I got a phone through SimplyWireless.com which at the time was not available through Cingular, and was a bargain to boot. The version I got was obviously intended for the Singapore market-- all the preset GPRS services are Singapore telcos, the manual was English-Chinese-Melayu trilingual, and the charger had a British plug with a US adapter. It didn't have any of Cingular's software installed, not that I miss it too much (except maybe AOL Instant Messenger).

SimplyWireless signed me up for a different area code from the one I requested, bit Cingular was able to change that at no charge after I activated the account. The phone itself works perfectly fine. As far as I can tell the contract, customer service, online account management, etc. with Cingular is no different than if I'd gone with them directly (I even got my referral bonus after activating).