Multimedia Phone Reviews

PC Magazine has reviewed the sleek Cingular 3125 "flip phone". 'The 3.8-ounce 3125 is the most striking smartphone ever. It's a long (3.9 by 2.1 by 0.7 inches) black flip phone with tapered ends and a very solid feel to its slim, grooved metal case. The grooves help the case repel fingerprints. The circular OLED display on the outside lights up elegantly, not aggressively, with an analog clock, caller ID, or an e-mail alert; it also works as a camera viewfinder. Flip open the phone to find an extremely handsome keypad made of one long piece of metal with large, flat keys; raised borders make it relatively easy to tell the keys apart.'

The Cingular 8525 handheld has been reviewed by PC Magazine. 'The 8525's rounded form and slide-out keypad are pretty familiar-- it looks like a slightly sleeker version of the Cingular 8125. It's about the same size and weight, just 6.1 ounces with battery. The 8525 has a better array of physical buttons than the 8125, with dedicated "OK" and menu keys and a scrolling jog dial on the side along with the 8125's mail, camera, Internet Explorer, phone keys and soft keys. The 320 by 240 color screen is pretty much the same as on many other Pocket PCs out there.

The Samsung SGH-A707 Sync "music phone" has been reviewed by PC Magazine. 'The A707 is a big, wide (3.8-by 2- by 0.7- inch, 3.5-ounce) flip phone that looks a lot like a somewhat more rounded LG CU500, its major competitor in Cingular's 3G lineup. There's a 2-megapixel camera, music control buttons, and a color screen on the handset's front side. Flip it open and you'll be treated with a heart-wrenchingly beautiful, bright, clear 320-by-240 color screen and big, well-separated, slightly raised buttons.

PC Magazine has reviewed the Samsung SGH-i607 BlackJack Smartphone which is connected to the Cingular network. 'The BlackJack connects to the Internet using Cingular's ever-expanding HSDPA network, which was in 50 or so metro areas at last count. It's nowhere near as prevalent as Verizon's EV-DO system, but it's catching up. Using the BlackJack as a PC modem, we got an average of 584 kbps downloads, which is slower than EV-DO (where we regularly get 700 kbps or above) but a lot faster than Cingular's national EDGE network, which the BlackJack drops to when it's out of HSDPA range. (EDGE speeds generally hover in the 90-120 kbps range.) The Blackjack also uses EDGE overseas, as opposed to the Cingular 8525 which can hit foreign HSDPA networks.

Mobile Burn have published their review of the Cingular 8525 / HTC Hermes multimedia smartphone. 'The Cingular 8525's basic form factor is similar to earlier HTC developed QWERTY Pocket PC devices, such as the T-Mobile MDA (HTC Wizard) and the Sprint PPC-6700 (HTC Apache). It is a 113mm x 58mm x 22mm (4.5" x 2.3" x .87") block form traditional PDA that weights 176g (6.2oz) and has a slide out QWERTY keyboard. When the keyboard is exposed, the screen is used in a landscape format. When the keyboard is hidden, the 8525's display reverts to the normal portrait mode common to most PDAs. The keyboard is made of of closely fitting, domed rectangular keys. The keys are reasonably attractive and are also easy to use. They offer good, solid tactile feedback and are easy enough to locate by sense of touch alone. The dedicated Start, OK, and twin softkeys on the keyboard make the 8525 reasonably easy to use without the stylus for many tasks.'

Brighthand.com have published their review of the Cingular 8525 smartphone. 'The Cingular 8525 is Pocket PC phone with a built-in keyboard, Wi-Fi b/g, and 3G cellular-wireless networking.It's a variation on the HTC Hermes. It's also sold under the HTC brand as the TyTN, and in Europe as the T-Mobile MDA Vario II, among other names. Unlike most of the Hermes models sold overseas, the 8525 does not have a second, front-facing camera for video conferencing applications, since Cingular doesn't have such a service.The Hermes is the successor to the HTC Wizard, which was sold by Cingular as the 8125. Cingular also markets a completely camera-free variant of the Hermes under the name Cingular 8500.'