cingular8125.jpgI’ve had over a month to use the Cingular 8125 and I must say, I really love it! I didn’t install the Cingular Extended ROM contents so I think it actually runs a bit faster. For those of you that want to try that out, it’s pretty simple. Just do a hard reset, and at the point when it starts installing the cabs, do a soft reset and BAM! You now have a virgin HTC Wizard.

The signal strength on the 8125 is much better than my old Sony T610 and Pocket IE and Outlook do everything I expect. I really can’t find to many flaws with the phone besides some minor hardware and software bugs. The hardware flaws being the call and end call buttons are too small and far to the left and right of the phone, making it a bit hard to end and place calls. I wish there was an up/down selector on the side of the phone for scrolling and selecting, like the Blackberry has. The software bugs I’ve found annoying are programs that are not aware of the slide out keyboard. The program pops up the virtual keyboard, even though I have my hardware keyboard active, but once I start typing it goes away, so it’s not terrible. Oh, and I didn’t expect the WiFi and GPRS to take as long to get connected… it takes anywhere from 3 to 15 seconds. Wish it was under 1 (or close to instant). Overall, I really thought this phone would not perform as well as it has — nothing really does, but surprisingly this phone has!

I’ve gotten over the non-hard-key input, I’m using Microsoft Voice Command 1.5 and that’s working great. I have also installed a bunch of 3rd party software and started writting a couple of my own using the .NET Compact Framework 2.0. The one I’m spending the most time on is my Home Automation interface for PocketPC. I’m finalizing the interface and remote security model — I think it’s pretty tight, but nothing’s perfect. I’ll post more about the interface as a separate entry later.

Overall, I highly recommend the Cingular 8125, it’s small, but might be too big for some (think Treo without antenna). The smaller 2125 is a great looking and functioning phone if you are looking for something smaller. If you have any specific questions, feel free to post a comment.

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