AT&T 3125 - Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone Edition 200 MHz - RAM: 64 MB - ROM: 128 MB 2.8" TFT ( 240 x 320 ) - camera - Bluetooth - GSM 850/900/1800/1900 - Cingular   [240 x 320 - camera - Bluetooth - GSM 850/900/1800/1900 - Cingular 2006]

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Rave Reviews (5)*

• 1) Very pleased

  by Lawrence J. Hines on October 23 2006
    60+ helpful votes

  This mobile phone replaced a Nokia 6270 I bought approximately 6 months ago (I have reviewed that phone on Amazon also - please read the review if you are considering purchasing that phone). Here are the highlights of the 3125:
  
  Pros:
  (1) Design is excellent - The phone is thin enough to easily fit in pants pockets without being obtrusive or feeling heavy. Buttons located on the exterior of the unit require sufficient force so that they aren't accidentally activated while handling the phone. While the exterior is low profile and slim, it is also textured with small ridges in strategic touchpoints (sides, back battery plate, etc) that enhance your grip. Nice touch.
  (2) Screen - Very clear; graphics quality is excellent. I have not used the browser function yet, but it appears the screen resolution would provide a decent experience.
  (3) Keypad - Well designed despite the lack of independent buttons. I'll have to admit, the 'sheet metal' implementation of buttons on the RAZR is what turned me off. It felt like buttons would be accidentally pressed and the design would not wear well, but the Cingular 3125 seems to have struck the right balance. Keys are easy to use and have good feedback.
  (4) Menu system - Straightforward for a Windows-based phone with such a variety of features. It is never easy to pack that many features onto a menu structure that fits intuitively on the screen of a cell phone, but they've done a respectable job of it. My biggest hurdle was pairing a Jabra headset; I didn't get that a 'menu' function on the bottom of that feature would reveal Bluetooth pairing options, but it added a whole layer of new functionality. Seemed a bit unituitive, but maybe I was just didn't get the paradigm in my first couple tries.
  (5) Reception - Comparable to other Cingular phones I've used; seems to be effected by the same weak spots.
  (6) Battery life - A pleasant surprise! I talk a lot on my cell and two hours of calls had little effect on the battery (down by 1 bar). My Nokia would have been nearly drained.
  (7) Contact synchronization - I use a Mac, so this is more involved than it would have been if you are a Windows user. Still, I downloaded a synchronization package from the internet (The Missing Sync) and it worked very nicely. Contacts and appointments worked very well.
  (8) Headset - I bought a Jabra BT headset to work with this unit; it worked very well. The only issue is that the headset begins to experiencing skipping and choppiness if the phone and headset are out of line of site. For example, if the phone is in your pocket.
  (9) Responsiveness - I've owned PDAs and Smartphones before and I was always displeased with responsiveness of the interface. This appears to respond well. It lagged a few times, but it is tolerable.
  
  Cons:
  (1) Needs more themes out of the box. I don't use MSN, though that is the most attactive theme that comes with the phone. The Cingular theme is functional and looks decent, but you could reasonably expect something a little flashier considering that they got everything else right with this phone.
  (2) This is reaching a bit, but it comes with a 128MB SD chip. Considering the multi-media functionality, this is grossly insufficient. I'm a bit of a purist, prefering a separate, higher quality camera rather than one integrated with my phone, but I realize an integrated camera+phone is attractive to a lot of people. Between photos and music, you'll eat up 128MB before you know what's happened.
  (3) Ring volume is a bit low. Out-of-the-box, the ring volume is a bit difficult to hear if you are in even a moderately noisy environment. I have not yet found a way to increase ring volume.
  (4) Difficult to see missed call indicator on external display. The dark external display with the blue clock is undoubtedly a cool feature of this phone, but as soon as the backlight times out, you have to activate the light to see a missed call. Not a big deal, but a bit annoying if you are used glancing at an external display to identify missed calls. Definitely not a show stopper.
  
  Notable:
  (1) As I pointed out, I use Macs, not Windows, so Windows Media is useless for me. If you manage your songs and photos in Windows, I suspect the built-in Windows Media functionality would be a big plus for you.
  (2) Outlook integration looks very nice. This phone is going to be great if you use Outlook and your e-mail is hosted on Exchange. I'm a bit jealous.
  
