My new PDA Phone

Okay, so I couldn’t wait for the Helio to come out for Cingular. I went and bought a Cingular 8525. As you can see it is Pocket PC Based, has all the features to include embedded Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, and integrates with an email program. It’s default is Outlook, but since I use Thunderbird for email, with Lightning added in for calendar and task management, I needed to find another solution. That solution is “Birdie Sync” which syncs the contacts, and emails tasks, and calendar.

I already own a Pocket PC device, so I was familiar with the interface, and that was a significant draw for me. A few of you may recall I had mentioned previously my interest in a BlackJack. My oldest daughter now has one, and loves it, but she pointed out that one could view, but not edit documents (Word of Excel) with the device. That and the WiFi in this phone were enough to push me over the edge. Also, I didn’t want a phone with the keyboard exposed.
Personally, I like the slide-out feature with keyboard, and find it quite nice for typing.

Favorite feature? It has 802.11 WiFi built in, so one need not use the (expensive) data plan with Cingular, if one can find access through WiFi. Panera anyone?

Oh, it’s also “Touch Screen” and has a 2 mp camera.

Drawbacks? (Yes, I stick them way down here.) If anything, my one “negative” is the size. It’s no larger than a pack of playing cards, but it is thicker than I would perhaps otherwise have wanted. Also, the price is a bit high considering my rant about the iPhone. While I did pay considerably less than the list price of about $550 with the use of discounts and 2 year contract) it took some serious swallowing in advance.

Overall, it’s a nice device.