vB Easy Archive - Siemens S46 Road Test

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Siemens S46 Road Test
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Posted by: sorehand

I needed a cell phone quick. How bad did I need it? My last cell phone was a Nokia from the dark ages (a 22-something series). I had been low tech for too long. Ghetto tech in fact.

Spending only a week of research, I made the decision to go with the evil yet ubiquitous AT&T network. Why? Because they now offer the Siemens S46, that's why. And I live in California.

All I want to do is recommend the phone as the best choice for the discriminating user who doesn't need to take pictures or make a margarita with their phone. Pictures with a phone? I can hear my grandad laughing in his grave. If he were alive, milk would be shooting out his nose.

I recently took a weekend road trip from Santa Barbara to Sunnyvale and the Bay Area and brought the S46 along to see if it would work. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

Here are the pros and cons...

Pros:

Style--or rather lack of over-styling--is what makes this phone the sexy winner over other brands in MY AREA (please don't reply to this and tell me your phone is cooler in Iceland--everything is cooler in Iceland--no offense people from Iceland--GusGus rocks! Please don't hurt me). The overall look and feel of the phone is high tech, yet minimal and tasteful. Very EuroGerman, and without the teenie-bopper-hoochie mama-change the face plate nonsense.

The battery life in GSM areas is INSANE. I've had my phone on standby for 2 days and have made one or two short calls. It's still got two thirds left. This I love. Tired of plugging your gear in all the time? Come to Siemens. Come to GSM.

GPRS mode to access the internet is quick enough, and I was surprised at not waiting for days. Faster than some peoples sluggish PCs at home. AIM, Yahoo, and so much more I don't really have the time. If you're on the road and bored, these are cool things. I guess. Whatever.

Signal strength is fine. The sound is clear enough. Menus and keypad are easy to navigate. Cool orange backlight makes bystanders go "Ooooohh." Girls swoon. Film agents drool and will buy your script if you let them play with it. Yeah.

IRDA connectivity (Infrared serial port). Haven't messed with it yet, mostly because my PC sucks. You can either download the software from the free CD or get it online. Synch MS Outlook and

Cons:

SMS. Messaging text via phone and email is limited to 150 characters? All of my friends "short" messages have been cut off. If this is true, it's a bummer. I want to read more text! But I just got the phone, so maybe I'm on crack. Hmmmm.

Battery strength in TDMA mode. Now I'll leave this to the tekkies to grovel about but I believe this problem is more TDMA's fault than the the phone. Or if you want to blame the phone, it's because it switches automatically it sucks juice when it goes back and forth while you are moving. This problem can be remedied by manually disabling the auto-switching and setting the phone to either GSM or TDMA mode only.

I've had no software bugs (version 21) but I did have programing problems. Initially, when I left my home GSM network and tried to make calls roaming on TDMA, I was unable. After troubleshooting with 611, I was told to get on a landline and let them re-program the phone with my help. This took a couple of hours after I got into San Jose. Annoying, but fixable. Now the phone works like it should.

No USB connectivity. No Mac support.

Siemens accessories are mostly mail order only for now.

Hope this helps with those of you who are still shopping for the glass slipper of cell phones.

>Mic

Posted by: Cam

I agree with all of your positives, but want to add one negative -

The headset - I hate it. It doesn't fit in my ear well (it falls out and I can barely hear it) and it breaks easily (I'm on my third).

Combine that with the annoying proprietary headset connector (no 2.5mm jack) and you're left with a big annoyance.

Aside from that it's a great phone.

Posted by: sorehand

I use the headset and haven't experienced the problems you've described. I bet they do make a nicer one that's not free. Where it's at I have not a clue.

>Mic

Posted by: MrSteve

I purchased my S46 and noticed that on the first day of use, it automatically shut down several times

Should I return it?
is there something I can do about this problem or is there something I am doing that is causing this problem

Posted by: sorehand

If you bought the phone recently, you should have version 21 or newer. If you do have the latest version and your phone is still powering down, ask the ATT geeks for a new phone. This is a well know problem. They should just swap it out regardless.

>Mic

Posted by: Tango Uniform

Sorehand, I'm afraid this is rather long winded. Please bear with me...

The S46 has terrible battery life in TDMA due to the design of the phone and less due to TDMA. Siemens did not design this phone to the GAIT (GSM ANSI Integration Team) specifications for GSM/TDMA/AMPs, rather they designed a quick phone that would serve American carriers while they switched from TDMA to GSM in their main areas.

The S46 is literally two phones. If you punch in the FCC id on the back of the phone into the FCC search website (http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/) you can examine the guts of the phone. What you will see is a phone with two microprocessors (one GSM, one TDMA), one power management section and two RF sections (again, one GSM, one TDMA). When the phone is in standby in GSM, the TDMA section remains inactive. When the phone is in standby in TDMA, the microprocessor in the GSM section is active to handle the display, keystrokes, and other housekeeping functions. With two processors on it requires additional current. I also suspect that when the phone is camped to a TDMA network (in automatic selection mode), it regularly scans the GSM channels looking for a network to camp to.

Another thing to be aware of, the phone manufacturers can play with the battery meter to make you think that you have a lot of battery left when you really don't. Say the phone has four bars in it, you'd think that each bar would represent 25% of the battery life. Some manufacturers set the trip points differently, say 60%, 80%, 90% and 95% of consumed battery life. The best way to really gauge your battery life is to turn the phone on after fully charging the battery, let in camp to the network and monitor the time it takes until the phone powers down. If you know the battery capacity in mAh, you can then divide the battery capacity by the number of hours the phone was on and determine the phone's current drain (the true measure of performance). In all honesty, there are other phones with better current drain. Some manufacturers mask their current drain performance by providing a very large battery.

One other thing before I go, SMS, by it's specification, is limited to about 150 characters. You'd need a phone/network with EMS or MMS to get more characters.

Posted by: sorehand

Ok, I know the S46 is not GAIT. Where can I get a true GAIT phone? What models are available? Show me the GAIT.

Posted by: Tango Uniform

I heard that the Nokia 6340 is due out soon if it isn't already out. I have also heard that Sony-Ericsson is coming out with the T62u. I'm not sure about when Motorola and Samsung will have something for the GAIT market.

Posted by: mophile

My Nokia 3390 on TMo has a 495 character SMS capability, but is the only one I have seen that does...