Cingular 3125

 

DESIGN Code named the ‘Star Trek’ overseas by manufacturer HTC, the 3125 is poised to challenge the RAZR’s dominance. This solid and very thin flip phone has a circular cutout featuring an external screen, under which you’ll find dedicated media controls. The 3125 opens to reveal a flat keypad with a brushed aluminum finish. The standard phone keypad has borne a slight redesign to accommodate all the letters of the alphabet, but the interface is otherwise sparse: send and end keys, two menu buttons, home and backspace keys, and a five-way selector.

 

FEATURES Bluetooth 1.2 is included. Use the microSD slot located under the SIM card to store pictures and video recorded with the 1.3-mexapixel camera or media transferred for use with Windows Media Player. The external screen is useful, as it displays calendar appointments and can be used as a camera viewfinder. One downside is that all transfers go through a proprietary interface, not a standard mini-USB jack. That keeps the design seamless, but requires you to carry one more cable on the road.

 

ORGANIZER The 3125 can sync with Outlook to keep contacts and appointments current, and will associate contact photos with e-mail messages as well as calls, a nice touch for small screens. The ClearVue apps allow you to view but not edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files. There’s not a lot of memory for programs--the Task Manager shows 16MB out of the box--so be sure to spring for a high-capacity memory card.

 

WEB On Cingular’s EDGE network, browsing was quite fast. Internet Explorer rendered pages with great fidelity, and while the default settings force lots of left and right scrolling to read everything, the ‘one column’ setting lines content up to fit the portrait screen. Between the soft menu key and the backspace button, navigation was quite easy, and much better than on the Pearl, which features a similar physical layout.

 

E-MAIL Take your pick of three e-mail options: Good Mobile Messaging or Microsoft Push Direct for businesses, and Cingular Xpress Mail for consumers. For instant messaging there’s also Pocket MSN onboard. Long e-mails are only for the extremely dedicated, as they must be ploddingly typed on a numeric keypad. T9 text recognition helps somewhat, but this keypad is last in line behind SureType and QWERTY solutions for ease of use.

 

CALL QUALITY The 3125 sounds, appropriately, much like a RAZR. It’s comfortable to talk on for long periods, thanks to the thin and light form factor, and parties on either end of our conversation reported no notable static, drop-outs, or echo.

 

ENTERTAINMENT The screen is small, but Windows Media Player ably handles video and music files (including those protected with DRM). You can even send send audio to an external Bluetooth adapter for car use.

 

VERDICT Best for casual e-mail users, the 3125 is a sleek phone for work or play that’s just smart enough.