new cell phone, maybe a pocket PC, maybe a Cing 8125?

[VirgilStarkwell]

Hi,
This is my first post to the forum.

I'm due for renewal of contract at cingular / AT&T and I'm looking at replacement phones. I'm not much into tech and I've always gone with the free clunker phones that come with the service plan. This time I'm planning to invest some money in a phone-- I was planning to buy a cheap camera (for ebay mostly) and maybe an mp3 player, so if I can get that stuff in the phone it saves me a lot.

So I looked at my options and I can get a cingular 8125 for $100 (same as you'd pay if you opened a new contract). From what I understand it is the HTC Wizard outside the US. 1.3 mp camera and Windows Mobile 5 with media player, so that takes care of what I was looking for. Plus it's a touchscreen pocket PC, which is cool, but the big deal is that it has wifi, so I won't have to pay for data. None of the blackberry, palm, or nokia phones have wifi.

Here's a review: cingular 8125

Downsides:
1. No linux OS to be found.
2. No mobile openoffice. Not a deal breaker but it will reduce the usefulness of this phone quite a bit.
3. Maybe it's a piece of crap? How am I buying a phone, camera, mp3 player, and handheld for $100? Or is tech really this cheap these days? Anyone have any experience with this phone?
4. 5 or so years ago AT&T did me a lousy turn and I was ready to leave for tmobile or whatever. Then cingular bought them out, I didn't have to write checks to AT&T anymore, out of sight out of mind. But now cingular is AT&T again, bastards, and I am not opposed to rethinking my loyalties. So if you know of a phone from a different carrier that would better suit my needs, I'd like to hear about it.

Thanks a lot.

[SamIAm]

I really hated WindowsMobile on the device I had. It synched pretty horribly with Outlook, and just felt thrown-together. My Palm devices have always worked much smoother.

[_dave_]

I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] WM on a phone - Had an I-mate JAM (looks like the old version of what you are looking at here) for the last couple of years, just upgraded to an XDA Orbit, very impressed so far (Phone, PDA, GPS, Wifi all in one - pockets much emptier [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )

I never used Outlook for sync tho - in fact I never had any sync with PC except for backup purposes.

Will likely never have a non-PDA phone ever again, but will likey have a linux one when they are competent / available in UK.

dave.