vB Easy Archive - Another S55 Mini-review + thoughts

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Another S55 Mini-review + thoughts
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Posted by: Alacrity

I've had my S55 for a few days now and have been putting it through its paces. I thought I'd post some of my thoughts since there seem to be a number of people who are curious about the phone.

First, I should say that I am coming from a T68i that I have been using for the past 6+ months. I really like the T68i feature-wise, the best parts to me are the GPRS+Bluetooth which I frequently use to get my laptop and PDA online. The GPRS+Bluetooth has been very handy in business since I can check email from lots of different places. Here in S.California the GPRS coverage is quite good. What I really didn't like about the T68i was the extremely annoying delays after keypresses and joystick moves. It makes the phone very irritating to use for a "power user" who knows the menus by heart.

So what I was really hoping for in the S55 was a phone that has the same features and size as the T68i but faster menus. I was also interested to check out Polyphonic ringtones.

One thing I should mention is that my S55 came with german instructions. This means all my observations are based on what I've learned about using the phone from experimentation as opposed to reading the manual and doing everything "the right way." So far the menus have been reasonably obvious, but for what it's worth I don't have a reference to work from.

The S55 I got appears to be an unlocked O2 phone, since the initial animations were O2 logos, and the default wallpaper was also from O2. Also, the default GRPS/WAP profiles all referred to O2. This wasn't a big deal, just took a little time to switch these around to my carrier (Cingular).

In the box I got the phone itself (with battery and battery cover), a serial sync cable, the camera (in a small carrying case), a small travel-size charger with euro-stule pronged plug (a US adapter is included), a few booklets and a mini-CD.

The first thing I noticed about the S55 was the size and build quality. At first I was a bit put off by the battery cover on the back of the phone. This cover is a different color than the rest of the phone, although it does match the keypad and accent colors. The cover is also a bit flimsy, at least compared to the rest of the S55. So far though, after a few days of handling and use, the cover has stayed in place and isn't as much of an issue as I had first thought. The S55 feels noticibly smaller than my T68i, and it's shape is a bit more consistent. Where the T68i has some curves, the S55 is a solid bar. This feels a bit better when you've got the phone in the front pocket of a pair of slacks. I have read that many people feel the T68i is "flimsy" and "a toy." Although I personally didn't feel that way, the S55 is a bit more "classy" and professional looking thanks to the straight lines, solid case and chrome accents. The phone is sturdy, the keypad feels good with distinct tactile response to keypresses. The 4-way navpad is a bit small for my fingers, but works about as well as the T68i joystick does. One thing I do miss is some kind of dedicated "menu" button. The S55's navigation sometimes feels a little bit cramped because you can only really work with the options it can show on-screen, as opposed to being able to call up a menu with a dedicated key. One question I currently have relates to a long button along the right hand side of the S55. It seems to bring up a voice recorder (dictaphone) app by default. Since I don't use voice recorders I'm hoping there is a way to map the button to a different function, although I haven't figured out if there is a way to do that yet.

The screen on the S55 is the same resolution as the T68i, although side by side the S55 seems to be brighter and have better color.

The menus on the S55 seem generally good. I'm still used to the T68i, so I need some more time to get used to the navigation on the S55. The default text size in the menus is larger than the T68i, so you don't see as many options at the same time. (The WAP browser on the S55 does allow you to reduce text size, which is helpful. I wish that option worked system-wide.) The default screen on the S55 is a bit more crowded than the T68i. The name of the carrier, the GPRS indicator, and the menu options take up a good amount of space. I haven't spent too much time trying to change these options, but I have noticed that abstract patterns work best for wallpaper. Some of my T68i backgrounds don't look good because they're mostly covered by the S55's status indicators, date, carrier name, etc. One thing that I very much like-- keypresses are instantly recognized, there is no delay like on my T68i. For me this is a big deal-- and makes the S55 a serious contender for day-to-day use just based on that.

