized clamshell phones and find it goliath-esque. For our money, though, you can’t get a sweeter form factor for a PDA-phone at the moment without sacrificing either its portability or display.

Dopod International (S) Corp Pte Ltd continues to reinforce its leading position in the PDA phone and smart phone market by announcing its latest product model, the Dopod 818pro with 5 colours for lifestyle consumers choices. Available first in Singapore, the Dopod 818 Pro is the follow-on to the world’s most successful PDA phone Dopod 818 and its alike (such as O2 mini in Asia) and being all ODMed by High Tech Computer (HTC), Dopod brings its latest product with unparalleled price performance and the only one in the world to come in 5 different colours ? silver, matt black, lavender, pink and blue. It also comes with WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth A2DP, GPRS, Quad band GSM, EDGE and a 2-Megapixel camera with macro photo taking function. The industry prevalent MMC/SDIO slot, expanded memory size also brings extra cost benefits to consumers.Both the Dopod 818 Pro and O2 Xda Atom may offer similar specs such as a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth and Windows Mobile 5.0, but they actually share more differences than similarities. In terms of dimensions, the 818 Pro is marginally thinner than the Atom but is 6mm longer length-wise. It should also be noted that the Dopod sports a matt surface finish which gives it a more solid feel and a lot less fingerprint smudges than the Atom.In Dopod’s favor are its upgraded connectivity components such as the Bluetooth v2.0 (compared with the v1.2 on the Atom), 802.11b/g wireless LAN (Atom has 802.11b) and quadband GSM support (versus Atom’s triband). The 818 Pro also comes with a larger 2.8-inch LCD display, which is 0.1-inch more than the Atom.