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Cingular 8525 (HTC Hermes) in the wild

It's with mixed feelings that we greet the Cingular 8525's first live shots in the wild. Yes, it's apparently real, and yes, it matches the renderings we posted not long ago, but these pics also seem to sadly confirm our fear that this particular rendition of the Hermes will be coming to American buyers sans front-facing cam. There's no crying in cellphones, though, so we're going to do our best to concentrate on the positive: the 8525 should improve significantly on the 8125's speed thanks to a new processor, and of course, it's hard to argue with HSDPA. We don't have ship date for this puppy, but given the pics, the state of Cingular's 3G network, and the general availability of Hermes variants worldwide, we'd say that "real soon now" is an appropriate attitude to take.

[Thanks, Notorious Jatt]