vB Easy Archive - how is the siemens s66?

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how is the siemens s66?
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Posted by: atari2600

i called cingular and they are sending me one as a replacement for my nokia 6230 (which keeps breaking on me)...the guy at the store said they didnt have any there to show me but raved at how great it is.

anyone have it? is it a good phone?

(sorry if reviews dont go here...please move it to the right forum if need be)

Posted by: ant-dizzle

It's awesome. The reception is great, the feature set is good, and I like the UI. The Cingular firmware does have the occasional bug, and the camera sucks at night without the flash, it's crammed with Cingular's crap, and my last problem is that the battery life isn't great (you'll recharge at least once a day). It's like a BMW. It's pretty, feature-laden, and "fast," but boy will you burn gas.

Posted by: atari2600

Quote:

Originally Posted by ant-dizzle

It's awesome. The reception is great, the feature set is good, and I like the UI. The Cingular firmware does have the occasional bug, and the camera sucks at night without the flash, it's crammed with Cingular's crap, and my last problem is that the battery life isn't great (you'll recharge at least once a day). It's like a BMW. It's pretty, feature-laden, and "fast," but boy will you burn gas.

so its good or not? i cant tell - you start by saying its awesome but then list tons of bad features.

a poor night camera wont bother me since i dont use it often. the poor battery life will probably get annoying. i dont know what "cingulars crap" and "occasional bug" mean though.

i just hope it doesnt lock up on me or just shut down for no reason like my old noka 6230. i just want it to work like it should and give me good reception.

but thanks for the review.

Posted by: chop

You recharge once a day??? Then, my friend, you should take it to service and exchange the battery

The battery on my s65 (same thing as s66) lasts for 4 days without shutting it off at night.
The camera has a lot of noise at the darker enviroment. It will not turn off for no reason. But it is not very fast, and that bothers me. Reception is really good.
By the cingular crap, i think he meant cingular branding

You will get their icons, themes and stuff like that

Posted by: lkawai

its a great phone, my battery lasted about 6 months before i had to buy a new one for 30bucks, that fix the poor battery life problem.

i wish the speaker on the phone would be louder though, under speaker mode, it doesnt work too well, i had to hold it pretty close to me.

other than these two things, its great.

i like the phone design a lot, great features too. i bought mpx220 after i got this phone, but then i decided i will switch back to s65 and put away the mpx220. the menu on the s65 is pretty fast, way faster than the mpx220.

Posted by: lkawai

reception is great on this phone, many places my other phone would pick up anything, the s65 would do perfectly fine.

Posted by: Laguardi

Mannnnnnn , You cant have crap *** cheap battery made in cheap labour countries in the lovely S65/66. Enough said.

Posted by: ant-dizzle

Sorry, I guess I did kinda mislead you. I'm overall very impressed with this phone, and it's very worthy replacement for a 6230. If you didn't use the MP3 playback and radio functions of the 6230, you'll love this phone. I thought the battery life was normal, guess I didn't charge it well enough when I first got it (only about two hours). You can forget what I said about the battery, then, which makes an even better case for this phone.

Posted by: Grave

does the s66 support MP3 ringtones, and is its Camera much better than the SE K700i?

Posted by: chop

No, it does not. Camere is better in the daylighr, but it is much worse in darker enviroments

Posted by: Laguardi

Would the S66 work in Europe?

Posted by: ant-dizzle

Sure would, but it dumps the 900MHz frequency for the 850 to work in NA. If you really need that band, check out an S65.

Posted by: artfuldodger73

Quote:

Originally Posted by lkawai

i like the phone design a lot, great features too. i bought mpx220 after i got this phone, but then i decided i will switch back to s65 and put away the mpx220. the menu on the s65 is pretty fast, way faster than the mpx220.

I just bought a S66 on eBay and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. It will also replace my mpx220, which has been a grim disappointment. I was glad to come across this posting, Ikawai, to see that I am not alone! I am a simple man with simple needs :-D Besides, the best phone that I ever had was probably the Siemens C56, and from there I started to dabble with Smartphones and the Treo 600. Many cellphones and hundreds of dollars later, I'm hoping for yet another good Siemens experience.

Has anyone in the DC Metro area been using this phone? I'm interested in your experience thus far and the coverage with Cingular...

Posted by: atari2600

well ive had the s66 for about a week now. better than my nokia 6230 but not great either.

i just want a decent phone that works all the time. am i asking for too much?

first the pros: it looks great, has tons of extras (bartenders guide on a cel phone? nice translator thing for travelers too), nice camera, nice big screen

cons: the signal sucks. now im not sure if this is the phone or cingulars problem but i keep losing calls. or suddenly all i hear is my echo talking back to me and i cant hear the other person. and i had tons of trouble accessing my voice mail recently. whats up with that?

also the battery life does suck. doesnt last very long at all. recharge nearly every day.

questions: 1) is there any way to list my phone numbers in a way that organizes them by name...like if someone has 2 or 3 numbers to put them within a subgroup by that person? (maybe click on their name to then see their home, cel, work numbers individually like that)

2) how do you change the tone when you receive a voice mail - i get this annoying B-O-O-O-I-I-I-N-G! spring sound and i want to change it.

