Siemens S66 / S65 / SP65
Average Ratings
Awesome phone for a great price
I just got this phone a few days ago and am in love with it. Reception quality is excellent, comparable to a Sony Ericsson T637. I am able to make perfectly clear calls all the time where my Motorola V66 would be completely useless. Features are nice. Screen is awesome. I wish it had individual ring tones for each contact but I guess they can't with up to 1000 contacts. At least there are 8 different groups which can have their own ring tones. Vibrator works really well and again their are 6 options. You can set a picture to go with each contact which is pretty cool too. Games are good and you can download new ones for free. Bluetooth is not perfect but is a ton better than the Nokia 6230 my roommate just bought. My only problem is that the phone gives an error "Application locked during sync!" when trying to sync contacts thru Outlook, it had worked a few times and then stopped. All other Bluetooth functions work good.
RS-MMC is a really nice feature but be careful inserting it, it can be kinda tricky at first. I would recommend turning the phone off first since if it ejects while the phone is on you lose your memory (unless you choose the Eject Card option from the menu). Also it is much easier to use the tab from the battery cover to insert it.
My brother has a SE T637 and my roomate had a SE T637 and now has the Nokia 6230 and I much prefer this phone to either, although they are nice phones as well.
Great value
This is a great phone that competes with some of the top phones in the market at a fraction of their price. I was considering the Sony-Ericsson s710a, but then the difference in features did not justify the price difference ($400-450 vs. $99). I feel it would be useful for a potential buyer to learn how this phone stacks up to what's being considered as the most feature rich non-pda phone in the US market. S66 has all the features of s710a except:
1. MP3 playback - could be an issue for teenagers and such, but not for me.
2. Does not have a flash. An attachable flash accessory is available for $35.
3. No voice dialing (my biggest gripe with S66, as you cannot use Bluetooth headsets to their full functionality). I did use this phone with the Handsfree speaker phone in the new Acura TL and the voice dialing worked, because the Handsfree stores the voice names itself and tells the phone what number to dial.
4. Lower resolution and color display. In my opinion it's got a very nice display for a phone. The phone display does not however do justice to the great pictures it's camera takes. I was literally in awe once I moved my pics (using Bluetooth) to my computer.
5. Does not have EDGE capability, and from what I've read this phone's data-transfer speeds are about half the speed of EDGE (about 110kbps vs 54kbps) with a the multislot Class 10 GPRS .
The S66 is superior to the s710a in one area. It has about twice the phone number memory (1000 vs about 500).
I can see how the UI can be a little complex for some people, so it's not for people who are not computer savvy. I however have no trouble navigating through the phone. The s710a is not any better. These are complex phones with complex menus.
The number keys on this phone are small. Since I have big hands and fingers, it took some practice before I could dial a number efficiently.
Overall, if your budget is below $250 or so, you will not find a better phone. And at $99, the S66 is a steal.
Great Phone So Far!
I just received this phone yesterday and I am loving it so far. The looks of it is really nice for a girl like me. Really sophicated! I like this phone because of the huge color screen. The phone is a little longer and wider than the Nokia 3100 that I had for a year. Reason why I got this phone was because I never had a camera phone before so I really can't compare the quality of the camera. It does take nice pictures when you are in good lighting because there's no flash attached. You can however adjust if you are indoors, outdoors, or automatic. The zoom feature is nice. You can zoom in or out. I would have rated this phone a full 5 but there some things did not make sense to me. There's no one-key speed dial which I am used to with other cell phones. You can not change the shortcuts, or favorites folder. The keys are pre-set and are not changeable to your preference as with the Nokia I was so used to. Those are only the few things that bug me about the phone. Other than that, it's a great phone.
I Love it!!!!!!
I love this phone. I wish I could have given it a 4.9. With the multiple connection options, great browser, email client (allows attachments) and large screen it is perfect for keeping me organized and connected. I've had a lot of phones from many different manufacturers and carriers but this is by far the best. The only thing that it is missing is voice dial but I can manage due to all the other great features. I was looking for a phone that had great features and was still a great phone (I looked at the MPX220, V3 and V551, wasn't impressed). This one manages to be both.
Pros:
Bluetooth 1.2 & IR
Great speakerphone
Huge screen
Camera actually produces useful results
Beautiful, gets lots of good comments
RS-MMC Slot
3d Gaming
Perfect Size
AWESOME Organizer & Calender
Great phone book
Cons:
Sometimes a little slow
No voice dial (only feature I miss)
Tricky interface to learn
All in all, this is a great phone that is missing only one useful feature, voice dial, that I hope they will add in a future firmware version.
Flawless Phone
I received a demo version of this phone without all of the finalized features and it beats the V3 hands down This phones performance is flawless. Great reception cool features, Wonderful Camera/Video capture and the list goes on and on. I can't say enough about this phone. Top Notch Phone. Siemens has outdone themselves with this one
S66... A Pleasant Surprise
So, I admit, the beauty of the huge clear screen and the 1.3 megapixel camera really are what made my decision. I decided to give Siemens a chance after hearing not good things about their 'cheaper' phones.
Anyway, so the phone- Wow. It's very very nice actually.
PROS include: very clear speaker, MUCH louder than my V400(junk), cool sleek form, not too big, not too small, GREAT Screen. Good options for the camera- pretty good pics for a phone. Ringers from speaker are the best I've heard from a cellphone- very clear sounding and loud. Not to mention- pretty good selection of normal rings and poly rings.
Option to automatically turn on Keyguard after 2 minutes of non-use.. very nice.
Joystick-like controller actually not bad.. It seems to work well and is depressed far enough down so where it does not get caught on pants pockets.. Hope it holds up..
Reception seems to be very good- calls with two bars are fine and with one bar is not bad. Very strong reception here in Baton Rouge, LA with Cingular. 3-5 bars almost everywhere.
CONS include: somewhat complicated menu- Do NOT get this phone for Granny. I'm young so I enjoy learning it, but it would give some people headaches.
Very small buttons- once again not bad for me- but some people would not be able to handle the itty bitty buttons.
Too many button presses to change from vibrate and to change ring volume.
Back pieces on phone do not fit as tightly as I would've hoped for on their "high-end" phone. Not terrible, but could be better.
Oh, and lastly, Not cheap. $350 w/o a new contract =( ouch.
Overall, a very Neat and good-looking phone. Friends love the screen and camera and the call quality is excellent.
As long as you don't mind spending some time learning the menus and dealing with the smallish buttons- get the S66.
I very highly recommend this phone.
This one has a lot of WOW factor !!
I got this device (S66) about a month ago and I must admit that the more I use it the more I like it. There are so many features packed into this good looking guy!!
Pros:
1. Best camera still photo performance.
2. Amazing video quality.
3. Great looks, I get lot of compliments- after all its not a 'fold-phone/ clamshell'.
4. There a number of features packed into the organizer & extras ( I have still to uncover some of them). especially the calculator , it even acts as unit conversion, temp convertor etc. I havnot seen such features in any of my previous moto or nok phones.
5. Great reception, built-in speaker phone, bluetooth, mmc card to hold your pictures/video.
6. Great display quality. there are interesting fetures like slide show to show your pictures(unique to siemens), editor to edit pictures and sending to your friends.
7. 3-D Games, which are really powerful.
cons:
1. No MP3. but personally I have used a motorola with MP3 and the performance is pathetic to say the least. so I am not in favor of paying some extra bucks for mp3 feature which is anyhow useless.
2. Camera lens gets dirty, I feel there should be some cover for it to protect it against the elements.
Summary - if you want a great looking phone with a good quality camera, good 3-D gaming experience and other features that you can use while being mobile . just go for it.
Great phone for the money
I purchased this phone about two weeks ago on ebay for $80.00, and so far it's been well worth the money.
It's got a very large screen, but the resolution isn't the best. Another downside to having the large screen is that it crams the keys down on the bottom of the phone. They're really small, and if you've got big hands, forget trying to send a text msg.
In terms of reception, I'm with Cingular in Louisville, KY and I haven't seen any other phone with Cingular that touches the reception this phone has. I have never been in the position where I haven't had any reception.
In terms of user interface, it's very fluid and quick through the menus. But don't expect to get good performance out of 3D games, the frame rate slow considerably.
The camera isn't too bad as far as phone cameras go, the colors are a bit washed out.
Also, you can put rs-mmc cards in the phone to boost your memory. Unfortunately, there's no mp3 player though, which is kindof a let down since it's got the memory card slot.
Pros:
Reception
Quick Interface
Overall Good Camera
Memory Card Slot
Cons:
Small Keypad
Slow 3D gaming
No MP3 player
Overall, I think this is a great phone, and it was well worth the money I paid for it!
Great Expectations
I had had my eye on this phone for quite some time and had some high expectations but in the end was left by the major features of the phone, but by those features which are the most basic on ALL phones:
PROS:
-Beautiful screen
-Elegant design
-Great Reception
-Superb Icons & Themes
-Ability to upload own Tones & Graphics using Data Cable and Siemens Mobile Device Manager
-Bluetooth
-Infrared
-1.3 Megapixel camera (best in bright light, not so good in a 60 watt lit room)
-Nice and Compact
-Excellent sound Quality
CONS:
-Short Battery life (needs charging daily)
-NO SPEED DIAL?!? (have to press and hold "5" to get to a so called list?!?)
-NO OVERALL CALL TIMER! (times individual calls but does not give you a total)
-NO VOICE DIAL
-CAN'T PERSONALISE SHORTCUT KEYS (Siemens' web site blames the manufacturer for this saying this is the firmware/software package chosen but the S65 for other providers boasts the same limitation?!?)
I am a big Siemens fan and this phone had allot of potential and succeeded in allot of areas but WHY OH WHY would they skimp on the most BASIC features I'll never know
Not a great phone...
To be honest, I am very disappointed with this phone. My Nokia 6230 was starting to fail... so Cingular offered to replace it with a S66. At first, I was ecstatic, since this phone can sync with OSX and looks cool. But then reality set in!
Cons:
Battery Life is TERRIBLE
Very slow OS
Crashes alot
Menu operation is not intuitive
Camera is does not work in low light (Shade)
Memory card is difficult to remove
Did I mention the battery...!
Pros:
Compatible Isync (minor tweak to file)
Nice screen size
