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While the phone is very very (very) good on paper the S40 just had some really big fundamental flaws which really made me dislike the phone.
First off the keypad was way too stiff for my taste, being an avid SMS'er I can tell you how important it is to have a good keypad.
Secondly the screen, while very high resolution was not contrasty enough for my taste and the text was way to small. I normally love high resolution screen but not when they're this small.
Thirdly the sound quality was appallingly bad (for a EFR GSM phone)... don't get me wrong though, it's stable and still sounds better than most TDMA and CDMA phones.
It's a real shame because the rest of the phone is very well thought out...
It's the first phone that I've seen in this form factor that has a REAL address book and calendard that feels like a real address book and calendar.
The WAP is nice (8 profiles can't be wrong)
The IrDA port is so fully featured I had to read the manual to figure out all the features!
It's too bad Bosch isn't around anymore because I'd really like to see if they would have released an improved version of this phone.
Bad sound quality and battery life - could it be your service provider ? I travel worldwide on a monthly basis and observed that sound quality and battery life of my handsets (8890, t28w & P7389) varies for each country. A motorola engineer once explained to me that a service provider's signal strength is a crucial factor. What happens when the signal is weak, the handset automatically "amplifies" its network search mode thereby consuming more battery juice.
I completely disagree with your rating of the S40. It is so deeply flawed that it is a smack in your face by Siemens. If you try to use this phone seriously you'll notice that it is actually unusable. Too bad you didn't notice that
- access via COM-Port only works once, then you will have to restart the phone
- the software on CD doesn't work at all - the CD is just useless (except the manual maybe)
- the phone doesn't recoginze callers whose numbers are stored in international format and vice versa
These are just some of the VERY long list of malfunctions of the S40.
We in Germany were so angry that we opened a website solely devoted to collecting all the flaws and putting pressure on Siemens. Take a look at www.s40forum.de (German).
Here in Germany, Siemens has to take back so many S40s they can't (or won't) deliver hardly any more.
interesting website... wished you had an english version as siemens dealers in asia are agressively promoting this model...
www.systranlinks.com/syst...40forum.de
Here's the site viewed through a German to English translator.
Just copy and paste each link replacing the 'webaddress' part of the url.
I'm very sorry, but at present I am not able to provide an English version of my website. It's just a hobby and I'm pretty busy catching up with all the flaw reports that I get.
The automatic translation is quite OK. Maybe somewhen I'll translate the most important pages.
damn..i just bought s40 2 days ago, I played with the phone book for whole night, but yesterday, the address book didn't work, and when I wanted to create new molody, it'd suddenly shut off!!
today, I even discovered that the ring tone doesnt' work too!!
what the hell is wrong with my cell phone!?
Have you tried reseting the phone? If you just got it maybe you should consider exchanging it for a new one or just returning it.
I have that problem before, what i did, was composed 3 really long ring tones(whole song) by myself and then it just pops up a message saying, "Sorry, not enough memory". First of all, I didn't realize it until I missed so many calls a day, and I found out that all the ring tones/trember are gone. So, I took it back to HK's siemens and they said my S40's motherboard is f*^ked. No way they could fix it at that time, so they just gave me a new one from the factory.
Note: I heard from HongKong's Siemens that most of the HongKong mobile phone service providers have returned all the Siemens S-40 since many customers have complained their phones are dead and buggy.
I had addressbook and lock-up problems too with my brand new S40. After a 3-day service at Siemens centre (Hong Kong) my phone works great since. Now, if I can just get it to work as a modem with my Handspring Visor, it will be perfect. Other than that, I have no complain with this phone at all. I still think this is a great mobile once Siemens get their software bugs works out. (Yeah, I know the Nokia interface is perfect with no bug, but I kind of get really bored with the same interface model after model). I just love the looks and feel of it. Hope that Siemens will carry on the Bosch design tradition and not letting this model to go extinct...
The appearance is very very nice, I will give 10/10 mark. Comparing with pictures and real phone, the phone looks so different. In different angle, the colour of the phone changes. There is problem when talk on the phone for awhile, you can actually see face oil on the screen (yark!). Since this phone is not that popular, I still think the design is very unique.
Software...umm...buggy, should be in trash can. No games in the phone is not attractive(all my friends first asked me does this phone have any game). I only like the super big time display and "be inspired" w/ spinning Earth.
Battery...even my 3 yrs-old LG CDMA phone has longer battery life. What a shame...
I just got my S40 "fixed" in S'pore Siemens.. i think they did "Initialization" on my unit.. Have been playing & inputing data, no problem so far.. like this phone very much.
My S40 couldn't detect the memory in the unit..
SMS sometimes got "lost" in the inbox...
But it seems the repair took care of the problems...
My PC software still doesn't work on my notebook (im still workig on it).. using my PalmV to transfer my phonebook to my S40...
Has you added the siemens drivers in the modem section.
You need to installed it, you can also get the latest siemens driver on the siemens home page.
I have got the same problems that you have - does not recognise international format caller id's etc.
The most recent is that it refuses to recognise the inbox.
What did you do to fix it?
leo
the only way u can do is..
send it back to siemens and get a upgrade... since US siemens finally solve this problem with their latest software version.. (from the representative who told me this...)
so... call 1-888-777-0211~~ free toll...
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