It boasts a 16-bit colour display, VGA camera and a design that screams Sony Ericsson T68i deja vú: Sindre Lia puts Siemens' new ST55 under the looking glass.
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Most handset manufacturers have recently begun adding colour screens and digital cameras to well-established product concepts featuring high standards in the ergonomics, features and performance departments. From an historical point of view, this should also be expected to apply to Siemens, but in the case of the ST55 it appears as if traditions are on the line in a high stakes gamble to enable the inclusion of creme-de-la-creme features. Join us as we take a closer look.
 | The digital camera and colour screen of Siemens' ST55 are both impressive, but the handset fails in other areas
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Exterior and Ergonomics
Measuring 9.9 x 4.7 x 2.2 cm and weighing in at 87 g, the Siemens ST55 immediately makes one reminisce of the Sony Eriscsson T68 and its distinct shape and appearances. In fact, place a T68i on top of an ST55, and you'll immediately see they're a perfect match. Like the T68i, the ST55 lies well in the hand, but where the joystick of the T68i was a bit sharp around the edges, that of the ST55 is somewhat too rounded and doesn't protrude quite as much as we'd like it to.
On the other hand, the joystick and other navigational buttons are more comfortable in use than the numeric keypad featuring narrow, elongated buttons - changes which seem somewhat pointless as they don't render the keys more comfortable in use than those of the Siemens SL55. The 120 x 600 pixel resolution display of the ST55, however, is very bright and displays up to 65,546 crisp colours which are fully on par of those found in the Sony Ericsson Z600.
The integrated VGA digital camera of the handset, offering a maximum resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, is placed far up and centered on the back of the handset - protruding sufficiently enough for it to be easily spotted.
Features
By now, everything indicates that the ST55 should be chock full of features, but a closer look quickly reveals this isn't quite the case. As it turns out, the ST55 offers a high level of quality when it comes to the new, yet important features such as a colour screen and digital camera - while features such as Bluetooth, IrDA and J2ME support are surprisingly left out. Support for GSM 900/1800 MHz and GPRS Class 10 are in place, however, as are messaging features including SMS, MMS and e-mail - letting users forward pictures taken with the integrated camera.
The ST55 also comes equipped with a WAP 2.0 browser, polyphonic ringtones and a well-stocked supply of PIM applications including a calendar, date book and notepad. A zoom function is also available when viewing pictures taken at the highest possible resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, and users can also snap stills at 160 x 120 and 320 x 240 pixel resolutions. And last, but not least, the camera application also offers a night mode and special effects.
Performance
Overall, the performance of the ST55 is adequate, with several shortcuts readily available by means of joystick directional presses and the left navigational button being configurable. The menu is also equipped with a small finesse where certain settings can be altered through an interactive list of options without requiring users to move to the next hierarchical step. Also, the viewfinder for the camera offers a decent frame rate, and up to 2.5 MB is available for storing pictures - also decent.
When it comes to text input, however, the ST55 doesn't impress us. In particular, multi-tap text input is tiresome since an excessive amount of force is required for the handset to register key presses. Using its T9 predictive text input is more comfortable, however, and the loudspeaker of the ST55 sounds off loud and clear. On the other hand, the sound alert for incoming messages is an obnoxiously loud and annoying sound which cannot be altered.
The Siemens ST55 is listed as offering a talk time of 4.5 hours and a standby time of up to 6 days, while our experiences leaned towards 4 hours and 5 days, respectively.
Availability
The Siemens ST55 is now available in most European countries and sells in the 450 USD range without subscription.
Conclusion
Despite an excellent colour screen and integrated VGA digital camera, the ST55 couldn't exactly be described as top notch. In particular, its poor numeric keypad returns to haunt it - serving to show that advanced features are no good if attention isn't being paid to essential features. If you want a phone with a good camera and adequate memory without having to make the trade up to a smartphone, however, the ST55 is worth considering.
What's positive: Crisp and bright colour screen; VGA resolution camera
What's negative: Poor keypad, lacks Bluetooth and IrDA
| Features: | 7/10 |
| Exterior: | 7/10 |
| Ergonomics: | 5/10 |
| Performance: | 5/10 |
| Value: | 5/10 |
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iSW Score:
5.8/10
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Price and availability
The will start selling for TBA () in November 1999.
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