compare mpx220 to Cingular (HTC) 2125

[Guest Julie U]

Has anyone used both the Motorola MPX220 and the Cingular (HTC Faraday) 2125? I currently have the MPX220 but the power button is breaking and I think they will replace it with the Cingular 2125. Despite a few startup problems with the 220 I now have it just how I want it and it works great for my needs - mostly Outlook/tasks/notes sync, meeting reminders, good phone, bluetooth and occasional Internet exploring (all in a small package). This was also my first flip phone which I now prefer but I can probably get used to going back to non flip.

If anyone has used both - how does the 2125 compare? Also do enough of the good apps come in Win Mobile 5 yet?

Thanks for any thoughts or advice.

[Guest jenya]

Well lets start with the speed, your going from GPRS to EDGE so faster browsing and downloads. Also the 2125 has amazing coverage, I used to own the smt5600 and the difference is very visible. WM5 in general just load balances towers soo much better than WM2003 SE... I don't know how good your batterly life was on the mpx220, but the 2125 seems to have weaker battery life than my smt5600 did. I would say you get 2 full days out of it. I activesync my email, calander, contacts, and I have Goodlink running it. Also I run Newsbreak which polls for rss feeds every hour. I play a ton of mortal kombat on it as well as listen to music when im on the metro.

Apps that I use daily are:

-Opera (until Thunderhawk comes out)

-Newsbreak

-Picodrive (Sega Emulator)

-PocketSNES (SNES Emulator)

-Gridon (cab file to turn the grid mode off so your start menu is in list format)

-Shozu (cool app to upload your photos to webshots right after you take them)

Theres a ton more that i'm sure people will post... I personally cant wait untill the HTC Startrek (i-mate smartflip)... I desperately want to go back to flip phones, I dislike candybar, and how the screen can get scratched and dusty...

[Guest Julie U]

Thanks for the response! I like the speed and coverage comments. I wasn't that impressed with the 220's battery life so I'll have to see if it's a problem on the 2125. It seems like a few folks have had some startup problems with the 2125 (not unlike the mpx 220) with freezes.

Anyone know if there is a rom upgrade planned for some initial fixes?

Also is there a rough guess on the imate flip phone version release date?

Also are the biz apps available on WM5 or are they lagging?

Thanks!

[Guest jenya]

my 2125 has never frozen during start up... And what type of business apps are you looking for?

In regards to release I heard rumors of end of Q2 or early Q3, but I could be off. i-mate tends to release with T-mobile stateside so i'm not even sure if cingular will carry it. I sure hope they do... I've been saying for like a year now that a smartphone in the body of a RAZR would just be brilliant... so this is like a wish come true for me (as long as cingular carries it)

Edited February 28, 2006 by jenya

[Guest Julie U]

Thanks for the reply.

I agree with you on the smartphone in a RAZR body!!

Apps I use: phat notes, oxio todo list, pharos traffic, lextionary, sprite backup, Airscanner AV, battery pack pro, ClearVue documents

I guess I just need to check all their web sites - I wonder if they do an upgrade or if I just have to repurchase...

By the way Cingular/Motorola refused to replace my phone even though the it's been less than a year and the power button is breaking. They 'gave' me the option to buy a new one - gee thanks!

[Guest MadSci]

Thanks for the reply.

I agree with you on the smartphone in a RAZR body!!

Apps I use: phat notes, oxio todo list, pharos traffic, lextionary, sprite backup, Airscanner AV,  battery pack pro, ClearVue documents

I guess I just need to check all their web sites - I wonder if they do an upgrade or if I just have to repurchase...

By the way Cingular/Motorola refused to replace my phone even though the it's been less than a year and the power button is breaking. They 'gave' me the option to buy a new one - gee thanks!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't hesitate, jump to the 2125 NOW!

I loved my MPx220 - when it worked. :?:

In 1 year +8 days I've had 3 of them. The last one broke a week after the 1 yr warranty and there was no way I was going to pay for another one. :evil:

It was a great phone, in concept. But the build quality was poor,and the system unstable. If it weren't for Sprite Back up it wouldn't have been possible to use it at all!

