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New review: Mozilla Thunderbird for Mac

The Mozilla folks always think of Mac users. I've already extolled the virtues of Mozilla Firefox in the past and I still think it's a great browser even when up against Apple's Safari. Mozilla's other Mac browser, Camino, is like a slimmed-down model built from the ground up using native Mac OS X technologies and toolkits. But I'm not here to talk about browsers. The Mozilla folks have another great product for Mac that just got an update.

Mozilla Thunderbird is a full-featured e-mail client that puts almost all others in the category to shame. While I wouldn't say that you should toss out Apple's Mail client just yet, I would definitely suggest downloading Thunderbird to give it your once-over. Some added features of this nimble yet powerful e-mailer might make you consider doing things the Mozilla way. Check out our latest reviews of the Mozilla Thunderbird Mac version and the Mozilla Thunderbird Windows version.

Opera Mini 4 is great on my HTC 8125 (review) with Windows Mobile 5.0."

Reviewed on 2/28/06 T-Mobile has its MDA smart phone, and now Cingular has its 8125. The Cingular 8125 (a.k.a. HTC Wizard) is the latest Windows Mobile 5 device to join the carrier's smart-phone lineup, right behind the Cingular 2125. The quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) world phone comes with integrated Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and EDGE support. In addition, there's a full QWERTY keyboard hidden behind the slider design, and since it will be upgradable to Microsoft's Messaging and Security Feature Pack, you can receive your e-mail in real time with push technology. Unfortunately, with all these features, the phone is on the larger and heavier side. The mediocre call quality also leaves something to be desired. Still, for mobile professionals who need to get work done on the road, the 8125 provides all the tools to do so. Cingular will offer two versions: one equipped with a 1.3-megapixel camera and one without (the Cingular 8100). The Cingular 8125 is available now at a pricey $299.99 with a two-year contract.

Design of AT&T 8125

One glance at the Cingular 8125, and you pretty much know it means business. It's styled in no-nonsense gray and silver, and from the front, it looks like any old PDA, measuring 4.3 inches high and 2.3 inches wide. Unfortunately, the smart phone is on the thicker and heavier side (1 inch; 5.2 ounces), so it's definitely not the most travel-friendly device we've seen; on the bright side, though, Cingular includes a belt holster. Ladies, you may want to make some room in your purse. The 8125's size is an issue when you use it as a phone, plus the bigger form factor and the extra weight make it uncomfortable to use for long conversations. That said, the mobile is equipped with a speakerphone and Bluetooth, so you can take advantage of those technologies for hands-free calls.

Sitting front and center is the Cingular 8125's 2.8-inch-diagonal TFT screen with a 64,000-color output and a 320x240-pixel resolution. Overall, text and images were clear and defined, and the colors were bright and vibrant. We did notice, however, that the display had a tendency to hold a lot of smudges and fingerprints. As with the T-Mobile MDA, the shortcut keys to your in-box and the Web are above the screen, while two soft keys, the Talk and End buttons, and the navigation toggle are located below the display. The keys have a spacious layout, so you shouldn't have any problems using the phone. Although you can reassign the shortcut keys, we wish there were a dedicated shortcut key to the Today screen. As it is, you need the stylus to exit out of any apps and get back to your home screen, which deters one-handed use--something the Palm Treo 700w excelled at.

What lies beneath the Cingular 8125's screen is a beauty: a full QWERTY keyboard. To access it, just slide the face to the right. As with the T-Mobile MDA and the Sprint PPC-6700, the sliding mechanism isn't the smoothest, but it does snap into place with a satisfying click, and the screen automatically switches from portrait to landscape mode. The keyboard features large, tactile buttons, and as with the MDA, there are no dedicated numeral keys, so you have to hit the Function button first to input numbers or symbols. The backlighting is a bit faint, but it provides enough illumination for typing in darker environments.

On the Cingular 8125's left spine, you get a volume rocker and a one-touch button to open the Comm Manager, where you can turn on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ActiveSync, and vibrate mode. The right side has a voice-record button, an infrared port, a reset hole, and a camera-activation key. The 8125's camera lens is located on the back of the device, along with a flash and a small self-portrait mirror. In a nice move by HTC, the placement of the Capture button actually mimics the feel of a real digital camera to avoid any awkward hand placements when taking horizontal pictures.

Rounding out the Cingular 8125 are a 2.5mm headset jack, a mini USB/power port, and a stylus holder on the bottom of the handset. There's a Mini SD card-expansion slot on top, but unfortunately, a card isn't included. Cingular packages the smart phone with an AC charger, a wired stereo headset, a carrying case, and a USB cable.

