As far as being a “phone” goes, the 3125 is a winner. At less than 3.5 ounces, its form-factor falls in line with the current slim flips on the market. Its internal full-color screen boasts a 240×320 resolution, fairly high for such a small screen. This makes text and photos look sharp while maintaining legibility. The outside, secondary screen sports an impressive 128×128 resolution, and as a display for the built-in MP3 player, it functions beautifully.

In addition, the external playback control buttons work nicely with the likewise external volume control making it easy to get to the songs you want to quickly. Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, it plays via the external speaker (which, sadly, sounds like crap) or via the included earbuds. These earbuds, unfortunately, are proprietary, as the phone only has one I/O port that handles data transfer, charging, and audio functions.

Windows Mobile 5: Smartphone Edition, the slim flip gives you direct access to your Exchange mail, calendar, (and pretty much anything else you’re running on there), POP email, web browsing, MSN Messenger, and other third-party apps you’d care to load up. There’s no touchscreen, but our Guinea Pig Hilary, who’d never handled a Windows Mobile smartphone before, was able to get around and do everything she wanted to, thanks to the well-engineered buttons at the top of the T9 keypad.

casual smartphone user looking for the connectivity aspects more than the full-on “smart” features, it’s as good a choice as any for the price.

Cingular 3125 [Product Page]