  Why not 5 stars? If it interfaced with a Mac out of the box, I would recommend it without hesitation. I totally understand the target market of the phone is a Windows-enabled corporate workforce and in that area they completely make the grade. Still, this is a review, right? It is all about perspective! Not to worry, third-party software fills this gap!

• 2) Life changer

  by J. B Kraft on October 29 2006
    30+ helpful votes

  I had an older Nokia cell phone, which was reliable but didn't have very much connectivity and the phone info was always becoming obsolete, and I had a PDA. I used the phone for emergencies, travel on business, and little else. I used the IPAQ PDA to keep up with calendar and appointments and to read ebooks, but it was bulky.
  
  The 3125 has changed my life, and makes more information available constantly than I would have believed possible. It is also a great device to use "one-handed" when you are carrying something in the other.
  
  I've owned mine a week, and it has already dramatically changed how I use my cell phone. I now tend to use it in preference to my home "land line", and its light weight and great design make it easy to keep with me constantly.
  
  This is well on the way to replacing both the phone and the PDA. First of all it is a Windows Mobile 5 implementation(and most importantly from my perspective), you can can quickly synchronize seamlessly with your Outlook 2003 contacts, calendar, and tasks. I doesn't seem you can edit a task, but everything else is wonderful. You don't have to buy any special software or adapter, and this phone recharges from the USB connector.
  
  Voice quality is much improved over my previous cell phone, and also reception in marginal area. I have the Cingular Internet Service (Edge Network), and it amazes me that it is readily available anywhere I've been--even when the signal has been weak. It won't ever be my preferred mode of surfing the web, but to find a business or restaurant or quick map in a strange city is quick and easy.
  
  Here's the other key feature for me that was a wonderful surprise -- the keypad. First of all, I have large fingers, and blew off the Blackberry and new IPAQ phones once I handled them because the keys were just too small. I didn't even love the numeric keypads of most cellphones. However, these keys are flat, large, and give good tactile feedback. You know when you press them, and you don't do it accidentally. The T9 method of text entry is surprisingly easy to master and fairly fast, so you don't miss either a keyboard for limited typing or a stylus. The directional selector that substitutes for a mouse is similarly quick and effective to use.
  The small screen means I won't be reading Ebooks on it, but otherwise, I have found the visibility to be very good except in extremely bright direct sunlight. Also, I selected "large fonts" in the setup, and find I can read the "contacts" and similar information WITHOUT my glasses. What a pleasure that is. The bluetooth implementation is also good.
  
  All in all, I have found this to be a really great design. I have a lot of gadgets, but there are very few which have impressed me as much after living with them.
  

• 3) awesome phone and organizer for a busy life

  by Mark H. Webster on December 03 2006
    10+ helpful votes

  Great phone! I've had it for 3 weeks and have no complaints. I've been living without a cell phone for a couple years before I bought this one. My wife and I were sharing a Motorola E815, but she usually carried it. On the few days when I did carry the Motorola, my pockets were overloaded because I also carry a Palm Tungsten E2, from which I manage my appointments and track my tasks (to-do list). My Palm also allowed me to play free, downloadable talking books from the library using pocket tunes.
  
  I was attracted to this Cingular 3125 because it combines the ability of the Palm (sync with Microsoft outlook, play talking books and window media files) with a phone. The 3125 is very small and flat, in comparison to carrying my palm and the Motorola. It fits in the pocket very easily, and I carried it that way for a while until I found a nice generic case at compusa that fits on my belt. It's the "foneGear #00409" model.
  
  Battery life is very impressive. I charge it on the weekends and it runs all week, though I do turn it off at night. As a teacher, I consider cell phones intrusive. Because I'd rather talk to people around me face to face, than talk through an electronic device, I only make/receive about 3 calls a day, and I didn't buy the data package. Getting this phone without the data package took some doing. Everyone, including the cingular stores, cingular online and even Amazon wanted to force me to buy the phone with the data package. This means it would have been $40 a month for the line, and an extra $20 to $40 a month for the data package, for a total of around $80 a month. For a guy who was living on a limited teacher salary, and was used to no cell phone at all, that was unacceptable.
  
