Siemens C55: A fun-packed cellular phone for the young

Here’s a surprisingly fun and fairly inexpensive mobile phone for the phone-crazed youth market.

The Siemens C55 is a dual-band GSM 900/1800 MHz model that packs GPRS, J2ME, WAP and polyphonic ringtones in a casing that glows in the dark! Quite pleasantly priced at P8,500, it is a bargain for those who want nifty features common to more expensive high-end phones.

With its voice command function, the Siemens C55 has livened up and made it easier to use all applications that come with it. The phone has room for 20 voice recordings for voice dialing or voice commands, which are stored in the phone and not in the SIM card. Incorrigible SMS users should exploit this function to quickly access their inbox or text composition screen instead of thumbing the keypad for these most frequently used menu items.

The Siemens C55, using its Sound Manager and Bitmap Viewer, delivers engaging audio and visual treats too. The Sound Manager lets you record and store any audio you want to use as a ringtone in addition to about 40 tunes already preloaded in the C55. My personal favorite is the "cat.wav" ringtone that makes the phone "meow" to my dog’s chagrin. In addition, there’s room for four polyphonic ringtones that can be personalized.

The Sound Manager also features the work of the masters – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven – by including Symphony No. 40 and Symphony No. 5 in the choice of ringtones. I’m sure the two masters did not realize that centuries after their death, their masterpieces, which should be played by a full orchestra, can now be played in short spurts on a tiny gadget in someone’s pocket or bag. You can assign a ringtone to each of the 500 phonebook entries the C55 can hold, so Beethoven’s Fifth could warn you that your boss is calling.

Anyway, the Sound Manager is really cool for managing sounds and downloading more ringtones from the Internet.

The Bitmap Viewer improves the total user experience as an easy way to view graphic files stored in the C55. A bitmap file can be assigned or attached to phonebook entries so that it will appear on the screen instead of the person’s phone number. The bitmap files in the C55 can also be used as the phone’s logo and screensaver. The C55 has a small monochrome screen for displaying 101 x 64 pixel graphics and five lines of text.

Both the Sound Manager and the Bitmap Viewer are tucked in the C55’s Surf & Fun menu where more sights and sounds can be obtained by connecting to the Internet or by playing the two preloaded games: Galaxy Hero and Prince of Persia.

The phone supports GPRS and has a WAP 1.2.1 browser with a ready link to the Siemens website (www.my-siemens.com) where one can order ringtones, logos and screensavers and receive them via SMS or use services such as photo logo composer to create personal pictures for the phonebook. J2ME games can be downloaded too, but I didn’t try doing it for this review after seeing how slow the J2ME games load.

More in the area of audio and visuals, the C55 has something called Dynamic Vibration, which makes incoming calls to your C55 interesting by using a combination of audio, visuals and tactile alerts. The vibration alerts include sounds such as those of a UFO, mosquito, train and helicopter.

If these unique vibration alerts are not enough, the Dynamic Vibration also lets you set the C55 to flash its keypad lights to the tune of the ringtone you specified. With the Dynamic Vibration, you’ll need a better excuse for missing a call.

Shortcuts

Aside from the voice commands that quickly call up the menu function you need, the Siemens C55 features other shortcuts to ease keypad navigation. For example, phonebook entries can be assigned to record numbers so that’s all you need to key in to make a call. This function is just for calling though, and not for sending text message.

For texting, the C55 offers predefined texts, which are standard text fragments stored in the phone itself and can be sent or added to messages. Examples of these text fragments are "I’m back," "See you later" and "I miss you."

Some text fragments are a bit irritating: "The answer is Yes" or "The answer is No." Why not just a simple Yes or No? Anyway, if you’re not happy with the selection of the predefined text, the C55 lets you compose your own.

For group calls, the C55 is capable of calling a maximum of five group members and linking them together in a conference, a function that may need to be enabled by the service provider. Before trying this function, you may want to ask your service provider how you will be charged for such a call.

Other cool features:

• The C55 comes with standard organizer functions for taking down notes and setting appointments, greetings and alarms, among others.

• Phone numbers can be stored in protected locations in a special SIM card.

• Pictures and sounds can be part of the SMS you receive and send too. Just make sure your recipient’s phone supports bitmaps and audio files too.

• With the use of special SIM cards, the C55 lets you or your service provider define a credit period after which the phone is barred for outgoing calls.

• Its total look and feel is good. It measures 101 x 44 x 21 mm and has customizable front and back covers, an exchangeable keypad and an integrated antenna.

Not so cool or missing features:

• The phone has a so-called Babysitter security feature that allows only ONE phone number to be dialed. The logic of this still eludes me; it makes 64k SIM card a real overkill.

• While the phone can be used a modem with a serial cable, it doesn’t have the useful IrDA or infrared port for beaming business cards.

To sum it up, the Siemens C55 looks like a mobile phone that status-conscious young people will not be shy to carry around. It looks good and packs enough technology at a friendly price to make it worth considering.