So, I'd just like to post my experiences on getting one of the new 3G phones from Cingular. First off let me state I bought this phone for one reason, and one reason only. The 3G network! So, no flames about how the phone sucks, drops calls, etc. I could give a toss. And I'm sure everyone's milage will vary. But these are my experiences based on using the phone in a very small area so far (Cupertino CA).

I picked up the phone from Cingular and after some serious googling was able to find the settings to put into the 770 for tethering. Soon enough the phone displayed some nice 'connecting' text and a nifty icon of a laptop and a globe. Then I was on!

Thus far I haven't done any speed testing with the Nokia itself but I did tether the phone to a laptop and got a pretty decent speed of around 384k coming down.

What I have done on the nokia is try some ssh sessions, and some streaming audio. One of my favorite streaming sites is BassDrive (bassdrive.com) so its in my favorites list. So, after tethering I clicked on 'play' on the nokia and started streaming the 128k stream...and it was beautiful! So, to further test it I plugged in some headphones to the nokia. Put the phone in one pocket, and the nokia in the other and rode my bike down to the bank, over to the park and back home. The music streamed the whole time!! I stopped at the park for awhile. Left the audio streaming and opened up a ssh session to a server and did a little bit of admin work. The ssh was just a tad bit sluggish at times, but nothing really all that bad, and not something that would really impede my work, even if something was critical and needed to be done in a hurry.

So, thus far the phone is great. The battery life isn't so good. But I plan on getting a second battery. The phone would have to suck really bad for me to get rid of it and the added speed I have now. Something like maybe shocking me once an hour when it was in my pocket. I live online, so to have something that can roam with me and provide high speed access is my number one goal. Short of the phone exploding and toasting my short and curlies, its not going back.

Should you buy this phone? I dunno, do you have to be hyper connected like I am? Do you want to be able to stream or access almost everything no matter where you are? Keep in mind that I have an unlimited data plan on my phone, I use it that much! I've had unlimited data on my phone for about 2 years now and never run out of minutes on my phone. So that should give an idea of what I use it for.
The phone also supports EDGE and then down to regular GSM so I imagine I'll be covered no matter where I go.

Thats about it. I don't have any good summary other than I'm very pleased to have this kind of high speed, mobile access that I can carry with me anywhere!

So far the CU500 is the best cell I’ve ever owned! It has been a very good compliment to my N770.

Actually, I owe the following speed info. to another thread – sorry…

To my knowledge we don’t have 3G in the Los Angeles area (yet), but I’ll be testing 3G speeds in Houston next week. Getting 384k would be sweet compared to my current speeds. I got the following results with the CU500 and N770 on Cingular’s Edge network using www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest:

1. 164k
apn - wap.cingular
username - wap@cingulargprs.com
pass – cingular1

2. 186k
apn - isp.cingular
username - isp@cingulargprs.com
pass – cingular1

3. 142k
apn - isp.cingular
username - ispda@cingulargprs.com
pass – cingular1

(Note: The “da” is one of Cingular’s legacy options and stands for data acceleration. NOT???)

I totally forgot about this site. I used to use it a lot but I found it to be a bit iffy sometimes. I just tried it and ran a few times. I selected 3G as my connection for the test.

First: 552 kbps
Second: 220 kbps
Third: 516 kbps

I have noticed that it seems to have DNS issues, and sometimes takes a really long time to finish loading the page. I might post about this somewhere else if it starts bothering me

Thats the one I use as well. I found the others but they never seemed to work for me. The isp@cingular just gave me an error. Who knows. I guess it would be nice to find that info published somewhere but I'm sure its not something they want the average consumer toying with!

3G Update (Houston, TX);
www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest: 476 - 572k
www.dslreport.com/mspeed: 416 - 428k (1 MB file)

Yeah. Its fast!

hi. i saw that cingular has this phone but the only data option available is the media max. i talked to the rep and she stated that this option is not allowed to tether. she said that the only plans that are allowed to tether are the data plans for phone/pda. ideas?

call cingular tech support and tell them you need the isp profile activated as well as the wap-they should do it. then configure your phone for an additional data acct for the isp.cingular and it should work

thanks all, this may be the phone i plan on getting!


ElGatoFlojo, did you have to do any special tricks to get your tablet online?

thanks

If you have Cingular phone service, then there is only one phone that will get you the maximum speed when connected to your nokia 770/n800 both now and in the near future when Cingular increases it's 3G data speed later this year. That phone is the Motorola Razr V3xx. Forget about the CU500, V3xx blows it away. Anyways if you do not like Razr styling then wait a little while longer and get the CU500v ("v" for video) which will be coming out soon for Cingular. It will be much much faster than the CU500 and possible compete with the V3xx when Cingular makes the 3G speed jump.

hey bnk1999, why is Razr V3xx faster? dont they both have the bluetooth 2.0?

i see, the v3xx has the 3.6 hspda....but bluetooth has limit of 2.1 data transfer. hmmmmm