camera phones

(1) Terrible sound quality. I tried 3 phones of this type (and the 515), at the loudest setting - all had exessive noise when receiving, tinny sound, mike picks-up too much ambient noise (and is placed bad near the hinge, so it does not pick-up my voice good). The volume is so low it is not usable except in a very quiet environment. My current phone in contrast is audible in a lot noisier environments and does not have noise in reception/transmission.

2) Bad user interface, not intuitive compared to motorola, nokia, kyocera...

(3) No IR connectivity, except to other 525 phones and one-way for contacts to my laptop.

(4) Contact field names not customizable,

(5) Camera - BAD (low res, terrible in low light, zoom is digital = pixelated result)

(6) Ringer is not loud enough

(7) can't remove background image on main screen

(8) second screen hard to read

(9) AT&T customer service and systems - bad (average weight time about 45 minutes, reps have to switch 2-3 systems and can't answer all you need without transferring you for another wait of 30-60 minutes),

(10) Does NOT support J2ME (you can't use most of the available Java apps - need to use DoJA apps),

(12) Keys are flaky, with different tactile feedback so much that some are hard to press, while others are too easy,

(13) Voice tag for only 10 names,

(14) no expansion slot (some Nokia have) ...

(15) my number porting request is still not processed and AT&T can't tell me what's going on, nor if a replacement phone has been shipped...

(16) GSM coverage is way worse than CDMA (e.g. Verizon, Sprint or ATT non-GSM service), but is expected to get better over time

Pros:
+Quad band (2 american and 2 international bands)
+brilliant large TFT display (one of the best on market)
+Mmode online access
+2 color screens
+long standby and talk times
+internal antenna
+dual processors (one for phone, other for java applications/games)
+40 voice polyphonic ring tones
+Great NEC mobile site for adding more goodies to your phone
+decent camera phone in regular light settings
+a few PDA like features
+sharp looking

Cons:
-Could use an '11' setting for rings and volume
-more intuitive user interface
-a tad bit smaller flip design would be nice
-small amount of games and ring tones pre-installed (can add more with downloads)
-no night vision setting for camera

This is a good phone once you read the manuals and orient yourself with it. At first I had trouble with the volume setting but I later configured it to 'pocket mode' setting and turned up voice volume up to 10; which allowed for louder voice settings in public. Its got this weird feature where you must click a button to answer the phone (rather than open the flip), but you can change the setting so any button will answer it, making it a tab bit easier.

WARNING: AT&T representatives ("Dawn: R361" and "Max: N360") themselves said during my troubleshooting (as detailed below) that I should NOT have bought through Amazon, and that they have received a barrage of complaints from Amazon buyers! I still really like Amazon, but they're integration with AT&T is non existent. People should not have to wait 2-3 days for service after they receive the phone. Buy the same phone on Amazon, but a different carrier.