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Cingular 3125: The Taste Test
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Rocco Augusto
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Joined: 28 May 2005
Posts: 1093
Location: Portland, OR

PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 9:00 am    Post subject: Cingular 3125: The Taste Test Reply with quote

Friday afternoon FedEx was nice enough to drop off my brand spanking new Cingular 3125. Since my contract was up with T-Mobile, I decided it was time to jump ship and return home to Cingular where I have had service since I was old enough to get my first cellular phone. I won’t lie; the move was nowhere near painless. For starters, buying a phone from Cingular’s Business Care Center was the most horrific experience I have had throughout my entire cellphone life. Sure I got one heck of a deal on the handset ($119.99 no mail-in-rebate), but to be honest I would have rather shelled out the extra money to get it from the store.

The phone itself is very responsive. After spending months upon months with my old Cingular 2125 which suffered from the well documented “sticky-key-effect”, it is so pleasant to actually use a phone that can keep up with my speedy fingers. This is by far the best Smartphone I have had the privilege of using, but it does have its faults.
The first major fault of this handset is that it does not come with a case of any kind! I was a little shocked to find this out since I was becoming accustomed to getting a new case with all of my HTC carrier branded devices. This wasn’t so bad though since I run a cellphone accessory company now. I just grabbed one of the new vertical pouches that I got in and the phone was a perfect fit. Wink

After playing around in the Setting menu there was one thing I found that also shocked me. They removed the Wireless Homescreen which came with previous North American HTC devices such as the T-Mobile SDA and Cingular 2125. For the past few months I have been using this as my main homescreen so I am really disappointed that it is gone. I enjoyed being able to turn Bluetooth on and off without having to hit a million keys to do so.

The File Manager got a tiny face lift as well. The bad news is, I can now no longer delete the unwanted icons from my start menu such as Cingular Mall and everything else Cingular. I tried to do the deleting via Windows Vista RC1 only to find out that I can no longer access the Windows directory of my Smartphone. I’m unsure whether to blame my phone or my laptop, so needless to say, I did not take a hammer to either of them.

I also find myself hitting the camera button often when holding my phone in the closed position. I’m not sure if this is because I have clumsy fingers or the phone suffers from a clumsy design, but it happens a lot. I often hear myself taking a picture of the inside of my pocket or case and while it is amusing, I would prefer if it didn’t do it. Smile

Speaking of taking pictures, somewhere down the line the developers decided to take away my favorite feature from the built in camera application. You can no longer save your images in folders based off the date like you could on the T-Mobile SDA and Cingular 2125 (with ROM update). We go back to the painfully tedious method of saving all your images to one folder. If you take a lot of pictures and plan on using a program like ShoZu then prepare to face the wrath of thumbnail loading hell!

However, the battery hump isn’t that bad at all. You really don’t notice it and it actually makes the phone feel a little more comfortable in your hands. Not to mention, you get some SWEET battery life out of this new battery. I started playing with my phone on Friday and still have not performed the first charge on my phone and it is now Monday night! Now that is power!

I don’t want to get too much into the handset because we will be reviewing it here on Smartphone Thoughts soon. I just wanted to give you guys my initial impressions and talk about my annoyances, which I do for ever new device I play with. Jerry picked up one of these bad boys as well so keep an eye on this thread because sometime this week Jerry might be posting his thoughts on it!
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tsahnocub
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Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 26
Location: Denver, CO

PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 9:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not at my home computer at the moment which is running Vista RC1, but I seem to recall having to make sure that you can view hidden folders in explorer to see the Windows folder on the phone.

It is possible, I just think they're hidden by default. Double check and see if "Show Hidden Files and Folders" is enabled.

You can get to the Folder options from the Organize drop down in Vista's Explorer.

Hope that helps.
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LarryKeith
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Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 9:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The organization of camera pictures into date folders can be turnded on/off in the registry. I did this with my iMate SP5 as I was tired of waiting for the thumbnails.

To turn it on -
RegKey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Camera\Captparam
Action: Alter Value: EnableDateFolder from default value to 1

This should work on the 3125 as well. I hope this helps.
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Hyer
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Joined: 26 Dec 2005
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:19 am    Post subject: Battery Reply with quote

Do you know if the new battery will be available for those of us that couldn't wait for this release and have the imate version? I barely make it though the day and many days don't.
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servoisgod
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Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 15

PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

"I decided it was time to jump ship and return home to Cingular where I have had service since I was old enough to get my first cellular phone."

Dude, how old are you? Cingular hasn't been around that long Razz

"I enjoyed being able to turn Bluetooth on and off without having to hit a million keys to do so."

I just arrow down to the Cingular line on the home screen then hit 2...of coarse this is assuming that you use the same on I do (Windows Default).

"The File Manager got a tiny face lift as well."

Yeah, I really hate this new one. They moved one thing that I used to use here to the Task Manager program now (system info).

Under XP I can still delete all the icons (and HAVE). Cingular puts so much crap on this phone it's not even funny.

