Siemens' first mobile phone with a more-than-4-color display has arrived; Oliver Thylmann puts the tri-band GSM S55 with integrated Bluetooth under the magnifying glass.
As early as in July of this year, just about the time we conducted our review of the Siemens S45i, the then-rumoured successor of the S45i, to be called S55, was all the buzz. Leaks were abundant, and to our great joy, October finally brought the announcement of the phone - meeting our expectations to Siemens as a phone with an advanced feature set and a real color display, bringing the manufacturer up to par with other major phone manufacturers. Couple that with its bundled clip-on Camera module with flash, a feature exclusive to Siemens at the time of launch, and you'll quickly understand why we've been eager to take it for a spin.
 | The Siemens S55 is the first model from the manufacturer to offer a color display
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The Siemens S55 is an upgrade to the popular, business-oriented S45, and features a color screen, polyphonic ring tones, triple band GSM (900/1800/1900 MHZ), MMS, e-Mail (POP/IMAP/SMTP), EMS, Full Calendar, SyncML (with support for OTA and Bluetooth synchronization) and an address book which offers grouping and attaching pictures to contacts - all crammed into only 101 x 42 x 18 mm of space and 85g. In other words a small, yet feature-rich phone, which also comes with software to synchronize the phone with Outlook or Lotus Notes, use it as a Modem and manage its internal memory.
The first thing that springs to attention is the color screen, which can only be said to be a disappointment. With a resolution of 101 x 80 pixels and 8-bit (256 colors) color depth, the display unfortunately suffers from a very grainy appearance. The grainyness is not a problem when displaying text, however, just images - and due to the S55 first and foremost being a business phone, this is less of a problem than it could have been.
Speaking of images, the clip-on camera that comes with the phone lets owners take pictures in either QQVGA 160 x 120 or VGA 640 x 480 pixel resolutions. The QQVGA mode is an excellent match for address book pictures and MMS messages, and VGA mode pictures are of surprisingly good quality as well. Pictures are accessed through a file manager-type application, or alternatively from a PC over a serial cable or Bluetooth connection, eleviating the pain of only having 921 KB of memory available. Sure, it’s what Siemens calls FlexMem, meaning users can allocate it flexibly, but stick a few hundred addresses on there, coupled with some tasks, pictures, e-mails and J2ME applications, and you'll realize it gets very crowded - very quickly.
Bluetooth performed flawlessly throughout our tests, as did the keypad of the phone - one of the best we've ever seen on a mobile phone so far. Keys slope comfortably, while tactile feedback is good and the backlight makes for easy navigation under all conditions. The ergonomic quality also transfers to the rest of the phone, which fits comfortably in the hand and to the ear. Reception in calls proved to be very good, both through the speaker and a handsfree set, while talk and standby times were slightly below what's promised by Siemens - 300 hours and 6 hours, respectively - when not using advanced features too often. Obviously, determining standby time on devices with increasingly advanced feature sets grows more complex the more features added. On a related note, the audio quality of the 16-voice polyphony engine is very good, but users will have to download new ring tones as the ones on the phone are below par.
The user interface of the S55 is a closely modelled after the standard Siemens interface with a few excellent additions. First of all, the main menu consists of a screen with a 3 x 3 icon setup which can be navigated via the four-way navipad at the top. The left soft button can be assigned numerous functions, as can any of the number keys. One such function is a 'My Menu' item which lets users configure a list of favorite applications; simply brilliant, although Siemens doesn't get credit for being the first manufacturer to do this.
Unfortunately, there were some redrawing problems during testing, most likely caused by bugs in the phone firmware. When performing tasks that required frequent screen updates, such as typing an SMS or deleting characters, the bottom third of the screen would go white - rather consistently. On the brighter side, the S55 comes with J2ME support and a fair number of bundled applications, including a World Clock, Fit@Work fitness guide, Unit Converter, a financial application from OnVista and a game called Magic Shuffle.
GPRS Class 10 with a top speed of 53,6 Kbps downstream and 26,8 Kbps upstream makes for fast WAP 1.2.1 browsing via the Openwave browser, and comes in handy when sending and receiving MMS messages and e-mails. The e-mail client supports both POP3 and IMAP4, but is obviously limited in terms of input speed - making it more suitable for checking mail rather than writing. Unfortunately, the client doesn't allow a user to set up a schedule for regularly checking e-mail accounts. Also, users can download games, ringtones, logos, join a photo community, meet friends or simply get information about how to get service for their phones in case of problems through a dedicated Siemens WAP portal.
Availability
The Siemens S55 is available now in most European countries at the suggested retail price of 499 EUR.
Conclusion
The Siemens S55 offers an extensive set of features, all of which perform well with amazing consistency and quality. If you're considering buying the S55, however, be sure that you're not fooled by the poor quality of images when appearing on the display of the S55 - which regardless should be viewed as a gadget and not a serious picture-taking tool. Also, as is common with clip-on cameras, the one bundled with the S55 is powered by the phone's internal battery - and since it has flash, it drains a noticeable amount of power when used frequently.
- What's positive: Extensive feature set, great hardware
- What's negative: Software bugs, poor screen, short battery life when using advanced features extensively
| Features | 8/10 |
| Exterior | 7/10 |
| Ergonomics | 7/10 |
| Performance | 6/10 |
| Value: | 7/10 |
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iSW Score:
7/10 |
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