Cingular 3125

Cell phones, the greatest invention ever or the bane of society, depending on how you look at it. I'm more in the first category, although when I hear someone yacking away on a bus or plane, it grates my nerves a bit. (Do I really care if your budget sheet needs to be done by tomorrow or your sales department didn't make its numbers this month? No.)

Anyway, as far as cell phones go, I am a big fan of the emailing, IM'ing, picture taking kind. My parents benefit greatly as I take a lot of pictures and short videos clips of my son and then send them via email from the phone. They love opening them and getting that small glimpse into our daily lives. So an opportunity presented itself when I recently lost my cell phone. Admittedly, I relished in the comfort of being completely alone for about a week (ha, no one could call me!). But then I came to my senses and decided to get serious about shopping for a new phone.

I own a mac, so wanted to get a device that would sync with macs. I did a little Internet research and found a list of acceptable phones here on the Mac site. Then I tried to order a phone online at the Cingular site. I didn't know what I was in for. Talk about bulky, slow-to-load and hard to navigate. Run away from this site.

My next step was a visit to the Cingular store in my neighborhood. With the Mac compatible list in hand, I was able to review the phones and look for the features I wanted. Unfortunately, the phones I liked that worked with Macs were all around $500. I decided I needed to redo my thinking and settled on the Cingular 3125.

The Cingular 3125 is a smart phone, which means it is phone first and provides extra features such as email, chat, etc. Click here for an in-depth review at CNET. For the money and the extra rebate Cingular is now offering with the phone, it is cheaper and seems to be one of the most portable business phones out there. It retails at around $300 but rebates and longer contract plans can lower this cost quite a bit. Check out the Cingular site for specials.