Good alternative to the 7110 and r320s, let down by poor call quality (Siemens S35i)

Member Name: GAThrawn1

Product:	Siemens S35i
Date:	27/08/01 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Size, weight , features

Disadvantages: disappointing call quality

The Siemens S35i follows on from the reasonably successful S25, a small 'executive' phone that was packed with features. The S35i is just as small and boasting even more features than its predecessor.

The Siemens S35i comes in at the top of the 35 series phones, which consists of the C35i and the M35i. The S35i offers most of the features found on these phones (it doesn't have the calling faces found on the C35i(!)) and several extras to give it a more business level of functionality. These features are an infrared modem (the other phones have a soft modem), li-ion battery, voice dialling and voice memo. It also features a bigger screen, which is very welcome as it makes using the WAP feature a lot easier.

The small size is the first feature that strikes you when you see the S35i for the first time, it isn't the smallest on the market admittedly but now with an internal aerial it's a very nice size. At just under a hundred grams it's also very light, barely noticable when picking it up, which is of course helped by the li-ion battery which makes it that bit lighter than the n-mh powered C35i and M35i. The screen is also considerably bigger, at around six lines it allows a battery and network meter, the operator and the two soft key functions and still have vast amounts of pixels free. The S35i uses the four soft key system as found on the C35i and M35i, as well as an address book button and dial and hang up buttons. The S35i also has volume control buttons on the left hand side of the phone, to allow quick access to voice dialling and profile swapping and one button on the right hand side to use the voice memo function, another extra found on the S35i, and not on the other 35 series phones.

The software on the S35i is good although I would say the Nokia phones have a slight edge in this area. The design of them menus is not as intuitive, some menus have too many items in them and others are too sparse. Over
all, it is still very good though and still easy to use. Navigating is accomplished through the four soft keys, one set acting as up and down areas and the other side for selecting. The hang up button allows you to go back a menu, plus the volume buttons on the side also allow you to go up and down and then select using the memo button, although I couldn't really find anyway to hold to the phone to sue it this way. In the standby mode, the right key takes you to the menu, whilst the left softkey can be customised to function of your own choice, such as write SMS, internet etc. Each of the number keys can also be set to a function as well as a phone number, which is a little strange to start off with, but with 20 voice dials available for phone numbers, it means that most of the more regularly used options are close at hand. The address book button takes you straight to the address book, unsurprisingly, and pressing it twice takes you to the VIP phonebook, which is used to store more important numbers. The phone allows numbers to be stored in internal memory, which is very useful. The dial up and hang up keys function as you would expect, the dial up button dial the numbers, and displays dialled numbers when pressed in standby and the hang up button hangs up calls and powers off the phone when held down. Overall the phone works well although it does feel a bit clumsy at times, especially compared to the newer SL45. The voice dialling works fine, there are a few times when it just can't seem to understand me but I find that with all voice dialling phones, plus being able to store up to 20 voice dials is very useful indeed. The voice memo is less than useful, you are supposed to be able to record sections of conversations and play them back but the other person couldn't hear them and I certainly found it too quiet. I didn't buy the phone for this features so I'm not too disappointed that's it's not that great.

As with a l
ot of phones these days the S35i has the T9 predictive text input system, which I think is excellent. Alternatively, I also had no problems using the phoneSMS program that came with my Palm, the S35i sent the messages with no problems and they also downloaded over IR with no problems whatsoever.

The S35i features a WAP 1.1 browser, and with the bigger display is in a better position to utilise it. Overall this internet feature works finr but compared with the 7110, it can be a bit overly complicated, especially when trying to jump straight to a URL, it kept going back to the homepage for some reason which I found frustrating.

Onto the more practical features, call quality and battery life. Unfortunately, this is where the S35i let me down, after playing with the phone for a while I wondered how I'd ever go back to my bigger and heavier 7110 but I found the call quality very veriable. At best, person on the other end sounded a bit 'digitised', which was acceptable, but not nearly as good as the crystal clear voices on the 7110. At its worst the phone was unusable, I use the Vodafone network which is strongest on the areas I live, but despite the 7110 getting full reception, the S35i would display 'netwrok search'. This meant that at times incoming calls soounded echoey and occasionally slightly distorted. I suspect the internal aerial may be responsible, although I found the call quality on the C35i poorer as well. Despite all this, people on the other end of the phone thought it sounded fine unless of course the phone was out of reception. The battery is unbelievably small, which as you'd expect means that the battery life isn't that great, it drops relatively quickly after longer calls. I'm comparing to a 7110, which has exceptional batterylife, and like the 7110 the batter is li-ion which means that it can be charged anytime, generally the batterylife isn't a problem.

Overall, the S35i is g
ood phone, both smaller and lighter than the 7110 and r320s. Unfortunately, the call quality really lets it down for me, which means I would still choose the 7110 over the S35i.

Summary: