Siemens S66 / S65 / SP65
Average Ratings
Good Phone!
This is a great phone. It's too bad Siemens tends to send there lower-end phones to the US market and leaves there high-end phones in Europe.
This phone has a beautiful screen, the camera and video is amazing and the design is GREAT. I got a lot of good looks with this phone by it's great design.
The only things I didn't like about the phone were the keys and joystick. The keys were really hard to press and the joystick took a lot of tries to use.
The software isn't the greatest. I wished they worked on the software design more like adding more colors to it and better graphics. You can't do a lot with this phone with customizing it.
The phone did freeze on me a few times though. I still don't know why but I had to turn the phone off. The ear piece volume needs to be louder and one thing I hated the most, you can't tranfer all your contacts to the SIM at once, you have to do them one at a time.
Overall, it's a great phone and I hope Siemens will bring more of there high-end phones over here! They have great designed phones but they do need work with the software.
JUNK!!
Let's go with the positives first....Nice big screen. There that's it.
Terrible reception. Even next to a tower. The camera is grainy. Navigating thru the menus is an event in itself. You need to be some sort of rocket scientist to figure it out....even with the guide book. BlueTooth feature is terrible. Cannot answer the phone with the connect button on the ear piece. Ringers are absolutely HORRIFIC! I could go on and on about this piece of junk....but we'll let this equipment go do it's best job as a "doorstop".
Absolutely HATE this phone!! I wish there was a way to put a negative number on the rating!
S66 no sync to Mac
Recently upgraded from Siemens S56, which performed flawlessly (except that I lost it !). The new S66 was said by Cingular to be the upgrade and the Address book works the same way. And I needed bluetooth for GPRS with my PalmPilot T3 and my Jabra 250 earpiece.
I really like the phone, and everything works great, except for one crucuial thing:
The S66 does not seem to synchronize with Mac's iSync. It pairs with my iMac via bluetooth, as did my S56, but it cannot be recognized by iSync, I believe, because they partnered with Microsoft and the new contact format on the phone does not seem to be vCard standard, and requires special software (PC only) to sync contacts from your PC. iSync basically doesn't recognize the S66, although the Bluetooth pairing worked fine.
Siemens unable to offer support on this, which is a shame, as the S56 worked like a charm, and as any Mac user can tell you, iSync can work with just about anything, as I frequently sync to my PalmT3, S56, etc.
And Cingular not well informed about this problem either as they thought it worked identically to the S56 (however, I wouldn't expect the sales rep to know these details either).
Very unfortunate step backwards for Siemens.
Simply The Worst
This is the absolute worst phone that I have ever owned, bar none (no pun intended). I exchanged a Motorola MPx220 for this phone the second I knew that it was available, and I have regretted every second of it. I have been through four of them, none of which actually worked the way they should.
If there are any PROS, I will start with them: The phone is jam packed full of features (when you can get the phone to work). The screen is very large (when the screen isn't freezing up on you). The phone has a vibration feature you can actually feel (when you can get the vibration feature to work). The phone has both a camera and video capture (and the resolution is perhaps the worst I've ever seen on a phone). Text messaging is fairly easy (when the phone actually works long enough to use text messaging). The design is wonderful. It makes a very attractive door stop.
Now, let's move on to CONS: The phone has atrocious reception. I stood with my trusty Sony Ericsson Z500A in one hand, and this excuse for a phone in the other. The results were clear. 5 bars to 3. The joystick is almost impossible to use. The phone resorts back to factory default settings entirely on it's own. The vibration feature only works after massive hard shock therapy. The camera resolution is horrid. The speakerphone quality is terrible. The battery life is perhaps the worst I've ever seen.
So, there you have it. Don't waste your time or money on this phone. If you want the phone that this phone wants to be when it grows up, make the investment in the Sony Ericsson 710. You won't regret it.
Don't buy this
PROs:
- It looks good
- Nice large screen
- Nice black/silver colors
- 1.3mp camera
- RS-MMC memory slot
CONs:
- Worst UI EVER!
- Text messaging is cumbersome
- Buttons feel weird, hard to press
- Navigation joystick hard to use
- Loudspeaker isn't very loud
- Address book scrolling is SLOW!!!
- Phone UI is SLOW
I was sold on the features. It all sounds great, and Siemens has a very slick looking demo on their website that shows this shiny phone doing all sorts of cool things. But usability is just terrible.
I hate this phone so much I am returning it to Cingular.
Not Such A Good Phone Afterall
I got one of these Sim Free from The Link and its a very impressive looking phone from the outside but inside it was a nightmare. The UI is terrible and can be VERY slow at times and is buggy. I had 7 lockups in 1 day and as there is no data cable in the box i couldn't update the firmware myself unless i bought one for near on £30 for a problem that should have been fixed before Siemens launched the phone.
The screen is large but the amount of pixels it shows make this not a good combination. Images on the screen look no way as good as Nokia or Sony Ericsson phones which is a real shame. The only thing i can say is good about this phone is the camera but even then its supposed to be a 1.3megapixel camera and my 7610 1megapixel camera-phone produces better pictures but its still better than VGA ones.
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PROS:
+ 1.3megapixel camera
+ Cheap To Buy (£250 Sim free)
+ Manually Update The Firmware
CONS:
- VERY Bad UI System
- Bad Battery Life
- Poor Screen Quality
- Buggy Firmware
- No Data cable In Box
- Cam not as good as 7610's 1mp camera
