Mobiles Review

Intro
T-Mobile has its MDA smart phone, and now Cingular has its 8125. The Cingular 8125 (a.k.a. HTC Wizard) is the latest Windows Mobile 5 device to join the carrier’s smart-phone lineup, right behind the Cingular 2125. The quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) world phone comes with integrated Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and EDGE support. In addition, there’s a full QWERTY keyboard hidden behind the slider design, and since it will be upgradable to Microsoft’s Messaging and Security Feature Pack, you can receive your e-mail in real time with push technology. Unfortunately, with all these features, the phone is on the larger and heavier side. The mediocre call quality also leaves something to be desired. Still, for mobile professionals who need to get work done on the road, the 8125 provides all the tools to do so. Cingular will offer two versions: one equipped with a 1.3-megapixel camera and one without (the Cingular 8100). The Cingular 8125 is available now at a pricey $299.99 with a two-year contract.

Design
One glance at the Cingular 8125, and you pretty much know it means business. It’s styled in no-nonsense gray and silver, and from the front, it looks like any old PDA, measuring 4.3 inches high and 2.3 inches wide. Unfortunately, the smart phone is on the thicker and heavier side (1 inch; 5.2 ounces), so it’s definitely not the most travel-friendly device we’ve seen; on the bright side, though, Cingular includes a belt holster. Ladies, you may want to make some room in your purse. The 8125’s size is an issue when you use it as a phone, plus the bigger form factor and the extra weight make it uncomfortable to use for long conversations. That said, the mobile is equipped with a speakerphone and Bluetooth, so you can take advantage of those technologies for hands-free calls.

Sitting front and center is the Cingular 8125’s 2.8-inch-diagonal TFT screen with a 64,000-color output and a 320?—240-pixel resolution. Overall, text and images were clear and defined, and the colors were bright and vibrant. We did notice, however, that the display had a tendency to hold a lot of smudges and fingerprints. As with the T-Mobile MDA, the shortcut keys to your in-box and the Web are above the screen, while two soft keys, the Talk and End buttons, and the navigation toggle are located below the display. The keys have a spacious layout, so you shouldn’t have any problems using the phone. Although you can reassign the shortcut keys, we wish there were a dedicated shortcut key to the Today screen. As it is, you need the stylus to exit out of any apps and get back to your home screen, which deters one-handed use??“something the Palm Treo 700w excelled at.

What lies beneath the Cingular 8125’s screen is a beauty: a full QWERTY keyboard. To access it, just slide the face to the right. As with the T-Mobile MDA and the Sprint PPC-6700, the sliding mechanism isn’t the smoothest, but it does snap into place with a satisfying click, and the screen automatically switches from portrait to landscape mode. The keyboard features large, tactile buttons, and as with the MDA, there are no dedicated numeral keys, so you have to hit the Function button first to input numbers or symbols. The backlighting is a bit faint, but it provides enough illumination for typing in darker environments.

On the Cingular 8125’s left spine, you get a volume rocker and a one-touch button to open the Comm Manager, where you can turn on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ActiveSync, and vibrate mode. The right side has a voice-record button, an infrared port, a reset hole, and a camera-activation key. The 8125’s camera lens is located on the back of the device, along with a flash and a small self-portrait mirror. In a nice move by HTC, the placement of the Capture button actually mimics the feel of a real digital camera to avoid any awkward hand placements when taking horizontal pictures.

Rounding out the Cingular 8125 are a 2.5mm headset jack, a mini USB/power port, and a stylus holder on the bottom of the handset. There’s a Mini SD card-expansion slot on top, but unfortunately, a card isn’t included. Cingular packages the smart phone with an AC charger, a wired stereo headset, a carrying case, and a USB cable.

Features
The Cingular 8125 is one of those everything-but-the-kitchen-sink smart phones, just packed to the gill with features. A 200MHz TI OMAP 850 processor, 128MB of SDRAM, and 64MB of ROM are the muscle, while Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5 operating system (Pocket PC edition) is the brains behind the device, offering improved mobile versions of Word, Excel, and the new PowerPoint presentation viewer. The ClearVue PDF viewer is also on board for those of you who need to view such files, as well as a zip utility, a task manager, and Download Agent.

