Cingular 8525 Received

Over the weekend, I finally received my Cingular 8525 (a.k.a. HTC Hermes) mobile phone. Here are some observations:

Navigating the phone with the touch screen is fast and easy. (The exception is the camera; I am still learning its touch screen interface.)
The touch screen dialing is convenient and straightforward now that I'm getting over my expectation of a separate numeric keypad.
Synchronizing contact, calendar, e-mail, and tasks with Outlook took me a long time to get working properly, almost exclusively due to problems with Microsoft's ActiveSync software.
The SMS synchronization software I installed works beautifully. Now copies of all of the text messages I send and receive automatically are stored in Outlook on my computer.
The speakerphone is clear and sufficiently loud.
The slide-out QWERTY keyboard is very handy for typing out text messages, e-mails, and Word/Excel documents.
Wi-fi initially seemed to work well, but now it seems flaky, and configuring it is a bit confusing.

Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase.

Comments

Chip said…

Do you know what the upgrades over the HTC Apache 6700 are? That's what I have and it looks very similar, but I couldn't tell what's different (other than Cingular support). Do you miss the tactile number pad at all? Of all the iPhone hype, I think that is the biggest risk-- that people aren't ready for touch screens (i.e. being unable to dial without looking).

Wed May 09, 01:18:00 PM 2007

rcauvin said…

The main differences seem to be:

1. 3G data speeds
2. 2.0 megapixel camera
3. Quad-band

I like the touch screen dialing and don't miss the tactile numeric pad. However, I didn't really make much use of the tactile aspects of the dialing experience in the past. (I almost always looked at the keypad while I was dialing.) I may be atypical.

Wed May 09, 01:33:00 PM 2007

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