The S55 takes a slightly different approach to integrating a camera into a mobile phone. Rather than a small integrated camera, your photo shooting options come via a clip-on camera module.
The S55 looks sleek, small and silver. Picking it up, the S55 feels very smooth and light--a comfortable mobile to hold. It weighs a mere 85g and measures a petite 101 x 42 x 18 mm.
Snap the camera on the bottom of the phone and you'll add about another 6 cm to its length. The camera can take shots at up to 640 x 480 resolution. Unfortunately the S55's screen is only 101 x 80 pixels and the display on the only supports 256 colours, so photos appear fairly low in quality when viewed on the mobile. The difference in quality is notable when you transfer images on to a PC.
On the lower of the two photo-resolution settings (160 x 120 pixels) shots take up about 5KB each. On the higher setting photos come out at around 35KB. One oddity cropped here; you can opt for saving images in 'low' mode easily, but if you want high quality pictures you have to choose 'high and low', an arrangement that saves your images at both quality settings.
The flash works well and provides sufficient light in night shots. When the flash isn't used images sometimes appear with an almost sepia tone. The screen on the S55 doesn't act as a viewfinder so you have to wait for the photo to be taken before it will display on screen. The camera has a small optical viewfinder which can be used by tilting the camera 90 degrees to the right and holding the camera (with phone attached) up to your eye. There is a 10 second delay from the time you press the shutter button (the volume control when not in camera mode) to the time the image appears on screen. The flash takes a while to load and the image takes a couple of seconds to transfer to the phone.
Siemens supply a data cable that plugs into a serial port on your computer and the base connector on the mobile. The S55 also supports Bluetooth and IrDA for data connectivity.
SyncTool supports the synchronisation of appointments, notes, tasks and e-mails and is compatible with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes. There is a bitmap editor where you can create operator logos, screensavers and pictures to transfer to your handset. This program is well implemented and automatically resizes images to fit the required size. You can back up your phonebook through Contact Management and use your PC to create and edit entries. Outlook contacts are supported as well as text file import/exports. For SMS/EMS users, you can also back all and manage text messages from the phone or use the PC as a message archive.
The Modem Assistant software allows you to easily set up a PC Internet connection using GPRS through the mobile. The last piece of software, Data Exchange, is where you can interact with the phone's folders, files and pictures in a Windows Explorer type interface.
On the phone side of things the S55 supports polyphonic ring tones and comes with 20 pre-installed tones in the sounds folder. These can be assigned to incoming calls, text messages, alarms and caller groups.
The keypad on the S55 has buttons side-by-side in an almost seamless array. The buttons are slightly raised on the bottom, which creates a ridge down to buttons on the level below. While this helps you easily identify which key you are on, during text input it sometimes feels like you have slid your finger off the outer keys and on to the edge of the phone.
An icon-based menu provides the main interface and navigation is through a 4-directional rocker and two soft keys. The triangular plastic soft keys jut out from the phone and seem a little jagged when pressed.
Games and the Internet are found through the Surf and Fun menu option and a single MagicPicture game is included. This is a scattered tile game reminiscent of those tacky plastic toys that may have provided hours of enjoyment for you as a child.
The cover and keypad on the Siemens S55 are not exchangeable; the mobile is only available in sterling silver or arctic blue. At first we struggled somewhat with the battery and cover, which removes with a rather unorthodox sideways movement.
When you first switch on the phone, the S55 prompts you to copy your sim phonebook to the phone's memory. Once copied you can the use the mobile's enhanced address book to add an additional range of fields for each contact.
Up to 20 voice commands can be stored on the mobile. In our testing we found they worked most of the time as long as we were in a relatively quiet environment. The S55 also incorporates a voice recorder. The microphone picks up voices very well in our tests and the loudspeaker--which can be used during calls--is adequate.
The biggest let down with the Siemens S55 is the lack of colour depth. The flash camera included in the box is a major selling point and we would like to see the S55 screen doing it justice. However, it is still a very stylish, well-designed phone with a load of features and an impressive software suite to boot.
Siemens S55
Company: Siemens
Price: AU$899
Distributor: Siemens
Phone: 1300 555 564
4%
1%
Service sucks compared to other phones, drops out of range sooner than other phones I have as well.