Of course, a key functionality is e-mail, and the Cingular 8125 doesn’t disappoint, with support for corporate and personal e-mail accounts. Outlook Mobile is included, and the smart phone works with Microsoft Exchange Server, GoodLink, Cingular Xpress Mail, and MSN Hotmail. Moreover, the 8125 will be upgradable to Microsoft’s Messaging and Security Feature Pack when it’s released later this year, so you can enjoy the advantages of push technology and receive messages in real time. Using the included USB cable, we connected our review unit to our PC, and all our Outlook e-mail, contacts, tasks, and appointments synced seamlessly with the device. Instant, text, and multimedia messaging are also all supported.

As far as voice features go, the Cingular 8125 is a quad-band world phone, so globe-trotting execs can use this mobile overseas while keeping the same phone number. The 8125’s phone book is limited only by the available memory (the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts) and is quite robust. You can store up to 12 numbers for a single entry, as well as home and work addresses, e-mail, an IM screen name, a birthday, a spouse’s name, and more. For caller-ID purposes, you can pair a contact with a photo, a caller group, or one of nine polyphonic ring tones. You also get a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, and voice dialing. As we mentioned earlier, the 8125 has integrated Bluetooth, so you can connect to headsets for hands-free chatting, but the wireless connections don’t end there, as you get the full buffet of Wi-Fi (802.11b), infrared, and EDGE support.

Entertainment comes by way of Windows Media Player 10 Mobile. Once you’re done wheelin’ and dealin’ on your Cingular 8125, you can use it to relax to your favorite MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC, and AMR music files; you also get album art, and WMP 10 Mobile is compatible with all PlaysForSure online stores. The smart phone handles MPEG-4 video streaming, and if you have TV shows recorded on your Media Center PC, you can transfer them to your device for on-the-go viewing. For those who want to make their own movies, the Cingular 8125 offers a 1.3-megapixel camera with video-recording capabilities. You can record clips with sound in MPEG-4 or Motion-JPEG AVI format, as well as in two sizes (128?—96 or 176?—144). There are a number of ambience settings and effects, ranging from Night and Incandescent to Sepia and Grayscale. You also get a 2X zoom, as well as options for a time and date stamp, a counter, and a self-timer. Many of these features are available for still pictures, in addition to four quality settings (SuperFine, Fine, Normal, and Basic) and a set of amusing picture frames. The 8125’s 1.3-megapixel camera produces above-average pictures with bright colors, but keep in mind, camera phones are good for quick snapshots only and won’t replace a good stand-alone digital camera. We do appreciate the fact that Cingular offers a cameraless version of the 8125, since more and more businesses are prohibiting the use of camera phones for security reasons.

Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) Cingular 8125 in the San Francisco area, and call quality was a mixed bag. On our end, callers sounded clear, and volume was plenty adequate, but our friends said we sounded far away; plus, they could definitely tell we were using a cell phone. The speakerphone, which can be activated only once you’re on a call, was also mediocre. Conversations were a bit garbled, and we had to jack the volume to the highest level to hear our callers. On the upside, we had no problems pairing the 8125 with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset; audio quality was subpar, but this may have more to do with the headset than the actual phone.

Overall performance on the Cingular 8125 was decent. Response time was pretty quick, but there was definitely a noticeable lag when we had several apps open at the same time, as well as when we used the camera and the video recorder. We had no problems connecting to our Wi-Fi access point, and Web browsing was decent over the phone’s GPRS/EDGE connection.

The Cingular 8125 is rated for 5 hours of talk time and up to seven days of standby time. However, like the latest crop of Window Mobile 5 handhelds, the 8125 has outstanding talk-time battery life, lasting 10 hours, 40 minutes before the low-battery notification flashed across the screen. We also had no problems reaching the promised standby time.

Intro
A little more than a year ago, a small wonder called the Audiovox SMT5600 took the smart-phone world by storm with its powerful features and ultracompact form factor. Even today, it continues to be one of CNET readers’ favorite smart phones. Now, a worthy successor has come along to let the SMT5600 retire: the Cingular 2125. The 2125 is Cingular’s first company-branded B2B device and offers many of the same great qualities of the SMT5600, but it adds some upgrades, such as the latest Windows Mobile 5 OS and a better camera. Unfortunately, the 2125 falls a bit behind some of its competition??“the T-Mobile SDA??“with its lack of Wi-Fi and its average call quality. That said, the 2125’s pros outweigh the cons, and it’s still a powerful smart phone that will help mobile professionals be more productive on the road. The Cingular 2125 is available now for $299.99, but you should be able to get it for less with service.

Design
Unless you’re a smart-phone fanatic, you may not have heard of a Taiwanese company called HTC. Alhough not a household name, the company quietly has built some of the hottest Windows Mobile smart phones in the market today, including the Cingular 2125. At a compact 4.3 by 1.8 by 0.7 inches and a light 3.7 ounces, this candy bar-style phone is a boon for mobile professionals; it won’t weigh you down, and it eliminates the need to carry multiple devices. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that it’s a good-looking device, sporting a sleek metallic blue and silver finish. Overall, it’s very reminiscent of the Audiovox SMT5600, with the exception of an additional 0.25-inch overhang on top of the device that houses the power on/off button and the infrared port. We should mention the tricky power control at this point, which already has garnered some reader complaints. It’s marked by a small circular button, so the natural tendency is to simply push it in, but you actually have to push and pull it down. It’s not particularly annoying, but it’s definitely a weird design quirk.

The Cingular 2125’s 2.2-inch-diagonal display is a sight to behold. Although it’s not a touch screen, it displays 64,000 hues with a sharp 320?—240-pixel resolution, making colors pop out and producing crisp text and images. Viewing photos and Web sites on the device was a treat. Just below the display are two soft keys that are well spaced and easy to press. The cramped layout of these keys, as well as the numerical dial pad, is a sticking point for us on the T-Mobile SDA, but we’re glad to see the Cingular 2125 goes a different route. The Today shortcut, the Back button, and the Talk and End keys surround the navigation joystick. Unfortunately, it’s the same tiny toggle that plagues the SDA, so you have to pay attention to the direction you’re moving and firmly press the joystick in the middle to select an item. The dial pad is roomy and backlit, and since the keys are raised above the phone’s surface, it’s easy to dial by feel.

On the left spine, there are three unmarked buttons. The top button launches the Communication Manager, where you can turn on/off Bluetooth, the speakerphone, and ActiveSync; if you hold down the key, it will launch the voice recorder, though we didn’t find this out until we read the user manual. Just below that is the volume rocker, which can’t be used to navigate the menus. There’s a lone camera-activation button on the right side, while the camera lens and the self-portrait mirror are on the back. You can find a 2.5mm headset jack and a port for the USB sync cable and AC adapter on the bottom of the device. The Cingular 2125 ships with a soft protective case/belt holster, an AC charger, a USB cable, and a wired stereo headset.

Features
The Cingular 2125 is chock-full of goodies but falls behind its competitor, the T-Mobile SDA, with its lack of integrated Wi-Fi. We’ll touch on this a bit later, but first, a few of the basics: The 2125’s phone book is limited only by the available memory (64MB of SDRAM, 64MB of flash ROM), while the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts. For each entry, you can store up to 12 numbers, three e-mail and instant-messaging addresses, birthdays, anniversaries, and more. You can also pair them with one of 12 ring tones and a picture for caller ID. Other treats include a vibrate mode, speed dial, text and multimedia messaging, a voice recorder, and yes, a speakerphone.

The Cingular 2125 runs Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition, which means you won’t get the full Mobile Office suite found on the Pocket PC Edition, just Outlook Mobile. Don’t be alarmed, though; you can still view Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files by installing the ClearVue Suite from the included CD-ROM. We were able to transfer and open all four formats on the 2125 successfully. You can’t edit said files, but given the 2125’s smaller form factor and lack of a keyboard, it’s not the best device to do such a thing anyway; it’s just nice to be able to review your work and be more productive on the road.

Can’t stand to be away from your e-mail? You don’t have to be with the Cingular 2125. The device handles corporate and personal e-mail, and it’s compatible with Microsoft Exchange Server, GoodLink, and Cingular Xpress Mail. The phone is also upgradable to Microsoft’s Messaging and Security Feature Pack, which will allow for direct push e-mail. You can set up the 2125 to retrieve messages from personal accounts, such as EarthLink, BellSouth, and Yahoo. MSN Messenger is the only instant-messaging client preloaded on the handset, but you can access other popular services, such as Yahoo and AOL, via the Web browser.

Obviously, the lack of a QWERTY keyboard doesn’t make the Cingular 2125 ideal for messaging, but the integrated Bluetooth gives you the option to connect to a Bluetooth accessory keyboard so that you can stretch your fingers and type to your heart’s content. We touched on the lack of Wi-Fi earlier, and its absence is a little easier to take because of the EDGE support, but we’re still disappointed, especially since the T-Mobile SDA managed to pack it in. We would have appreciated that extra avenue for surfing the Web. As it is, the Web-browsing experience was a little poky compared with that of the SDA, but it gets the job done.