Features of AT&T 8125

The Cingular 8125 is one of those everything-but-the-kitchen-sink smart phones, just packed to the gill with features. A 200MHz TI OMAP 850 processor, 128MB of SDRAM, and 64MB of ROM are the muscle, while Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5 operating system (Pocket PC edition) is the brains behind the device, offering improved mobile versions of Word, Excel, and the new PowerPoint presentation viewer. The ClearVue PDF viewer is also on board for those of you who need to view such files, as well as a zip utility, a task manager, and Download Agent.

Of course, a key functionality is e-mail, and the Cingular 8125 doesn't disappoint, with support for corporate and personal e-mail accounts. Outlook Mobile is included, and the smart phone works with Microsoft Exchange Server, GoodLink, Cingular Xpress Mail, and MSN Hotmail. Moreover, the 8125 will be upgradable to Microsoft's Messaging and Security Feature Pack when it's released later this year, so you can enjoy the advantages of push technology and receive messages in real time. Using the included USB cable, we connected our review unit to our PC, and all our Outlook e-mail, contacts, tasks, and appointments synced seamlessly with the device. Instant, text, and multimedia messaging are also all supported.

As far as voice features go, the Cingular 8125 is a quad-band world phone, so globe-trotting execs can use this mobile overseas while keeping the same phone number. The 8125's phone book is limited only by the available memory (the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts) and is quite robust. You can store up to 12 numbers for a single entry, as well as home and work addresses, e-mail, an IM screen name, a birthday, a spouse's name, and more. For caller-ID purposes, you can pair a contact with a photo, a caller group, or one of nine polyphonic ring tones. You also get a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, and voice dialing. As we mentioned earlier, the 8125 has integrated Bluetooth, so you can connect to headsets for hands-free chatting, but the wireless connections don't end there, as you get the full buffet of Wi-Fi (802.11b), infrared, and EDGE support.

Entertainment comes by way of Windows Media Player 10 Mobile. Once you're done wheelin' and dealin' on your Cingular 8125, you can use it to relax to your favorite MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC, and AMR music files; you also get album art, and WMP 10 Mobile is compatible with all PlaysForSure online stores. The smart phone handles MPEG-4 video streaming, and if you have TV shows recorded on your Media Center PC, you can transfer them to your device for on-the-go viewing. For those who want to make their own movies, the Cingular 8125 offers a 1.3-megapixel camera with video-recording capabilities. You can record clips with sound in MPEG-4 or Motion-JPEG AVI format, as well as in two sizes (128x96 or 176x144). There are a number of ambience settings and effects, ranging from Night and Incandescent to Sepia and Grayscale. You also get a 2X zoom, as well as options for a time and date stamp, a counter, and a self-timer. Many of these features are available for still pictures, in addition to four quality settings (SuperFine, Fine, Normal, and Basic) and a set of amusing picture frames. The 8125's 1.3-megapixel camera produces above-average pictures with bright colors, but keep in mind, camera phones are good for quick snapshots only and won't replace a good stand-alone digital camera. We do appreciate the fact that Cingular offers a cameraless version of the 8125, since more and more businesses are prohibiting the use of camera phones for security reasons.

Performance of AT&T 8125

We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) Cingular 8125 in the San Francisco area, and call quality was a mixed bag. On our end, callers sounded clear, and volume was plenty adequate, but our friends said we sounded far away; plus, they could definitely tell we were using a cell phone. The speakerphone, which can be activated only once you're on a call, was also mediocre. Conversations were a bit garbled, and we had to jack the volume to the highest level to hear our callers. On the upside, we had no problems pairing the 8125 with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset; audio quality was subpar, but this may have more to do with the headset than the actual phone.

Overall performance on the Cingular 8125 was decent. Response time was pretty quick, but there was definitely a noticeable lag when we had several apps open at the same time, as well as when we used the camera and the video recorder. We had no problems connecting to our Wi-Fi access point, and Web browsing was decent over the phone's GPRS/EDGE connection.

The Cingular 8125 is rated for 5 hours of talk time and up to seven days of standby time. However, like the latest crop of Window Mobile 5 handhelds, the 8125 has outstanding talk-time battery life, lasting 10 hours, 40 minutes before the low-battery notification flashed across the screen. We also had no problems reaching the promised standby time.

