HTC 8525 Smartphone

This is the holy grail of mobile devices. There is not another product, that is subsidized by a major carrier, that offers the following: Windows Mobile 5.0, High Speed 3 G internet access, International Voice and Data Capabilities. 2 Megapixel Camera with flash and Macro, Windows Media Player 10.0 Bluetooth A2DP.

Pocket PC versus Smartphone:

The 8525 is a Pocket PC phone with a slide out Qwerty keyboard. Before I go any further, I need to explain the difference between a Pocket PC phone and a Smartphone. It took me a while to figure out the difference, but then I realized that the answer was in the name. A Pocket PC phone is a Computer like device that will fit in your pocket and can also be used as a phone. A Smartphone is a phone with "smart" computer like features. Let me break it down even further.
Pocket PC phones are essentially PDA's or Personal Data Assistants that can also be used as a phone. The key here is that they are PDA's first, and phones second. Almost all PDA's and Pocket PC's have touch screens that can be accessed with a stylus. There may be a few mechanical buttons, but most functions, including dialing are made with a stylus.
Smartphones are designed to be a phone first, and also offer organizer or PDA functions. Smartphones do not have touch screens and have fully functional keyboards. The first smartphones had numerical keypads, but newer smartphones have full Qwerty keyboards like a computer keyboard.

Back to the 8525...

Technical Specs (From Cingular website)
Weight 6.21 ounces
Dimensions: 4.43 x 2.28 x 0.86 inches
Talk Time: Up to 5 hours
Standby Time: Up to 10 days
Large 2.8" 240x320 64K color touchscreen
Powered by Samsung 400 MHz processor
Quad-band world phone - GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA - 850/1900/2100 MHz
128MB ROM / 64MB RAM; 51MB user available memory

The 8525 Phone capabilities
The 8525 is a Quad-band world phone - GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz. It will work in the US and also in many other countries. In fact according to Wikipedia, GSM is used by over 2 BILLION people in over 212 countries and territories. The voice quality was about the same as other GSM phones that I have owned which is very good. The coverage was very good, but was susceptible to the usual dropouts and occasional faded signals which are common in the San Diego are because of the terrain.

Contact Dialing
Because of the PDA functions, dialing saved numbers was a breeze because of predictive dialing. Let's say that you wanted to dial Fred Williams. With most "non smart" phones, you would have to access the W's, usually by pressing the 9 key and then scroll down. If you only have a couple of W's in your phone book, this is adequate. However, if you have several , it can be tedious to scroll down every time. With the 8525, and every other Windows Phone, the phone anticipates who you want to call. If you press the 9 key, it pulls up all the names with W, X, Y or Z. Now press the 4 Key. Now the display shows every occurence of W,X,Y or Z followed by a G, H or I. Now press the 5 key twice. Now it will show every WXYZ followed by a GHI followed by a JKL followed by a JKL. In other words, pressing 9-4-5-5-4-2-6 will display every william in your phone book, first, middle or last name! or you could type in 4-7-4-4 to see every Fred in your Phone book! Once you get the hang of this, you will never ever go back to a non smart phone.



Internet (3G)
I waited a long time for the 8525 to come out. I heard about it on Engadget, and called my Cingular rep almost daily in November until the unit was available. I bought one the day they were available. After charging the unit and putting in my old SIM card, I noticed that I was not getting the high speed that I was waiting for. There is a square on the top of the display which showed "E" or Edge. Edge is Cingular's wireless internet which is twice as fast as dial up with download speeds of about 110kb per second, versus a realistic 40kb per second with dial up. Although Edge is not 3G, it is available in 13000 cities and covers nearly 40000 miles of highway according to Cingular. As mentioned earlier, I bought this phone because of it's 3G capability and to get this the first thing I had to do was update my Sim Card. GSM phones take sim cards and in order to use the new 3G Network, you have to insert a 64K 3G Sim Card. Once I inserted the new SIM, the little "E", turned into a little "U." U stands for UMTS, which is Cingular's new high speed internet Access. What a difference. I used the phone's browser and went to speakeasy.net and was getting download speeds of 700kb per second or about 20 times faster than dial up, seven times faster than Edge, and almost the same as the EV-DO from Verizon and Spring. Unlike EV-DO, UMTS is available in Europe and other countries.

Organizer or PDA
This is where Windows devices shine, as far as I am concerned. This unit syncs perfectly with my Outlook, every time. I use Outlook for contacts and for the calendar. Whenever I connect the device to my computer, all contacts and all calendar events are synced perfectly. If I change a contact or a calendar event WHILE the unit is hooked up, the changes are made in real time. I had Sony Ericsson P900 and although it claimed to do the same thing, I was never able to sync my calendar. I tried software revisions, different versions of Outlook to no avail. I have never had a Windows Mobile Device NOT sync perfectly.

Camera
The 8525 has the best camera of any phone that I have used. The 8525 has a 2.0 Megapixel camera with Flash and Macro. The pictures that I have taken are very clear, even when viewed full screen on my Dell 24 inch monitor. The flash does a fair job of lighting up low light subjects. Also, there is no optical zoom. The point that needs to be made is that the 8525 has an excellent camera... for a phone. The camera does not compare to a stand alone digital camera with 2.0 mega pixels. Low light photos with the flash are marginal at best, and there is no optical zoom. If you want to take a picture of something memorable, use a digital camera. Unfortunately, I don't have my digital camera on me all the time, so to have a usable digital camera on the phone is definitely a plus.

Music Player:
The 8525 comes with Windows Media Player 10.0 which means that you can store and play MP3 files. Keep that Ipod at home, and carry one device for your phone and music player. One of the neat things about this phone is that is has A2DP, which means that you can play stereo over bluetooth. I used a set of Southwing SA505 Bluetooth headsets and the sound quality was fantastic for Music or TV (More on this later) Another cool trick was the following... My favorite radio station is 1090 here in San Diego. I can go to their website and since they use Windows Media Player for streaming, I can listen to this station, anywhere I have internet access via Edge or UMTS and here it wirelessly in stereo. Too Cool.



TV Anywhere
Since this is a Windows Mobile Device, you can install Slingbox Mobile on it. Slingbox is the invention of the century in my opinion. It is a piece of hardware that you connect to your Tivo, or DVR box from Dish or your Cable company that sends your channel over the internet for you to access via your PC, laptop, or Windows Mobile phone. With Slingbox and this phone, you can be almost anywhere and watch any channel live, watch a program that you recorded, or remember to record something to watch when you get home.

Laptop Tethering;
I was able to tether this phone to my HP Z5000 laptop via bluetooth. This means that you can use the UMTS 3G Network with your laptop. Although there are many wireless hotspots that offer faster internet, information sent through them is not encrypted and can be intercepted. Using your 8525 is slower, but much more secure.

Conclusion. This is not the perfect device, but it comes close. It is a little large, but for what it does, it is super compact.