The Audiovox SMT5600 only had a VGA camera, but the Cingular 2125 kicks it up a notch with a 1.3-megapixel camera. The editing options are identical to those found on the T-Mobile SDA, including four quality settings (Basic, Normal, Fine, and Super-Fine) and four resolutions (160?—120, 320?—240, 640?—480, and 1,280?—1,024). You also get a 2X zoom, brightness controls, a time- and date-stamp option, and a photo counter. Normally, we would bemoan the lack of a flash, but the 2125’s Night setting did an admirable job of lighting up pictures taken in dark environments. Other lighting choices include Auto, Daylight, Incandescent, and Fluorescent. To spruce up your snapshots, you can add a picture frame or change the tone of the picture to Grayscale, Sepia, or Cool. If you want to make movies for the small screen, the phone’s camera records video clips with sound in MPEG-4, H.263, or Motion-JPEG AVI format, and it offers two resolutions (176?—144 or 128?—96). Also at your disposal are most of the editing features found on the still camera.

We have to admit??“the picture quality was not too shabby. Although not frameworthy, our snapshots came out clear and bright, and you can share your memories with others via multimedia message or e-mail, as well as save them as wallpaper. Other customization options for your phone include different color themes, background images, and sounds. If none of the defaults suit you, take a visit to Cingular’s Media Mall and shop around.

Finally, during your downtime, you can enjoy a variety of multimedia fun, including MP3, WAV, WMA, and AAC music files, as well as MPEG-4 video streams, thanks to Windows Media Player 10 Mobile.

Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) Cingular 2125 in San Francisco, and call quality was a mixed bag. We had no problems hearing the conversation, but on several occasions, our callers said they detected an echo. Also, the speakerphone wasn’t the best we’ve heard; volume was a bit low even when we jacked it up to the highest level. We had no problems pairing the handset with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset, and though audio quality took a bit of a dive, this may have more to do with the headset than the phone.

The Cingular 2125’s battery is rated for a talk time of 4 hours and up to six days of standby time, but like the T-Mobile SDA, the 2125 laughs at that lowly number. The smart phone lasted an astounding 11 hours before finally calling it quits, and it met the rated standby time. According to the FCC radiation tests, the Cingular 2125 has a digital SAR rating of 0.94 watt per kilogram.

Following the slightly unfortunate communicator that was the iPAQ hw6300 series, comprised of the hw6315 for Europe and hw6340 for the US, HP is back - with a vengeance. Having trailed woefully behind other communicator makers, HP has finally delivered an iPAQ that not only matches the feature set of other devices currently on shelves, but also manages to break new ground. Let’s have a look and see if they got it right this time around.

You don’t look anything like what we’re used to
Ridding itself of the bulky design of its predecessor, the hw6515 comes across as a far more elegant - and pocketable - device than the hw6300 series despite the fact that HP has managed integrate a thumbboard. At 118 x 71 x 21 mm and 165 g, it won’t make your suit pocket look like you’re carrying a couple of decks of cards - and the front doesn’t look cluttered despite the large number of elements residing there.

First off, we find the 65K colour touch screen with its 240 x 240 pixel resolution, marking the very first Windows Mobile based device with a square screen to hit shelves. Bright, clear and with adequate ClearType performance, it’s joined by a rather clicky five-way navigational pad just below, again flanked by dual-purpose, mappable hard buttons for opening the contacts and e-mail applications. These, again, are flanked by large and comfortably backlit send and end telephony hard buttons on either side, and in the upper right corner resides the power on/off button alongside to unobtrusive alert LEDs.

Unfortunately, the thumbboard is a bit of a disappointment. From a hardware perspective, keys are mostly well laid out (with the exception of comma and period having been inexplicably and frustratingly switched) and offer good tactile and audible feedback. A ’sticky’ Caps Lock is present, as is an Fn button which alternates the QWERTY layout to offer a full compliment of numerical operators, a numeric keypad and a four-way keypad. - but unfortunately for Europeans, few accents. For improved one-handed operation, buttons are also present for calling up the start menu and context menu, as well as performing ‘Tab’ and ‘Ok’ presses.

What’s the downside then, you ask? Somewhere along the way from pressing a button, something is pouring syrup in the machinery. In the vast majority of cases, a quick double-press will not be recognized, and despite tactile and audible feedback indicating a key has been pressed there’s a modest chance it will not show up; absolutely marring for heavy thumbboard users.

