Cingular 8125

Written by AMahesh

Tuesday, 28 March 2006

Cingular introduces its new smart phone with the 8125. This little device has enough gadgets to rival James Bond. Starting with the sliding keyboard and venturing into the Microsoft powered applications, the 8125 has everything a business executive could ever want. The only drawback: phone quality.

The 8125 runs Windows, offering a boatload of Office applications and high speed Internet at a bargain price of $US 300 at retail stores (after a mail-in-rebate and signing up for a two year contract). The amount of goodies that the 8125 flaunts may be just enough to distract users from the average at best phone quality.

The design may be the only conservative feature of the smart phone with its compact no-frills design. The phone has a sliding keyboard with plenty of space for two-handed typing. The 2.8 in screen is crisp and clear and with its 16-bit, 64,000 colors it has a knack of drawing attention.

The wireless connection is unbelievable as the 8125 allows four types of Wireless connection, EDGE-GPRS, Bluetooth, infrared and Wi-Fi. The EDGE is great for internet access, moving data anywhere from 70-135 kilobits a second. The Wi-Fi connection is flawless as expected, Bluetooth allows connections between laptop and phone. One of the most useful features is the 8125’s infrared ability enabling the transfer of entire Powerpoint presentations within seconds.

The 8125’s arsenal of Office applications allow users to download and view Word files, Powerpoint presentations, PDF files, Excel spreadsheets and even e-mails with the mobile Outlook. Music files take less than fifteen seconds to upload and even video files can be displayed. Problems occur when the 200 mhz. processor is not able to keep the video imaging going at the same rate as the audio files. The 200 mhz. processor is slower than most phones in its class, but it allows 8125 users to go more than three days without charging (with 2-3 hours of internet browsing and playing audio and video files).

The phone is great for any executive who is on the go if phone quality is not too much of an issue. The static disruptions are irritating but it is hard to say no to high speed internet access. Rating: 7 out of 10.

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