[General Topics] leek:
I've had the Flame for about a day.

Most QVGA games work fine, with pixel doubling -- the 480x640 maintains the aspect ratio.

Red Sector 2112 flickers in its menus, but otherwise seems fine during regular play.

A pre-VGA, pre-WM5 version of Virtual Pool Mobile (1.06) works, but has no sound except for background music (edit: sound works fine now). I will try the VGA version later.

A bunch of chess / board games from WM2003SE era also work fine.

PocketTTY 1.10 works fine. I have not tried 2.0+ which support VGA.

Flame Pros:

VGA 3.6" screen. I can't believe more phones aren't 3.5" or bigger.

Composite video out. Finally I don't need to carry laptop for PowerPoint presentations.

2 GB onboard flash and 128 MB RAM. Why didn't everyone think of that?

Built-in universal remote IR application (I turned off a restaurant's TV with it today and they didn't even know it).

2 MP camera and LED flash. Works well in low light with or without LED flash.

Fast. Must be that 128 MB RAM.

O2 automatic updates. An application automatically downloads and installs updates. I have not actually registered yet (must pretend I'm from Asia/Pacific).

Universal AC adapter w/ slide-out plugs.

USB host and client modes.

Ergonomic shape, with rubber grip.

Flame Cons:

Low battery life. However, I hope Mugen and Lion Battery will eventually fix that.

Small stylus. Feels fragile, although this can be corrected by getting heavier ones. Also short for large hands. Eventually, I might just get a case for the Flame with a separate stylus holder, and use my BA's stylus, leaving the Flame's as a spare.

Stylus located underneath phone instead of on top.

Micro-SD expansion slot only. However, this is mitigated by the 2 GB of built-in Flash and USB hosting capabilities.

No EDGE?

False Flame Cons:

Poor www/email applications. That's okay, since NetFront/Opera is better than PIE anyway, and there are multiple third party email applications available.

No GPS. No problem, since you can get portable BT GPS (the size of a box of matches), and you won't be locked into one kind anyway. Also, always-on GPS in a phone raises privacy questions.

Size too large. Fits fine in my pants pocket with or without a case. I've never understood the trend towards tiny smart/PDA phones in the last 2 years, or the large UMPCs/foldable PDAs which weigh like bricks, are too big for pockets, and whose keyboards are too small to use anyway. The Flame is the first evolutionary step forward since the Magician, although on a different line (non-HTC). Something like this should have been out 2 years ago.

No WM6. You can always upgrade later, officially or not. What's so special about WM6 anyway? That sounds like the hype over Vista.

Dim display. I've seen some people say this. However, it's not dim unless you set it dim. That's more a question of saving low battery life than any inherent dimness.

Flame TBD (will try later):

EDGE: I will measure performance with a bandwidth meter, once I get other things settled in. In the "Advanced" connection settings, there's options for "Use software compression" and "Use IP header compression", but I doubt those will help.

I will try CoPilot Live 5 (requires unregistering it from my BA first), but I expect it will work fine. I am waiting for CPL 7 to come out (I didn't like CPL 6).

Will try some movies with TCPMP and see how they do with regular screen and TV out. Spending 5 minutes and doing nothing special (no drivers etc.), I get about 21 fps using raw framebuffer mode, which is slow.

BT headset.

The Flame is the best to come out in 2+years. Unfortunately the iPhone might steal its thunder. The BA/Magician were great in their day -- I've used a BA up to now. The Universal was too heavy, big, and clunky. The Wizard, and all of its successors, was too small in screen size. I don't blame O2 for choosing Arima instead of HTC.