On the connectivity front things are pretty good. GSM reception is good, a bit better than the T68i, although my T68i wasn't that bad. (I've heard that others have had reception issues with the T68i, mine was always pretty darn good.) The GPRS has worked great for WAP browsing, although so far I haven't been able to use it for general data access. Without the manual I can't be 100% sure if this is due to my settings or what. I was able to get polyphonic ringtones from MatrixM.com via WAP/GPRS, and browsing my usual WAP sites worked like a charm. The bluetooth has worked reasonably well, although it took a few tries to get it paired with my laptop. On the first couple attempts the S55 thought the laptop's name was a big weird string of numbers. Eventually it saw it by name, and paired correctly. I was then able to drag and drop contacts from Outlook into the S55's addressbook, which was a fast and easy way to get a robust dialing list. When I can get the general IP data service working with GPRS and Bluetooth I will be a happy guy. One minor gripe-- it doesn't appear to be possible to use IR while the Bluetooth is on. This probably doesn't bother most people, but I do use IR from time to time to sync with my laptop. I guess I'll just use Bluetooth for that from now on. I should also mention that I haven't installed any of the Siemens software, I've been doing everything with "general" Bluetooth services. That might be significant to my data connect issue.

Among the more minor issues, the ringtones are great. This is my first phone with polyphonic tones, but they do sound very good, and are a big improvement over the T68i's mono-tones. I was able to get polyphonic tones designed for the T300 to work fine (they appear to be .mid files, which I assume is MIDI?) Some of the polytones out there are quite intricate and they sound great coming from the S55. Ringer volume is good and loud, although I prefer more subdued rings. The vibrate mode works great, it's comparable to my T68i in strength. The S55 also supports digitized sounds for alerts and rings, although I haven't found any out there on the 'net that are in the right format. The two that come with the phone (ambulance siren and a trumpet fanfare) aren't the most useful, but the potential is there. The one feature I'm very interested in but haven't figured out yet is the speakerphone. I've read the S55 has a speakerphone, but so far I have no clue how to activate it. It doesn't seem to be on any of the menus-- can anyone clue me in on this?

One thing that I am a bit concerned about is battery life. I don't use the camera attachment at all, but I do a lot of Bluetooth and GPRS in addition to a huge amount of voice calls (600-900 minutes a month!) The battery size on the S55 seems physically smaller than the T68i, since its totally enclosed in the phone as opposed to the T68i in which the back 2/3 of the phone IS the battery. I haven't had enough natural drain/charge cycles through the phone to really evaluate it yet, but judging by the battery meter on the first two cycles it seems to go a bit quicker than my T68i. The other minor issues I've encountered seem to be due to early firmware. I did manage to "crash" the phone once (when I was really messing with Bluetooth, paring and unpairing over and over). The phone played a single low tone and then shut off. It powered on again and worked fine, and hasn't crashed since. I also have noticed a few strange things where changes to settings sometimes don't "take." For instance, WAP bookmarks once reverted back to the O2 defaults and my changes didn't seem to get saved. I have to spend some more time with the phone to see if that's a consistent problem or just a fluke (or even operator error on my part.) Generally the firmware is pretty good considering how new the phone is.

So to sum up-- this phone is a serious contender to replace the T68i, it has a few potential issues, but all in all Siemens has done a good job. If you hate the T68i then this phone is certainly something to check out-- it's got great features, solves a number of the common issues I've heard about the T68i, and adds a few extras.

Posted by: burbboy78

Hi

Glad you like your phone

I like mine a lot too

I have had it for a day now, and boy let me tell you - this is THE replacement phone for the T68i - people are soon going to say "T68 what?"

