Devices which never quite made it – The T-Mobile Ameo / HTC Advantage
Rummaging around in my drawers a few days ago I stumbled upon what has to be the ultimate ‘nearly’ gadget, my seldom used T-Mobile Ameo (or the HTC Advantage or HTC Athena, take your pick).
I got mine on a pretty expensive contract and for a while I loved using the device, the large 5″ screen was impressive even if it was crippled by a fairly low resolution, the built-in 3G connectivity meant it was easy to be connected wherever I went and the choice of input methods meant it was pretty versatile, even if the fixed angle keyboard was a little awkward at times.
The downside was that as a phone the device was useless. Unless you wanted to shout into something resembling your filofax you needed a bluetooth headset, forcing you to be one of those people who walk down the street apparently tailing to themselves. It’s not a self-image I’ve ever been keen on.
As someone who still misses their Psion Revo I had high hopes for the Advantage but it seems they never really took off; perhaps the sudden popularity of notebooks, spearheaded by Asus’s original eee pc, and USB modem sticks you can swap between machines are to blame.
You can still apparently pick up an Advantage in the UK, now going under the moniker of the O2 Xda Flint and available and last year the network was touting them as a learning device but sad to say their initial promise has never really been fulfilled.
Curious as to what my pristine Ameo might be worth I had a look on the various mobile recycling sites, the paltry couple of tenners one offered me for a device it’s cost £700 to replace from expansys clearly wasn’t tempting. Another told me the handset was “either obsolete or of no value” to them, nice!
My Ameo is back in the drawer for now but maybe the next time I’m on a crowded train and fancy a spot of browsing I might be reaching for it rather than fight for table space to place my Mac on.
