A phone packed with features (Siemens S55)

Member Name: ninhurstag

Product:	Siemens S55
Date:	22/06/04 (904 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Packed with features, Good menu structure

Disadvantages: Inadequate firmware, Buttons unresponsive, Rigner too quiet

Siemens S55

Advantages

Great menu
I had no trouble finding my way around the menu without reading the instruction manual.

Lots of features
PC Sync (Serial)
Infra Red
Tri-band
Predictive text
S55 supports most computer image formats: jpeg, gif, tif, bmp
Voice dictation
Calendar/organiser/notes/appointments feature
JAVA
MMS
Animations (EMS)


Optional
Camera attachment. I can store about 1 game and 8 photo pictures before it starts getting slow.

Hands free port
The hands free feature works well

GPRS:
GPRS has been excellent until recently, thought I?m unsure whether this has been the phone?s fault or O2.

Bluetooth/irDA:
Both are fine connections.





Disadvantages:

Inadequate firmware
The firmware it was loaded with was inadequate. I had a problem with the ring tone ringing on even if I answered the call. I had to update the firmware from the siemens website. Which was an inconvenient but straightforwared process. It freezes up now and again and sometimes switches itself off. L Just recently I?m having problems with the browser telling me pages are of an unsupported content type. I have no idea why this has suddenly occurred and I can?t be bothered to find out why as I?m planning to upgrade my phone soon.

Firmware continued/poor customer care
Only 1 game came with the phone so I set about downloading new ones. You can download free JAVA games from the my-siemens wap site if you have GPRS switched on. I have been unable to do this since I bought the phone a year ago. I have emailed siemens numerous time about this and they blame O2, I have called O2 about this and they blame siemens. At 50p per minute siemens helpline with the problem unsolved you can imagine I?m a bit disappointed with this. I have successfully downloaded a game from O2 with their settings so I?m putting the blame on siemens
for this one. I know sometimes you can get a bad adviser on the helpline but I spoke to numerous people and it still was not resolved.

Poor PC software
The software provided to sync the phone with your pc is well, basic, slow and unreliable. It works most of the time and I?m grateful to have copied my contacts onto my hard disk but the usability of the software leaves a lot to be desired. I?ve heard software problems is rife with all new mobiles so I guess I?m lucky I can use it most of the time.

BAD BUTTONS
Buttons too small and some unresponsive. The buttons are tiny on this and it?s very easy to press the wrong one. They?ve also put buttons on the side of the phone which I regularly press by mistake and start a voice recording. This is very annoying. Plus I text a lot and I?ve very sore fingers as the buttons are a hard metallic plastic.

Camera
It is hard to take photos of yourself with friends using the camera. The camera only connects one way and there is no display of what you are taking a photo of. You can only look through the viewfinder which is not accurate. Display only 256K so photos look bad when viewed on the phone.

Ringer
The phone ring and sms alerts are too quiet which means I have missed a lot of phone calls and text messages since I?ve had it. Oh and the alarm clock :-/ Can only play midi, mmf so no mp3 ring tones

Final word:
Siemens seem to excel with the hardware side only to be let down by poor software. The only way this phone makes up for its faults is that Siemens have managed to pack so many features onto one phone. The S55 has overall been ok, but I am not inclined to buy a siemens ever again in the future.

Summary: