In my online computer tips newsletter, I wrote several articles about my new Cingular 8525 smartphone.

First, what is a “smartphone?” It’s a combination of a cellphone and a personal digital assistant – a PDA.

I this case, I bought the Cingular 8525, which is Cingular’s latest and greatest model smartphone. It runs Windows Mobile 5 as its operating system.

That’s the first problem. Despite the hype, a smartphone is not a PDA with a cellphone built in. It’s actually a new and different device — with a new and different operating system. Think Windows XP versus Windows Me versus Windows 98.

Just because something works on a Windows Pocket PC doesn’t mean that it will work on a Windows Mobile smartphone. It probably won’t. You’ll need to get the Windows Mobile version for a smartphone.

But, that’s not always enough. I ran into software that worked on other Windows Mobile 5 smartphones, but would not work properly on the one I got. Whether this was a hardware design problem, a Windows Mobile 5 customization problem for that phone, or whether I had a bad unit, I ended up with an unacceptable smartphone.

Read more in my article Cingular 8525 Smartphone Gets the Heave-Ho!