From the Today Screen (in default portrait mode) you can access the following applications with one hand: Internet Explorer, E-mail, Calendar and Contacts. Beyond these limited shortcuts, there’s no way to navigate the Windows Mobile OS without using the stylus, which requires both hands.  There is no dedicated hardware button to toggle the Start Menu, which would allow the use of the four-way navpad to move through menus and run applications.  There’s also no dedicated OK button to clear the contents of a screen.  Each of these actions require use of the stylus. 

It is possible to reprogram two of the 8125's hardware buttons to execute the Start Menu and OK functions, but by doing this you lose the existing shortcuts.  It may be preferable to lose the E-Mail and Comm Manager hardware shortcuts, for example, to gain makeshift Start and OK buttons; for detailed instructions, take a look at this tutorial.

One handed operation in landscape, or keyboard, mode is a bit easier, however, with Start Menu and OK keys included in the QWERTY keyboard layout.  With use of the Up, Down, Left and Right arrow keys, you can easily navigate menus with one hand, and with the Enter key you can make menu and software selections. 

Here again, our review theme: the Cingular 8125 shines in keyboard mode, but disappoints in portrait mode.

The Screen

The Cingular 8125 has a standard QVGA display with 240x320 resolution in default portrait mode.  The screen measures 2.5-inches (H) by 1.75-inches (W) with a 3-inch diagonal. QVGA is an older technology and isn’t as sexy as VGA, but no Pocket PC Phone to date has featured a VGA display.  We found the screen to be more than adequate with its bright backlight and largely crisp text and images.

The Keyboard

The Cingular 8125 performs best when in keyboard mode.  While this is largely due to the extra navigation keys found on the keyboard (Start, OK, etc.), it’s also because the keyboard itself offers such a user-friendly data input method. 

Integrated Pocket PC keyboards range from bad to great; we would rate the 8125’s keyboard as very good. In our office typing tests, we averaged about 45 words per minute on the 8125 keyboard.  These results are from touch-typists, but the keyboard’s key space and travel makes typing comfortable and efficient even for hunt-and-peck types.

The keyboard measures 3.5-inches across and 1-inch high.  There are 10 keys from left to right and four keys from top to bottom, with a total of 39 keys (the Space key spans two key widths).

Most of the standard letter and function keys have secondary number and symbol values, each activated by pressing a red button in the bottom left-hand corner of the keyboard prior to pressing the desired key.

The Camera

The camera functionality of the Cingular 8125 also receives high marks.  Although the resolution of the onboard digital camera is lower than stand-alone digital cameras – only 1.3 megapixels – this is standard among wireless phones and Pocket PCs, so this can’t fairly count against the unit.

Engaging camera mode is as easy as pressing the camera shudder button on the right-hand side of the device; this launches the HTC camera software and places the 8125 in camera mode.  The entire screen of the 8125 becomes the viewfinder and snapping a picture requires only a quick press of the camera shutter button.

The HTC camera software offers quite an array of features and settings.  The camera can be set for general still images (JPEG or BMP up to 1600x1280), video (AVI or MPEG-4 up to 176x144), contact pictures, burst, themed or sport.  There are ambience settings including Auto, Daylight, Incandescent, Flourescent, Night, Greyscale, and more.  Adjustments can also be made to contrast, brightness, saturation, hue and gamma.   

The camera and its software are truly excellent, going above and beyond what you can expect to find on other Pocket PCs and Pocket PC Phones. 

Sound

Onboard sound isn’t something we often spend a lot of time on in reviews, but the sound of the Cingular 8125 warrants a few comments.  First, the built-in speakers on the 8125 provide true stereo, with a speaker on the left and a speaker on the right.  This makes listening to audio or phone calls in Speakerphone Mode a more enjoyable experience.

The Cingular 8125 does feature vibrate mode.

File Transfer

Although Windows Mobile 5 supports high speed USB 2.0 data transfer rates, the Cingular 8125 is still squarely in the slow lane with USB 1.1.  It took 24 seconds to transfer a 6.28MB MP3 file to the Cingular 8215 via the included USB sync cable, which is terribly slow.  As we have for years, we recommend moving large files between your PC and Pocket PC by way of flash memory cards. 

The Cingular 8125 features a miniSD flash memory card slot.  If your desktop or laptop doesn’t have a miniSD card reader, click here.