Review of Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard)

If you are looking at getting a mobile phone capable of running some of the genealogy software that’s available for handhelds, you might want to read this review (mobiletechreview.com) of the Cingular 8125 aka HTC Wizard (available from T-Mobile under a different name I believe). It’s a Windows Mobile 5.0 device, and Northern Hills Software indicates that Pocket Genealogist will run on it.

One of the nice features and one of the reasons it will handle genealogy software made for Windows Mobile/PocketPC devices – it has a stylus. More importantly, it has a slide-out keyboard, which even though it’s small, beats using a stylus for inputing or searching for names. It doesn’t have the fastest of CPUs (195MHz), but hey, it’s a phone.

It also has a 1.3MP camera with a flash for those times when you need to take a quick snapshot (and there is software available and/or being developed that is made to do OCR (optical character recognition) from camera phone shots).

Did I mention it has WiFi available? Beats using your normal service for downloading web pages, email, etc., when you have WiFi access available (ala a library or research center).

A quick check shows it retails for around $350 USD.