Siemens SL55

Click for more pictures of the SL55 and M55.

After sleepwalking through the past nine months while other mobile makers have been frighteningly prolific, Siemens seems to have shrugged off some of its lassitude to unveil the SL55. This is a phone that recalls some of the excitement evoked by the stunning MP3-enabled SL45, which was to have heralded a promising start to the new millennium.

A Case In Point
The SL55 is enormously compact. With dimensions of only 81.6 x 44.5 x 22mm and just 79g, the terminal is truly a palmful, and should sit prettily among the contents of a lady’s carry bag.

It’s when you need to text a message or key in numbers that the SL55 reveals itself, literally.

A keypad glides open behind the phone display to expose seamless keys that are beveled for better tactile response. Slider designs of the kind the Siemens handset sports are hardly revolutionary, though. You’ve seen it implemented recently in the Nokia 7650. Beyond the cellular form factor, the Palm Tungsten T and Sharp Zaurus both employ the same concept to tuck away the text-input area when not in use.

It’s a bit knee-jerk to assume a slider makes for a mobile waiting to fail mechanically. The slide mechanism is pretty tight, and there shouldn't be a problem opening and closing the phone. German construction shines through the handset, which feels robust and well-designed.

That said, the proslider is still a flawed design. Because its intent was to achieve the smallest size possible, there are ergonomic issues with sliding the two halves apart. One will invariably smudge the display window, which covers a good four-fifths of the terminal’s surface, or depress the control buttons. It helps to keep the phone in keylock mode, so you won’t accidentally activate something while uncovering the key tray.

Once open, one-hand operation is possible. But again, the location of the keypad requires nimble-fingered dexterity as the thumb is forced into an awkward downward angle to type a message, while fingers are splayed wide to support the top-heavy display.

Color Me Beautiful
In its third color-screen outing, at least in this corner of the world, Siemens has upgraded its palette to 4,096 colors. This is a bit of good news for users planning to kit their phone with the QuickPic camera add-on and its built-in flash. Supported resolutions include 160 x 120-pixels or 640 x 480-pixels, and pictures can be transferred to a PC via a number of ways.

However, since the six-line STN display is capable of only 101 x 80 pixels, images viewed onscreen still suffer from pixilation and lack of color depth. The SL55’s display is found even more wanting when placed next to the Samsung SGH-V200’s startling 65k TFD screen.

Fully Loaded
Don’t expect any surprises after you turn on this handset, as most of what's onboard are features we’ve all seen before--specifically on Siemens' previous offering here, the S57.

Still, the same icon-based menu used here is more welcomed than the Siemens user interface of yesteryear. The SL55 also packs plenty of connectivity and customizable whizbang to justify the topshelf price tag.

With the exception of Bluetooth, the feature set is extensive for a 79g phone: Triband capability; MMS (multimedia messaging service); GPRS; email client; WAP 2.0; infrared; and support for J2ME applications and games. Consumers can also access a full range of phone features that include voice commands, voice memos, 500-entry phonebook, T9 with Chinese text support, ability to sync with desktop PIMs out of the box, and 16-chord polyphony.

With such a brag list, the SL55 should be a very good phone. However, the entire user experience--from the keys to the navigation--is far from intuitive even after a week of familiarizing.

Got Juice?
Siemens claims talk and standby times of 210 minutes and 200 hours, respectively, with the supplied 500mAh Lithium-ion battery. On average use, the phone lasted a meager two days before the next charge.

What's cool is that the SL55 offers the ability to answer and make calls (via voice dial) without using ever the retractable keypad. While testing the handset in various settings--in lifts and indoors--talking was all good, with decent audio quality and a loud-enough earpiece. However, due to the size of the phone, it took a while to locate the earpiece’s sweet spot.

Siemens rates this phone as 0.62W/kg on Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) tests. Based on the recommendations of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), this is well below the limit of 2.0W/kg.

How Now?
The SL55 deserves the attention it attracts with its looks and functionality. Unfortunately, when it comes to brand preference, Siemens is not generally among consumers' top mobile choices. And at S$668 with a two-year plan, and S$768 without line, the phone has a tough sell against similarly priced options offering built-in cameras and higher-resolution screens, like the Sony Ericsson T610. However, the SL55 is a good sign that the German manufacturer may finally be "waking up its ideas", and more than ready to rejoin the mobile race.

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