Rounding off on the note of buttons, we also find a dedicated volume up/down rocker far up on the left side which is a bit too easy activate accidentally, and below this a dedicated button to activate and shoot pictures with the 1.3 Megapixel camera. Said camera, unfortunately, is the epitomy of mediocrity with regard to picture quality, and the application for shooting them with is outright horrid. Video quality is however acceptable at QCIF resolution, and the camera button thankfully also maps to the voice recorder.

Making a connection
Not only harbouring GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz and support for GPRS Class 10, the hw6515 is also the first Windows Mobile communicator to support EDGE for high speed data transfers, where applicable. Performance, both for data and voice, proved very good, with above-par signal reception as compared to previous Windows Mobile communicators as well as favourable speakerphone quality.

Compared to other, recent high-end Windows Mobile communicators, the hw6515 falls somewhat short in the PAN networking area with only Bluetooth and Infrared and USB on its slate. Granted, the selection of profiles is good - including the much-coveted DUN profile - and performance excellent, but Wi-Fi is nowhere to be found. Surprising as this may be, however, there’s a good reason for it: unlike any other communicator presently available, the hw6515 is equipped with an integrated GPS receiver.

To our pleasent surprise, the receiver works very well indeed despite not having a dedicated antenna, although we’ve seen dedicated receivers which are - expectedly - more sensitive. Cold boots can also take some time unless conditions are excellent, but the receiver maintains connections well and is adequately accurate.

The GPS receiver isn’t the only thing concealed behind the exterior of the hw6515, though. Under the hood, we also find an 312 MHz Intel PXA270 processor backed up by 44 MB of volatile memory and 12 MB of non-volatile memory available to users. Also, the hw6515 offers up not only an SDIO capable SD Card expansion slot, but also a miniSD expansion slot, conveniently allowing for the simultaneous addition of of a Wi-Fi card and additional memory.

Unfortunately, the exchangeable, rechargeable 1,200 mAh Lithium Ion battery will not allow for any extended use of an accessory such as a Wi-Fi card as it already struggles to provide sufficient battery life as is. With average use of its entire feature set, the hw6515 barely lasted in excess of a day whereas most competing models will provide a couple of days battery life or more.

A few bumps in the road
Sadly, the battery isn’t the only place in which HP has compromised in order to be able to bring such an advanced set of features together in such a small device. Due to a slow processor, most functionality beyond simple PIM and messaging feels sluggish, and particularly so if one attempts to multitask when the GPS receiver is active. Also, the amount of memory available is restrictively small, negating any heavy multitasking.

Despite challenges in the hardware department, however, HP has managed to deliver a few software nuggets with the Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition powered hw6515. In addition to the standard package of Microsoft applications such as Pocket Outlook, Pocket Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger and the PlaysForSure-compatible Windows Media Player 10, we also find viewers from ClearVue for Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft PowerPoint documents. Furthermore, there’s also a comprehensive backup client and a profiles application which has been handily mapped to the press-and-hold trigger of the power on/off button; a very nice touch.

Based upon software from Netherlands-based TomTom, widely considered the gold standard in GPS add-on software for handhelds, we also find a comprehensive GPS application with 3D maps, routing, automatic redirection and a comprehensive points of interest database. In a stroke of genious, HP chose to include a version of the software which allows for over-the-air purchase and downloading of new maps; an invaluable feature for frequent travelers.

Lastly, it should be noted that the perfectly square display of the hw6515 is something of an oddity - and also a first - for Windows Mobile devices. Due to most third party applications having been written for a 3:4 format, 240 x 320 or 640 x 480 pixel screen, several applications suddenly require quite a bit of scrolling - and poorly written ones aren’t instantly compatible, either. In fact, even some of Microsoft’s own applications have issues, but the most pressing issue is that when the virtual keyboard is called upon, only a fraction of the screen is visible for input between this and the start menu. It still works, but it’s far from painless.

Availability
The HP iPAQ hw6515 is slated for availability in major European markets in June and is to sell for ???????729 EUR. A version of the device without a camera will also be available as the HP iPAQ hw6510, selling for ???????699 EUR. The unit provided to infoSync World was a pre-production device. HP iPAQ hw6515

Conclusion
A Ferrari powered by a Wolksvagen motor - that’s the HP iPAQ hw6515 in a nutshell. An otherwise excellent set of hardware and software harboured in a surprisingly small form factor is hampered by poor thumbboard responsiveness, a modest processor, limited memory and poor battery life. If your needs for frequent text input and heavy multitasking aren’t pressing, and chargers are readily at hand at the end of each business day, the hw6515 presents a tantalizing offer - just beware of its shortcomings.