While my phne was being replaced the second time, I bought an SM5600 on ebay. I liked it's relative stability, and at many tasks it was faster than the MPx220. But it still wasn't as cool, so I went back to the MPx when I got a replacement.

Just got a 2125 2 weeks ago, and WOW!! I'm on Cingular so the data speed with EDGE is amazing compared to GSM. Frankly, I found the MPx220 and SMT5600 nearly useless for browsing. By the time a page had loaded, I had moved on to something else to do. With EDGE, it's much, much faster and I get much more use out of it.

Like you, most of my needs are professional. I have 2400+ Contacts in my database, and the 2125 is the first phone to be able to handle a database this size and still deliver custom ringones and photoID as promised. No comparison to the MPx220 that stalled out or stuttered most of the time. :oops:

The larger memory on the 2125 makes loading multiple Apps much less problematic, and the phone needs far fewer resets to clear out the memory leaks etc. There just seems to be adequate memory 'headroom' for the OS for the first time in a Smartphone. Remember how amazed you were at Win XP, after suffering with Win 5.1, then 95 (and if you were particularly cursed, the dreaded 'Milennium'), well WM50 on the 2125 is like XP vs 3.1 In theory, both can do the same job, but in reality, one is stable and reasonably transparent, the other is buggy, unstable and prone to crashing. It's the same with the 220 vs the 2125.

I am running Papyrus and Smartphone Notes, both of which have a WM50 version that is stable and fast. I use City time Alarms to wake me up every morning, Fizz Weather to tell me the climate I'm heading into. Facade customizes my home screen to present my scedule and Tasks data on the homescreen in a highly functional manner. Newsbreak, with about 20 odd channels keeps me in the picture. Taffic Edge keeps me out of traffic jams, Tranquilizer replaces my white noise-surf sound generator when I'm on the road trying to sleep. Oxios CloseApps keeps memory leaks from being a pest and XBar3 does, well all that it does.

It's a great tool for a busy and demanding professional. I've not played more than a couple of rounds of atomic cannon. so it's gaming value is still not clear to me. I listen to music on my iPod, so the lack of sterio speakers isn't a bother.

I sync my phone with both my Work and Home PC, and download my email from my personal IMAP account directly to the phone every 15 minutes. I had a few problems with ActiveSync, and still have to this day, although not enough to kill it's functionality. Based on a few threads here at MoDaCo, I've gotten steers to info that will probably fix the issues.

Oh, did I mention the screen? Fabulous! Here's hoping it doesn't fill with dust like some of the early 5600's did. I've got middle aged eyes and the MPx220 screen was beginning to get blurry, particularly if I was looking at a lot of schedule information. The 2125 is so much clearer that I can read it all without my glasses.

So, IMHO, the 2125 is the phone that Moto claimed the MPx200, the then MPx220 would be. Based on the build feel and the experience with the 5600, it should be more physically reliable than the Moto's were as well.

Don't wast your $ on another MPx220, grab the 2125 now and start using your phone the way you always wanted to. ;)

[Guest Julie U]

Wow! Thanks for the info. It sounds like you use your phone in alot of the same ways I do although I've used a few different programs. I have loved the 220 but been frustrated at the same time since it's so close to what I want. I also have the middle-aged eyes problem so look forward to clearer visibility.

If I wait two more weeks I am able to purchase 2125 as an upgrade at Cingular which I think saves me $100 including the rebate. So I am definitely going to purchase as soon as I'm eligible. My hubby has gotten freaked over how often I buy new phones but he finally admitted how hard I work mine and has given me free reign to purchase when I need to.

Thanks for listing your apps - that's really helpful since you have biz use too and you listed a few I haven't tried. I use a white noise generator at home so I'll definitely try Tranquilizer for travel. I just recently got homescreen to give me a better screen layout but I'll try facade instead. I've had decent luck with pharos traffic but thought I would try Traffic Edge. I downloaded the trial of Edge and while the map was ok I could never get the photo shots of any of the intersections to work - I always got unavailable. Of course after recent downloads of Edge, homescreen, and a trial of opera I now get notice that I'm out of memory for running apps - so the improved memory on 2125 will also be appreciated.

Thanks much for the detailed info and testimonial!!