Two weeks ago my wife's Sony Ericson 525 experienced the white screen of death.  This is actually the second 525 that she has owned that experienced this issue.  It is definitely a hardware issue with the wires in the head of the phone becoming disconnected when the phone is completely open.  If you open the phone slowly and leave the head directly at a 45 degree angle to the base then you can use the phone, if you have skinny fingers. 

I decided that this would be a good time for me to upgrade my phone and give her my old phone.  My old phone is a Sony 520a, which is basically the same model as she has, except for the fact that the 520a is built stronger, as I have had mine for over a year without issues.

I looked on the att.com website for a replacement phone, but the cheapest one I could find was $170, which is more than the phone being sold was really worth to me.  So instead of paying more than I need to for a phone from att I decided to investigate ebay.  To my surprise you can actually get excellent quality blackberry phones for around $50.  However, I decided that wifi was important, as well as a flip-out keyboard.  This landed me on the cingular 8125, which goes for around $200 for a newish one on ebay.  I ended up on a slightly used 8125 with a gig memory card that was in excellent condition for $180.  The seller got it to me in 3 days, which was even more impressive :)

So far I really do enjoy the 8125, it works with my wifi at home (read this post for help on setting up wifi).  It also works with activesync, so I can sync my contacts and calendar if I want, as well as files and email.  The other really nice thing for me is that it has flip-out keyboard that is actually very large.

It also ships already setup for gmail support, so it was super easy to get it working with my gmail account.

Recently I did install Yahoo Go!, which is a great way to read the news and know what the local weather is going to be.  Also, I have installed OneNote onto it, which appears to work very much like the desktop version.

For me, the usefulness of this phone is very much like the usefulness of an iPhone for me.  Except that it cost less than half what an iPhone costs.  Another big difference is that my phone has 1128mb of memory, while an iPhone can have 8gigs.  However, another big difference is that the 8125 has a flip out keyboard in addition to the onscreen keyboard, which I really do like, while the iPhone only has an onscreen keyboard.  One other difference is that the cingular 8125 is quad band and allows you to insert a SIM card for different carriers, without bricking your phone.

The sad thing for me to realize is how this phone actually came out a couple of years ago and that the innovation in the iPhone is minimal compared to what I can do with the 8125.  It is really sad to be able to compare this old thing with an iPhone.  Granted, I am looking at the iPhone as an outsider, and I am sure you can do some really cool things with it that I am unaware of.  But as far as what I am using the phone for, I think that the differences are surprisingly small.

One other thing that I have noticed is that the battery in the 8125 is better than was described in reviews.  I am able to surf the web and play music and still not see my battery drain.  In fact, I have been talking on it for a couple of days and using it online and it still has a full charge, without me even plugging it in.

So if you are looking for a good phone for under 200 dollars that is like a PDA, camera, and phone rolled into one I would recommend the 8125.