I recently received a new Pocket PC phone as a Christmas present. My previous phone, a Nokia 6820 was starting to annoy me due to the small screen size and the slow data connection speed. GPRS/EDGE on a small screen just wasn't cutinng it for me. However, the best feature of my old phone was the flip-out keyboard, and I knew that any future phone I'd get would need to have a keyboard. I don't send text messages on my phone very often, but I do like to be able to read and respond to email. I've always been a gadget freak, and have owned several PDAs over the years (both Pocket PC and Palm). Although people have been clamoring for the deathof PDAs and the reign of convergent devices, most of the devices that combine PDA and phone functionality seem to have been pretty horrible for one or both purposes. I had reservations about the Cingular 8525, but I'm glad to say I've been pretty happy so far...
The 8525 is a little chunky, and I'd never carry it in anything other than a coat pocket or a belt holster. That said, it's not much bigger than my old phone. The battery life isn't nearly as good as a dedicated cell phone, but I guess it is to be expected since the 8525 has a nicely sized touchscreen and supports GPRS, EDGE, and UTMS (high speed data). I leave the data connection on all the time, and I can get a full day's use out of the phone without exhausting the battery. If I use the data connection heavily, or have long phone conversations I'm usually forced to charge it in the car on my way home. The keyboard is excellent -- even better than that of my old Nokia 6820. Windows Mobile 5 is a bit better than the previous version of the OS, but Microsoft still has a long way to go on interface design for mobile devices. While it's not too hard to teach yourself tricks to effectively use a PDA, when the device is also your phone it constantly reminds you just how unintuitive the interface is. Most of the missing features and general annoyances can be alleviated by third-party software. And thankfully, most of this software is free. It seems to drop calls less frequently than my old phone. As a PDA, it's very functional but I find myself yearning for the higher resolution display of my old Tapwave Zodiac, the better gaming controls of the Zodiac or my old ASUS A620BT. Overall though, I think it's a decent compromise considering the amount of functionality this little device has.
For a detailed review with more information and pictures, see: Cingular 8525 / HTC TyTN Reviewed by MobileTechReview