A curious mix of high and low (spec, that is) - can the Siemens ST60 speak to all men, or does it fall between two stools? Anthony Newman finds out.
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Exterior
The ST60 is a businesslike candybar handset of moderate size, measuring a compact 99 x 49 x 22 mm, displacing 76 cc and weighing a steady 87 g. Much of this bulk must be attributed to the huge screen, which dominates the front of the phone. It's a bright, 16-bit TFT, with a decent resolution of 160 x 120. We've seen better screens on Smartphones, and brighter screens with superior colour on models from Samsung, for example. However, Siemens have still made a sterling effort here.
 | Siemens' ST60 offers good looks, but not much else
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The general design of the ST60 is glossy and grey. With numerous shades of silver across its ridged, curvaceous body, it looks more professional than many other phones in its class, and in our opinion is quite attractive-not to mention well-built.
Following Siemens usual decision, there are no buttons on the ST60 aside from the numeric keypad and soft keys on the front: so no dedicated button for the protruding rear-mounted camera, with its vanity mirror, and no volume control. Instead, the bottom of the phone holds a charger / headset / sync port, while the top holds a lanyard loop.
Ergonomics
That huge screen really ruins the ST60's handling. Although it weighs nicely in the hand, the phone's keypad is very cramped, and the keys are simply too narrow to use quickly. They make a loud click, but feedback is indistinct, and the call-control keys are difficult to locate in a hurry. However, a pleasant blue backlight helps usage in the dark.
The joystick initially feels very nice indeed, having a high-friction rubber top. However, precise direction control is very difficult to achieve, and we found ourselves backing left out of menus instead of scrolling down, and scrolling instead of selecting with a push inwards. Very frustrating indeed.
Features
For such a professional-looking phone, Siemens seem to have forgotten the features. GSM is only dual-band 900/1800 MHz, although this is made up for by Class 10 GPRS, with a WAP 2.0 browser. There's no IR and no Bluetooth, which in this day and age is a little unforgivable.
On the audio front, the 40-tone polyphonic ringtones are plenty loud enough, while the vibrating alert takes care of quiet situations.
SMS and EMS are complemented by MMS, using the included camera, which is of VGA resolution. A 4x digital zoom is only usable at lower resolutions, but plenty of options are present for exposure, including a night mode. The camera can also record video clips, at a very low resolution and frame rate, suitable only for sending via MMS.
Email is also supported, with small attachments, but is POP3 only, and about a meg is allocated for storage. 100 SMS can be saved, too. The total memory available is approximately 5 MB. Some of this can be used to save Java applications, which are downloadable through the WAP browser. The phone also includes a few games, of which Tetris is the saving grace.
Other applications include a multi-field phone book with 250 names, an Organiser, with support for 50 appointments, a Clock, Calculator, Ringtone composer, and some interesting voice control applets: voice dialing, voice command for 17 common functions, voice ringtone recording, and voice for MMS support.
In fact, it's likely many will find themselves resorting to voice, because the text input is incredibly frustrating: the only way to insert punctuation is through a pop-up box, and aside from the laggy input, the keys put the final nail in the coffin. Compared to the cheaper-looking C65, the ST60 is definitely missing features, both in applications and in connectivity. This is a real shame.
Performance
Although Java performance seems to be better on this model of Siemens, the OS is still sluggish at times, and its icons aren't pretty at all, somewhat ruining the impression of the brilliant screen.
Reception and voice quality both in normal and speakerphone modes proved perfectly acceptable, but battery life was less so, probably because of the bright screen. The 750 mAh Lithium-Ion cell lasted for just three days of normal usage.
Availability
The Siemens ST60 is available now in a range of European countries, and sells in the 200 EUR range without subscription.
Price and availability
The will start selling for TBA () in November 1999.
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