Word: cingular
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November has been a busy month for Cingular, which launched the Sync music phone and BlackJack Windows Mobile smartphone, both by Samsung, and then the eagerly awaited Palm Treo 680. My original intention was to review the Treo 680, but I decided there just isn't enough to say about it: it's no slimmer than its predecessors, and Cingular will have to pack better, user-friendly e-mail software into it if it's going to attract non-corporate types, or indeed anybody but Palm customers in search of a replacement to their Treo...
...glitzy marketing campaign ("compact 3G PDA that can do it all"), just remember that it still runs on the cumbersome, unresponsive Windows Mobile platform. Many Windows Mobile devices have crossed my path of late, and none of them have been worth discussing at length. No, the smarter of Cingular's offerings tend to leave me dumb. It's the Sync, a jam-packed regular phone, that has held my attention. It's not perfect, but it is the key to Cingular's next wave of phones-phones I'm quite optimistic about...
...Sync, aka Samsung SGH-a707, is pretty much RAZR slim. It's got a respectable talk-time battery life of up to four hours and a gorgeous, 2.5-in. LCD screen. Since it connects to Cingular's new highspeed data network, it can download files at broadband speed. Although the network is key to much of Cingular's ambitions, it is not required to access music, however. The Sync is so-named because you load music from your PC. Any MP3 or unprotected WMA files will transfer, but so will subscription downloads from Rhapsody, Napster, AOL and MTV Urge...
...littered with MP3 players. Nearly every MP3 player that's not an iPod can connect to a monthly subscription service: any new flash player from Samsung, iriver, SanDisk or Creative will synch with Napster, RealNetworks' Rhapsody, Yahoo's Y! Unlimited or MTV Urge. In fact, even Samsung's newest Cingular phone, appropriately dubbed the Sync, can do this...
...More importantly, even though the phone physically uses the Sprint network, GreatCall is the operator. If you buy your mother this phone, you won?t get free in-network calling from your carrier, not just Verizon, T-Mobile and Cingular, but even Sprint. The clear message here is that these phones aren?t for gabbers?they?re for people who are worried that their parents don?t have any means to communicate, in case of emergency or just in case. I just don?t know how many people would entrust their elderly parents? safety to a cell-phone carrier that...