O2 unpeels XDA Zest

With Christmas just around the corner, O2 has decided to try and tempt punters into its Xda smartphone family with a juicy little talker called Zest.

O2's Xda Zest: a fruity little talker?

The phone sports 802.11b/g Wi-Fi connectivity - one up on the BlackBerry Storm, then - and support for 3G. When out and about, you’ll be able to use the user-facing camera to have video chats with your chums, with their grinning faces displayed on a 2.8in display.

If still snaps are more your thing then the camera’s also equipped with a rear-mounted three-megapixel camera, which could come in handy for snapping, say, photos of horses in snowy fields.

Wi-Fi and 3G are on-board

Content’s stored onto Micro SD cards of up to 32GB and short-range data transfers can be made over Bluetooth. Integrated GPS will also help stop you from getting lost.

The phone has two cameras

A wide selection of audio formats, including MP3 and WMA, are supported, and if you fancy watching something on the bus ride home then you’ll be glad to see that Zest can handle WMV and MPEG 4 formats too.

O2’s claimed that the 120 x 60 x 16mm phone has a standard talk time of around five hours, but that drops to about three hours if you’re surfing over 3G. The phone’s standby life is roughly 260 hours.

The 02 Xda Zest will be available from 17 November – that’s next week, folks. It’ll be free on some O2 pay-monthly contracts and around £250 ($400/€300) if you opt for pay-as-you-go.