  I work on computers for a living, and I pack my laptop around, so there was no need for the stupid data package. Finally, I found an online store that would allow me to buy just the phone for $150 (no rebates involved), as long as I agreed to a 2 year plan at $40 a month. They are a large national brick and mortar store, think: "bb".
  
  The phone is very well put together from an engineering standpoint. The hinge is tight, all the buttons work, it's a very understated design, all black, and that suits me fine. The camera works, but it's nothing to write home about. I have a digital rebel xt if I need to take serious pictures. As others have mentioned, the screen quality is excellent. I'm new to windows mobile, coming from the palm operating system, but so far I'm very impressed. I love the ability to explore the operating system, just like it was a flash drive when it's tethered to my laptop. I couldn't do that with my Palm as it has a bizarre folder structure. Windows Mobile also has a very cool feature wherein it remembers what functions you've use recently and presents you with those icons on the "desktop", just like my laptop does off the start button. It also works as a modem for my laptop, something Verizon had disabled on our Motorola.
  
  I thought I would miss the ease of text entry coming from my Palm, but the t9 text entry system on the 3125 is amazing and very fast. Another nice function is that when you start entering numbers to dial a call, it jumps into your contacts and call history and makes educated t9 guesses at who you are trying to call, searching both numbers and names simultaneously.
  
  The only software I've added so far is the Papyrus software which improves on Mobile Outlook and allows me to more precisely set alarms on appointments and tasks. I also bought Facade, but uninstalled it as it seemed unnecessary. Windows Mobile has an excellent system of setting up sound profiles such as silent mode, and normal mode. Everything is customizable regarding whether it vibrates and rings, or vibrates, then rings, and whether or not an appointment alarm will ring, vibrate, both or neither. I was also easily able to copy in an mp3 file from my laptop to use as my custom ring tone. It's simply drag and drop with windows explorer from the laptop.
  
  As I did not buy the data package, I can't comment on all the fancy connectivity stuff like doing live email and internet surfing on the phone. If I need to, I can do that stuff through the "pay for use" option, or "pay by the minute" as it's called. I got online once that way and it worked, but seemed pretty slow. The phone has a decent onboard antenna. I live way out in the country on a peninsula in Puget Sound and cell phone coverage can be very spotty here. Verizon has the best coverage out here, but they don't sell this phone, and they have a reputation for dumbing down their phones capabilities so you have to buy more stuff directly from them. I'm happy to report that my 3125 does work here at the house, if a little spotty, so it must have an above average antenna. It works perfectly in Tacoma, even inside my office, which has no windows and is buried in a concrete building.
  
  I bought a 1 gig micro sd card locally for $60 and now have my music collection on the phone. You definitely don't want to be swapping cards a lot as it's fairly scary accessing the slot. When you slide the cover off the phone, note that the Sim card slides out to the left out from under the metal band, they don't tell you that... I guess you're supposed to be able to figure that out but I was afraid I'd break something on my brand new phone. To access the micro sd card holder, stick your fingernail under the top of the metal holder and lift gently. It hinges at the bottom, though it's not obvious unless you use a magnifying glass.
  
  All in all I couldn't be happier with my new toy. If this changes, I'll update this post as time goes on.
  

• 4) Great smartphone with a couple of minor quirks

  by E. Calimag on December 24 2006
    10+ helpful votes

  I have used smartphones over the past few years, including the Palm 650, Motorola mpx220 (a predecesor flip smartphone), IMate Jam, and the Cingular 8125. Now I have the 3125 with which I am very pleased. My contract was up and it was time for a new gadget, so I decided to go back to a flip smartphone. I loved the 8125 for its QWERTY keyboard, and other smartphone/PocketPC functions, but I found it to be too bulky. The 3125 is a great alternative and different from the ubiquitous RAZR.
  