Posted by: ant-dizzle

To answer your questions:

1) I'm assuming instead of the address book you're using the SIM phonebook, which doesn't support multiple numbers per name. The only way I'm aware of doing this is to switch to the address book and select Add New Name. There, you can add 3 numbers (4 if you select All Fields), an email address, group, and picture, among other things.

2) Hold 9 at the standby screen, then go to Set Ringtones. Go to More Tones, then click Messaging. That tone will start to play, so press Stop, which will turn into My MEdia. Press that softkey, and it will take you to your Audio folder.

For me, the signal is the best I've ever experienced on any phone I've owned or spent a significant amount of time with. I've never experienced any echo with this phone (shocking in itself), so it's either that phone or Cingular.

I also recently bought a new battery, which I charged about 13 hours as they instructed, and so far it's on its second day. Normally, when I play a couple games and use the camera, it'll be dead before 10 that night. I'm actually trying to drain this battery and it just won't die! Maybe that lack of first extra long charge was the problem. Whatever it was, I'm satisfied now.

Posted by: fretster

I got this phone when I moved to Cingular from Sprint, and it's a great unit. I've since sold it to a friend however and moved on to a SE w800i. The S66 is a great phone though, the features and usability have been talked over already in this thread, so I'll just say that it looks very classy and business like.

Posted by: djbobbless

Lol.. funny thing is my cingular 6230 is messed up also and they are sending me a Siemens s66 also.. im pretty sure they already shipped it to you though.. its a pretty good phone. I have owned this before only the battery life is the point I did not enjoy and the lack of mp3 player, not unless there is some firmware that can have mp3? im pretty sure not though.

Posted by: N7TND

Can you please share your source for the battery..Mine does not last very long either and I would like to get a replacement.

Thanks

Posted by: ant-dizzle

I just grabbed a cheap generic battery off eBay for like $4, and after a couple days of strong performance, it's about where the original battery is in terms of capacity. Still recharge every day, but I have a backup now. Cool.

Posted by: Laguardi

Can I just call up Cingular and buy one off them eventhough I am from Ontario TO?
I would unlock it here ? if so what would be the price?

Is it hard to buy new housing for this phone. thanx

Posted by: N7TND

Quote:

Originally Posted by ant-dizzle

I just grabbed a cheap generic battery off eBay for like $4, and after a couple days of strong performance, it's about where the original battery is in terms of capacity. Still recharge every day, but I have a backup now. Cool.

Sorry to hear the life span was not better. Not sure Im gonna keep this phone..I just called Cingular XBM for my third unit! Darn thing works great for about two months then I get this bad buzzing in the mic audio and people complain they can hardly hear me. I dont know if this is a design flaw or I am just not very lucky. If it happens again Im gonna see if they will swap out for a different model phone.

Ralph

Posted by: pfreitas

Quote:

Originally Posted by atari2600

i called cingular and they are sending me one as a replacement for my nokia 6230 (which keeps breaking on me)...the guy at the store said they didnt have any there to show me but raved at how great it is.

anyone have it? is it a good phone?

(sorry if reviews dont go here...please move it to the right forum if need be)

from nokia to siemens will be a major let down...the screen is putrid on this phone..

Posted by: ant-dizzle

Quote:

Originally Posted by greentooth

from nokia to siemens will be a major let down...the screen is putrid on this phone..

I disagree, the 6230s I've played with had screens that weren't even in the same league as this phone's. The S66 screen is very nice, but not perfect. It could be brighter.

Posted by: artfuldodger73

Quote:

Originally Posted by atari2600

cons: the signal sucks. now im not sure if this is the phone or cingulars problem but i keep losing calls. or suddenly all i hear is my echo talking back to me and i cant hear the other person.

I've had my S66 for a week now and like it A LOT more than my mpx220.

Atari: I've experienced the same issue... I will be on a call, and the person on the other end fades out...then fades back in. When they fade out, they cannot hear me either. I'm not sure what that is all about.

I haven't contacted Cingular about this. I checked on their website, but I could not find a firmware upgrade for the S66. This leads me to my next question/issue... my phone is currently locked to Cingular. I was thinking about getting it unlocked, and then upgrading using the firmware on the Siemens website for the S65. Has anyone done this? And if yes, does it make things better/worse? Does it fix any particular bugs?

Do you think it would be a big mistake to flash the S66 with S65 firmware? The only difference I can think of between the two are the US vs. Rest-of-World frequencies.

Posted by: ant-dizzle

Yep, it's been done by quite a few people, even some on this forum. Check around to get instructions and results. And the frequencies won't change, that's hardware-controlled.