Anyways, just a few things from my point of view.

Aaron
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Cattle-Dog
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Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 29
Location: Cincy, OH

PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 1:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been using my 3125 for almost a week now. I originally had an AudioVox 5600 with ATT, then went with the Verizon 6700. I liked the 6700 in most respects, but hated having to use the stylus for many aspects of the phone (or smudging the phone to death with my fingers). In addition, it's hard not to pay half as much with Cingular.

I really appreciated your thoughts, but the one thing I find different in my experience is the battery life. I'm not able to get more than 2 days out of this phone. I was really hoping that by leaving the 6700 and coming back to a SmartPhone, I could pick up at least another day. I haven't dared to turn on blue tooth yet, but I do use push mail form my Exchange server. On both my other phones it was via SMS Sync, and I am wondering if the constant "checking in" with the Exchange server is eating up the battery with this one? Rocco, are you using push mail?

Does anyone recall a registry setting to tone down how often the 'keep alive' feature calls home?

Another observation is, I charged it yesterday for 8 hours until 6 PM. I surfed the internet on it for about 10 minutes before retiring to bed that night. This morning, I used the headset to stream a local talk radio station. I still had 4 bars of battery, but it died in about 1 hour. Seems rather short to me.

Another area I found lacking was the keypad. While I would give 5 out of 5 stars for style, I find the actual implementation a little lacking. I wouldn't go as far to say I dislike it, but compared to the similar design of my wife's RAZR, it doesn't really compare in feel or feedback.

I also agree with Rocco's observation about the lack of a case as well of the lack of choice of aftermarket cases (or accessories in general!), despite this phone being out for several months over seas. I'd like to see any accessories that you have that are compatible with this phone Rocco, if you don't mind. Either here or via PM is fine.

Overall though, I really do like this phone. Much more manageable than the 6700 series brick (which did me well in most other regards).
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Rocco Augusto
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Joined: 28 May 2005
Posts: 1093
Location: Portland, OR

PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

tsahnocub wrote:
I'm not at my home computer at the moment which is running Vista RC1, but I seem to recall having to make sure that you can view hidden folders in explorer to see the Windows folder on the phone.

It is possible, I just think they're hidden by default. Double check and see if "Show Hidden Files and Folders" is enabled.

You can get to the Folder options from the Organize drop down in Vista's Explorer.

Hope that helps.


i tried that, even system folders. i just hate the cingular icons. i never use media mall or cingular music or good or any other of that trash. i cant even move them to a folder i never go into. grrrr
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Last edited by Rocco Augusto on Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:47 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Rocco Augusto
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Location: Portland, OR

PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cattle-Dog wrote:
I really appreciated your thoughts, but the one thing I find different in my experience is the battery life. I'm not able to get more than 2 days out of this phone. I was really hoping that by leaving the 6700 and coming back to a SmartPhone, I could pick up at least another day. I haven't dared to turn on blue tooth yet, but I do use push mail form my Exchange server. On both my other phones it was via SMS Sync, and I am wondering if the constant "checking in" with the Exchange server is eating up the battery with this one? Rocco, are you using push mail?


I am using push email, except i dont really get much email over the weekend. when i wrote this yesterday i was done to about 20% battery life. i like to drain my phones almost all the way before i charge them the first time.

after the first charge though, i started playing around with the music features and i notice the battery doesn't hold up as well as before. Smile

i didnt get around to uploading music on the device beforehand because windows vista takes 3-4 times as long to move files from my laptop to the phone. im actually annoyed at how slow it is Evil or Very Mad

Cattle-Dog wrote:
Another area I found lacking was the keypad. While I would give 5 out of 5 stars for style, I find the actual implementation a little lacking. I wouldn't go as far to say I dislike it, but compared to the similar design of my wife's RAZR, it doesn't really compare in feel or feedback.


yeah, the keypad is rather large. my girlfriend has pretty small hands and she complains when she plays with my phone because she either has to use both hands to dial or she feels like shes gonna strain a muscle in her thumb trying to reach the keys with one hand Laughing

this phone isnt very "small hand" friendly
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Last edited by Rocco Augusto on Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:49 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Rocco Augusto
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Location: Portland, OR

PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:41 pm    Post subject: Re: Battery Reply with quote

Hyer wrote:
Do you know if the new battery will be available for those of us that couldn't wait for this release and have the imate version? I barely make it though the day and many days don't.


im sure there will be. the battery that is included is just an extended battery. most accessory places should sell the extended cover and battery packs soon enough. Smile
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Rocco Augusto
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

LarryKeith wrote:
The organization of camera pictures into date folders can be turnded on/off in the registry. I did this with my iMate SP5 as I was tired of waiting for the thumbnails.

To turn it on -
RegKey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Camera\Captparam
Action: Alter Value: EnableDateFolder from default value to 1

This should work on the 3125 as well. I hope this helps.


awesome, thanks for the key. personally i think this is something you should be able to toggle on and off in the camera options menu Twisted Evil
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