I have had a Blackberry for five years now (currently using an 8700), and really happy with it, but working on a new project now, which includes Windows Mobile devices, so in addition to my  Blackberry I now have an AT&T 8525 with Windows Mobile 5.0.  This is my first experience with Windows Mobile, and while I don’t yet have my mail setup, I have been playing with it a little trying to get used to it so here are some of my observations about this device, and Windows Mobile. I am not crazy about the slide out keyboard, I find it very hard to hold and type.  I realize there are other models some of which are more like a blackberry style,   if I see myself using this long term, I will either get used to this keyboard, or look for one with the blackberry style keyboard. When typing  it does not help you like the blackberry does, when typing a URL on the blackberry you can hit space and it knows to insert a period, or in an e-mail address the blackberry will interpret a space as an @ sign, maybe I am spoiled by the blackberry, maybe I really need to sync my favorites and address book, but it would be nice if it were a little smarter. I installed ActiveSync on my laptop (well actually a VM, I try not to install things for the first time on my laptop I like to see how invasive they are first) to sync, now I don’t really plan on synching files to often, is there a reason once I launch I can’t quit? Sure I can hide the tray icon, but do I really need it running all the time if I am not using it, the only way I can find to shut it down is to end the process. I like having the camera, my blackberry does not have one, sure it is not a great camera, but a nice toy, and unlike the camera on my cell phone (yep I have a plain phone too, so that is 3 phones now) I can get the pictures off without paying to message them. One nice thing is it supports wifi, so when there is (free)  wireless available, can switch to wifi. There is a VPN client, but I have not had any luck connecting back to my office yet. These are just my first observations, next up is to get my mail, calendar, an contacts synched, and install Sametime so I can really use it, beyond that I can’t really post here about the project right now. One final note, I don’t know who had this phone number before me, but I really wish I spoke Spanish so I could explain to the gentleman who calls about 5 times a day that he has the wrong number.