As it is known, MWG/O2 XDA Flame uses NVidia GoForce 5500 graphical accelerator, which allows to Experience true, fluid digital TV, console-class 3D gaming, high-fidelity surround sound, smooth DVD-quality video playback, and sharp, vivid photos all with longer battery life for more hours of entertainment, as NVidia says on its official website.

or "The first PDA-phone with a dedicated Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) - the powerful NVIDIA GoForce 5500 - the Flame delivers visually superior graphical capabilities and a longer operating time. Your PDA-phone is now a digital camera, movie player, or gaming console. Enjoy DVD-quality, flicker-free movie playback and true to life photos with gorgeous details and vividly rendered colours. Even text displays in crisp detail, allowing you to get more done." as MWG says at its official page for XDA Flame.

But when it comes down to reality, the ink on this paper wears off, the lack of GoForce 5500 hardware driver support on the MWG/O2 XDA Flame is obvious.

Let us look at the features of the chip and the problems we face.

Video playback. As weve been told, GoForce 5500 gives smooth DVD-quality, flicker free video playback, but the benchmark used on CorePlayer 1.1.3 gives about 73\% overall result while playing an *.avi file with 640*480 resolution.
Please note, that normal results are above 100\%
Remark: during the test was used Direct Draw acceleration with YV12 overlay.

Release of WM6. "The Flame does not currently come with Windows Mobile 6. The last we heard, WM6 was being tested on it." these were the words of MWG/O2 quoted by CNET.com at the release of Flame for its review on http://asia.cnet.com/digitalliving/ask/0,3800004928,62019314,00.htm

There has been neither WM6 upgrade till date or any sign of a beta version.

Nor a proof that O2/MWG can provide for even the start of WM6 development for this device.

3D gaming. Games like Call Of Duty, which can use hardware acceleration simply do not work on the device.

Sound. Many users report that the phone speaker is too quiet and audio quality is too poor.

Bluetooth. Pairing problems when sleep mode is used. Which makes it seem like this phone cannot even work on the technologies that were invented a decade ago.

Camera performance. The camera also works terribly. Despite the horrible white balance, sometimes it slows down so that it takes a few seconds between pressing the shutter button and photo capture.

Battery life. Although it does not depend only on the video chip, the lifetime of the device is very poor, partially because the processor works with the display instead of the GoForce chip.

There are many MWG/O2 XDA Flame owners experiencing the same problems. The issues with video rendering, 3D gaming, sound, camera performance and battery life on the device seem to be a direct result of poorly coded GoForce 5500 driver.

Be it NVidia Corp. or MWG/O2 held responsible but this issue needs to be resolved. Nvidia can prove itself usefull by releasing an SDK so that device owners or CoreCodec, Inc will be able to make their own driver software.

Thank You.