  This is my primary phone (no land line here), so my first prerequisite is that it functions well as a phone. Sometimes when companies try to pack too much functionality into a phone, its the call quality that tends to suffer. I live in the Metro DC area and have been generally pleased with radio reception, clarity, and battery life. I conduct regular 1+ hr conference calls on this phone using a Cardo Scala 700 bluetooth handsfree, and have had no complaints from other attendees of poor call quality. There have been occasions where I've placed or received phone calls that start out as "squawky", and I've had to either call back, or the other party calls me back. Then everything is fine. I don't know if this is attributed to the phone or to the network, as my friends using different phones have experienced the same thing on Cingular. Lately, I have not experienced this problem at all.
  
  I haven't fully maxed out the battery life. The phone charges via USB. I work with a laptop, so I tend to have the phone synced via USB most of the time if its just laying around.
  
  I haven't used the Windows Media Player for this phone, so I cannot speak to that (it just eats battery life anyways.) The unit does come with a stereo earbuds.
  
  I like MS smartphones in general because they sync seamlessly with my Outlook (upon which I'm heavily dependent.) I find it so much easier to manage my contacts/calendar/tasks via Outlook and to sync/carry the info around on my phone. I've tried other phones which require proprietary software to interface with Outlook. It can be a pain to manage. So much simpler to just sync via ActiveSync.
  
  I do use the web-browsing functionality to check my work email via the phone's Internet Explorer with no probs. Google has a nice Java midlet that lets you access your GMail without having to go through either the Cingular XPressMail program or through the smartphone's MS Outlook.
  
  Having gone from the 8125 to this phone, I quickly embraced T9 texting (since there's no QWERTY.) I found the transition from QWERTY to T9 to be fine.
  
  The camera delivers pictures that are very clear and crisp. No complaints there. Its a camera phone, so I don't rely on it as a primary camera. It serves well to capture those random moments in your life. You can access the pictures by connecting your phone to your computer and using ActiveSync to browse the phone folders.
  
  I gave this phone only 4/5 stars because of the following:
  
  Quirk 1: The phone syncs/charges via USB cable, but the end that attaches to the phone is not your standard USB device connection. It is proprietary to this phone. With the IMate Jam and the 8125, you can sync/charge using a standard USB cable (the same one that you may use for your mp3 player, camera, or other USB devices.) Its just mildly annoying because its just one more cable amidst the existing sea of cables. I don't know why HTC took this step backwards.
  
  Quirk 2: This phone does NOT support the MS Outlook Notes function! There is a function on the phone to create voice notes. You cannot create notes on your desktop Outlook and then sync them over to your phone. This is very annoying because I used this function quite a lot with my 8125. I use it for shopping lists and other silly reminders. My work around this is to create notes under the TASK function. Not very pretty.
  
  All in all... a great phone despite the above minor shortcomings.

• 5) Functionality Outweighs the Flaws

  by Dr on January 25 2007
    10+ helpful votes

  I've owned this phone for a few months now and I am overall very pleased. The reception is decent, as good or better than any other Cingular phone I've been next to. Voice quality is also above average, while the speakerphone is a bit garbled and I always wish it could get a bit louder. My logitech bluetooth headset syncs and works everytime, and the camera is also passable for a phone. The inner display is crisp and the outer display is very attractive. The outer buttons can be keylocked to avoid accidental music, and serve as soft keys for other functions besides music (incoming calls, alarm, etc).
  
  With those basics out of the way, really the best thing I like about this phone is windows media player. I've outfitted mine with a 2gb microSD card and Logitech bluetooth headphones and it works flawlessly. I've put 800+ songs on the card through the windows media player sync on my Windows XP computer. The headphones sync every time and I can use the headphone controls without taking the phone out of my pocket. The music will pause for calls and resume at call end. I also like that the phone will handle audiobooks from my library with its Windows Media Player DRM capabilities. I haven't used the phone for video, but if I did, I would be sure to sync it though my computer's WMP to give the best chance of a playable video.
  
  On the downside, the phone is a bit slow switching between applications. Also, Windows Mobile does not overwhelm the consumer with useful applications. It's missing a countdown timer, digital wallet, and the alarm clock is very basic and buried in submenus. Luckily there are plenty of third party applications if you want to pay. As far as free applications go, I highly recommend GMail, Google Maps, and Opera Mini.
  
  Overall, I am very impressed with the phone mostly for it's style, screens, and solid music capabilities. There's a few things missing, but it makes up for it by giving me more than I thought to expect from a phone.