To answer your question about the Speakerphone - While on a call click on the left hand softkey for Handsfr. It will say "activate handsfree?" Click on "Yes". That's it

Simple Simple - not super loud, but pretty good nonetheless

If you want a great place to upload pictures, check out http://www.esato.com or http://esato.com from the WAP browser of the phone. Although designed for the T68i and T300 phones, the background pics are great and you can save them on the phone

The camera rocks, the ringtones are GREAT!!! Register with mAtri xM.com and say you have the Ericsson T300 - very cool. To be honest, the polyphonic ringer sounded better on the T300, but the one on this phone is M U C H louder and M U C H more startling <<grin>> - Then again, I am going from 24 chords to 16 - alas, it still rocks

Enjoy =)

burbboy78

Posted by: plessdude

Nice review Alacrity!!! I broke down and downloaded the manual from the siemens web site since I cannot read a word of german. They have the english copy there if you run into anything you can't figure out check it out. As Burboy78 pointed out this is the best upgrade right now to the t68i. I am having some issues while using a Bluespoon though which is really bugging me. Is anyone else using a s55 -> Bluespoon setup?

Posted by: Alacrity

I haven't tried the bluesoon yet, but I will have some time tomorrow to give it a shot. I'll let you know if I can wrangle it into working. I've also got some SonyEricsson headsets I'd like to try to get to work.

burbboy, thanks a ton for the pointer on the handsfree!

plessdude, I need to go download the manual in english now to see what else I might be missing. Do you have a URL for it? I haven't really explored the entire Siemens website yet (except to see that they charge for ringtones, grr!)

Also, has anyone found any of the digitized sounds that work with the S55 on the net? Or maybe a utility that can convert WAV into the S55's sound format?

Posted by: molna

Quote:

Originally posted by burbboy78
the background pics are great and you can save them on the phone

GIF-pics looks bad on S55, you better change them to e.g. BMP

S55 does some kind of auto-dithering on gif-pictures...

Posted by: plessdude

@Alacrity

Here is the link to the manual:

http://www.my-siemens.com/MySiemens...Fmanual,FF.html

The bluespoon is a nightmare!!! I can get it to pair and am able to use it but it seems to loose its connection after a few calls and I need to turn it on then off to get the s55 to recognize it. The Jabra Freespeak works perfectly though which is good news for me. Maybe a future firmware upgrade will fix the bluespoon issue.

Posted by: VTECMAN

Does anyone else think that the speaker volume is really quiet? Or does that change with the fw version?

Posted by: jmpage2

The speakerphone is quiet but I would say it's no quieter than speaker phones on other ultra-compact GSM phones.

Posted by: VTECMAN

Quote:

Originally posted by jmpage2
The speakerphone is quiet but I would say it's no quieter than speaker phones on other ultra-compact GSM phones.

I meant the earpiece volume.. Sorry, i should've clarified.

Posted by: fidodido

Quote:

Originally posted by VTECMAN
I meant the earpiece volume.. Sorry, i should've clarified.

Yeah, it is, comparing it to other phones I've used (motorola, panasonic..).

On the other hand, I am so temped for the T610 to be my S55 replacement, but I think I will miss a few S55 features. What do you guys think about the switching ?

Posted by: Synncere

Quote:

Originally posted by fidodido
I am so temped for the T610 to be my S55 replacement, but I think I will miss a few S55 features. What do you guys think about the switching ?

Personally for me I prefer the s55. The T610 I tried was one of the first so it had the hiss, the menus were really slow to navigate through and the fone would also crash... overall I just didn't like the perfomance of the fone... with that and the RF being sub standard it wasn't the fone for me but that's just my 2 cents.

Posted by: VTECMAN

I think i'm done with SonyEricsson's BS. I went through too many of them with the now infamous "no network" issue. I feel that QC at Sonyericsson is terrible... no wait.. HORRIBLE.

Posted by: ultra_vox

but the BMP format is much larger than the GIF format. does it take up more memory on the s55?

Posted by: Synncere

Quote:

Originally posted by ultra_vox
but the BMP format is much larger than the GIF format. does it take up more memory on the s55?

I use bmp format and they range from 8-10kb in size so not that big at all. I have to agree with Molna in regards to GIF images looking bad on the s55 .bmo is much better.

The best part of the s55 is being able to erase what you don't want to free up extra memory. I erased all the factory Java Apps like fit@work and the others and freed up much more memory. Now with my wallpapers, tones, java games & voice memos I have about 300Kb free space still.