it's a great little phone. here's my take on it after having it for almost a week.
on the physical design - the bulge that is on the top to accomodate an antenna that makes it a quad-band phone is a little annoying. they also added a spot to loop a phone strap through on the bottom. the lack of a spot for a phone strap was a huge complaint of mine with the audiovox. i was pleased to see that it still uses the minisd cards.
on windows mobile 2003 vs windows mobile 5.0 - the phone has the same speed processor as the audiovox smt5600 (HTC typhoon) but the introduction of windows mobile 5.0 makes it feel different/faster. i miss the list layout on 2003 versus the big icons in 5.0. i like how there is now a clock that appears on the lock screen.
on the new display - the smt5600 had a nice display for a phone, but the 2125 is just beautiful. i've got a PDA screen protector on it to keep it from getting scratched, so that takes away some of the beauty, but i'd rather lose a bit of the brilliance than a majorly scratched display.
on EDGE vs GPRS - it is faster, but i don't think that i would upgrade just based on that fact. it doesn't seem to find pages any faster, but it does seem to load them faster.
on the supposed inclusion of mobile version of microsoft apps - when i read that, i thought it was supposed to be the addition of pocket word and pocket excel. the demo phone in the store didn't have it on it (unlike the pocketpc models that are pre-installed), i thought it might be on the included cd. well, clearvue is on the cd, but i would hardly call that a mobile version of microsoft apps.
when i got it, there was a $100 mail-in rebate, so it made it a pretty good deal (except for getting tied in to a new 2-year contract). cingular has a $150 ETF, so getting the phone for a lower price plus a rebate plus paying an ETF if necessary would still make it less expensive than if i had to pay full retail for the phone (approx $399). if you're in the market for a new phone, especially a smartphone, i would really recommend it. it's a nice device that is jam packed with great features and still manages to be small.
