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View Full Version : Cingular 2125 Impressions


ll600
12-23-2005, 05:16 PM
I've had the 2125 for several days now, here are some impressions.

For such a capable phone, this phone is quite small and easy to slip in your pocket. This is very important for me. I've been waiting and waiting for the 8125 to become available. But then I saw a quick review from somebody who said it was difficult to one hand the 8125 and that it was rather large and had poor battery life. A phone that can't be used easily as a phone doesn't make sense to me.

I didn't want to make the same mistake twice. I've had many laptops over the years -- each new one had a bigger screen. The last laptop I bought had a beautiful 17 inch of screen - however it was so big and had such poor battery life that it was pretty much unusable as a laptop.

Reception on this phone is fabulous. This is also critical since a phone that doesn't get reception is no longer a phone but a brick. My previous phone, a Sony-Ericsson T616, got excellent reception. This phone does better. I had drop outs in certain rooms in my house with the Sony, but virtually none with the 2125. I had an Audiovox 5600 for several days, and that phone had worse reception than both the Sony-Ericsson and 2125.

As you've seen noted many times, the screen is a fantastic. The speakerphone is capable. I am able to one-hand most functions on this phone. Playing audio through Windows media player sounds excellent on the headphones. My Mini SD card should arrive today and I can't wait load up with audio pictures and video. Looking at pictures on the screen a pleasant experience. Using Windows Media Player to play streaming audio works well over the EDGE network. Browsing the web for the most part is a pleasure.

I plan to use this phone as a tethered modem, since I live in an area where hurricanes have turned off my power for over a month in the last two years. I haven't tried this yet. For me, the combination of this phone as a modem and my small 12 inch PowerBook makes much more sense than carrying around an oversized PDA that doesn't function well as a phone all the time.

Everything isn't perfect. I've had a couple of occassions where the phone has frozen up and needed to be rebooted. One was after turning bluetooth on and off a couple of times. One application I've tried (Chronos) worked once and now doesn't start up any more. I would assume this is because it isn't updated for the latest version of the operating system. Also, the fact that during intensive data operations, phone calls aren't received but go to voicemail, is disappointing. Also, the fact that it does not disconnect from the data network after doing an automatic email synch is disappointing. I hope they will update the software so that this can be an option.


Overall though, this phone appears to be a keeper. It has an excellent combination of phone, ergonomic and smart features.

Update: Received 1GB mini-sd card. Put some new ringtones there (mp3 songs) and loads of pictures. Also, converted some video using Sony Vegas 6 editing software to the native resolution of the 2125. It looks and plays fabulous - I will now convert more video. Purchased the updated ClearVue suite (for half price until 12/31) because I didn't have time to hassle with a work around installation - it worked great the first time. Hooked up my Motorola HS810 Blue Tooth headphone - also works flawlessly. Set up many WAP friendly web sites in the browser - performance is quite acceptable over EDGE network. Also, with radioshowlinks.com, can listen to streaming radio shows live (but this disables the ability to receive calls while listening to the radio shows).

It's really hard to believe this is just a very small phone that fits easily in your pocket.

choo_choo
12-27-2005, 04:24 AM
how is the EDGE speed? does it rival Wifi/b?

ll600
12-27-2005, 04:42 AM
I wouldn't say that edge speed rivals WiFi, but, for the much browsing I find it quite acceptable. Especially if you take the time to search out the mobile versions of popular sites. Having a strong connection seems to help.

Trying to load full versions of sites can be rather slow, but this is probably also a function of the processor speed.

I have an older HP Jornada Windows CE device, and the speed seems fairly comparable to that device which is operating on 802.11b. However, I do believe the Jornada downloads e-mail attachments faster though I haven't run any comparison tests.

choo_choo
12-27-2005, 05:11 AM
Thanks. I assume you have the $19.99 unlimited MediaNet plan.

Kris Kumar
12-27-2005, 06:32 AM
EDGE speed is only 100-150 Kbps .. i.e Kilobits per second. Compared to WiFi 802.11b which is between 5-10 Mbps. Big difference.

Wi-Fi offers speeds that is way too fast for the little Smartphone to handle. ;-) But the extra bandwidth that Wi-Fi can offer means that future applications like Skype will work really well. And also the ability to access the files on the local computer (home and work) directly. Helpful for watching streaming video or listening to streaming audio from your home PC. ;-)

Mike Temporale
12-27-2005, 01:38 PM
Wi-Fi offers speeds that is way too fast for the little Smartphone to handle. ;-) But the extra bandwidth that Wi-Fi can offer means that future applications like Skype will work really well. And also the ability to access the files on the local computer (home and work) directly. Helpful for watching streaming video or listening to streaming audio from your home PC. ;-)

Too much to handle? I don't know about that. I'm not getting 10MBps, but I'm getting more than a couple hundred k. Anyone know a good spot to check the download speed?

Kris Kumar
12-27-2005, 02:21 PM
Too much to handle? I don't know about that. I'm not getting 10MBps, but I'm getting more than a couple hundred k. Anyone know a good spot to check the download speed?

Couple of hundred ks! 8O :?

I used www.dslreports.com/mspeed and was getting 135-149kbps with EDGE.

Mike Temporale
12-27-2005, 09:40 PM
I used www.dslreports.com/mspeed and was getting 135-149kbps with EDGE.

According to that site and a 600K file (the others were to small and "unstable") I get 542 Kbps on my wifi. However, Fizz Traveller did launch and start updating while the test was performing.

Rocco Augusto
12-27-2005, 09:49 PM
i know some smaller wifi devices only clock in at 2mbp/s instead of 11mbp/s. is it possible the wifi enabled smartphones are the same way? could explain slow download speeds.