Rockbox sets your music free

If you have an MP3 player but--to put it mildly--think its operating system leaves a lot to be desired, there is a way to make that player rock out with Rockbox. Open-source and free, Rockbox is downloadable firmware for your MP3 player that represents a big leap for audiophiles who want to control how they use their portable devices.

It's important to note that Rockbox is not a plug-and-play piece of software. Although it's compatible with more than two dozen models, including most iPods, iRivers and Archos, it also comes with a lengthy installation and usage manual for a good reason: installing it and learning how it works can be complicated.

When I tested it, I used a fifth-generation iPod, the iPod Video, so any of the following notes pertain to that specific model. The installations and instructions are player-specific, so it's pretty hard to confuse one player's installation instructions with another's. Also, there's an auto-installer, but even the Rockbox publishers warn that it's wonky at best. My experience was that it was a bit more convoluted than the manual process and not worth the effort. And no, I couldn't get it to auto-install properly.

The manual installation shouldn't be too trying an experience for those users who're familiar with downloading and unpacking archive files. Of course, the instructions go into much greater detail than I will here, but the short version is quite simple. First, download the firmware archive to your PC, make sure iTunes is closed, and then extract the files to your device. The iPod needs to be in disk mode, and you need to extract the .ROCKBOX directory and all of its contents to the root iPod directory.

The instructions recommend installing the fonts and themes packages before disconnecting and booting Rockbox. Conveniently, the installation for both is nearly identical to installing the main program. The folder architecture in the zip files mimics the main .ROCKBOX directory so all you have to do is unzip the fonts and themes archives into the iPod's root, and you're good to go. Most additional plug-ins that don't come with the program, like a Doom emulator, are installed the same way.

One of the most useful plug-ins is a bit different. Voice is a feature that spells or reads filenames and folders as you navigate through your player. Meant for users who have vision problems, it's installed by downloading the Voice file, renaming it from the player model-date-language format to just the language, and then copying the file directly into the font directory.

The next step is to install the bootloader. Each device has its own bootloader, so following the Rockbox instructions on how to run it from your computer is key. Last, disconnect the device and reboot--on the iPod, that's by pressing the Menu and Select buttons simultaneously. Make sure the iPod isn't locked, and when the Apple icon appears, you let go. In a few seconds, the Rockbox firmware should load.

Rockbox doesn't override the original firmware, and it's quite easy to jump back to the native system. Simply reboot again, but this time make sure that the iPod is locked. When the native operating system loads, you're good to go.

So that's how you get it to work. Here's what it does, besides kick the butt of every MP3 player OS I've ever had the misfortune of using.

It's skinnable. It comes with several dozen skins, my favorite being one that makes your screen look like an audio cassette. Ah, the '80s. You can change fonts and colors at will, and the Rockbox site has detailed instructions for creating your own skin. You can have the song bit rate and year produced appear onscreen, next to the artist, song title, and album name. Or not. The interface is fully customizable and is able to show album art as easily as your rating.

While music geeks may forever debate the value of a miniature album cover, they can also have the precise decibel level appear onscreen, as well as get an accurate battery life reading. As I write this, I apparently have 68 percent of a full charge. That sure beats the juice out of an inaccurate green icon.

There's also a fairly complete sound equalizer that should be a big draw to anyone who's displeased with their iPod's range. The sound settings are completely customizable, giving users precise control over not just the bass, treble, and balance, but the channel configuration, the stereo width, crossfeed, and dithering. More complicated equalizing settings are also available, including memory presets and a hardware equalizer.

You can also store different settings in configuration files, so you can have one for your car and one for your headphones. MPEG videos are supported with a plug-in on players with native video capability, but the focus of Rockbox is primarily music.

The games that come with Rockbox are iPodized versions of arcade favorites: everything from Tetris to Space Invaders, Pong to Sudoku, and more come preloaded, 31 games in all as well as the aforementioned Doom plug-in you have to load separately.

There are also applications that come preinstalled. Some of the more interesting ones include a version of Paint that lets you save and export your drawings, a chess clock, a dictionary, a stopwatch, and others. There's also a search function and a text editor that are powered by a virtual keyboard.

The navigation in Rockbox is a bit different from the standard iPod navigation. Users will have to get used to using the left-side Reverse button as well as the top Menu button, where the former will go back to the previous menu and the latter will jump to the root menu.

Although the installation is challenging and once installed Rockbox presents a bit of a learning curve, I think it makes an excellent challenge for audiophiles who feel constrained by using default settings.