Siemens SX66 Review

I got the Siemens SX66 PDA Phone phone two weeks ago from Cingular. So far, I've been extremely happy with it. Note that all of my experience has been with the upgraded ROM from Siemens. (http://communications.siemens.com/cd...rNrNrN,00.html).

Photo by Siemens


It's main features are that it is VERY versitile in terms of communications. It has built in WIFI, Bluetooth, Infrared, and GPRS. It is not EDGE capable. The phone radio can be turned off without turning off the PDA (Flight mode), or the pda can be turned off and keep the phone on to make sure you can recieve incoming calls.

It also has all the standard PDA Features, including Windows Mobile Pocket PC 2003 Second Edition, Outlook mail, Micorosft Word, Microsoft Excel, Calendar, Power Options, Pocket Internet Explorer (Supports HTML and Wap 2.0 browsing), ect. The processor (a 400Mhz XScale based Intel, is pretty quick. I've only noticed it slowing down when using WiFi while playing MP3's, browing the internet, and starting up another App.

The main advertised feature is the slide out keyboard, which is only one method of input. The screen is all touchscreen so you can use the stylus to write, it has handwritting recognition as well. Another handy feature is a slider on the side, defaults to a volume control, but since all the buttons can be reprogrammed, it can be turned into an easy up/down button. A multi-directional pad and multiple quick access buttons make it easy to start multiple applications. Of course, these can be disabled to avoid accidental button presses.

One thing I've been very impressed by is the battery life. Siemens claims 4 hours of talk time, and one week of standby. I found light use will draim the battery in about 3-4 days. However, I've been using it at work as an MP3 player as well. From a full charge, 30 minutes on the phone, and 4 hours of MP3 playing time (With the screen backlight set to turn off after 10 seconds of no keypress), it was only down to 72% after 10 hours. Overall I've been very impressed.


Pros:
- Slide out keyboard
- Built in WIFI
- Quad-Band
- SDIO card slot for extra accessories
- Suprisingly good battery life
- 400 MHz XScale processor
- 96 MB Built in memory, plus 128 MB SDRAM
- Bluetooth version 1.1 / class 2, GPRS class 10

Cons:
- No camera (I-Mate JAM version has a VGA camera, but is not Quad-Band)
- WIFI can be a little buggy, sometimes requires soft reset
- Speakerphone could stand to be louder
- Screen is only 64K Colors, 320 x 240
- Not EDGE Capable

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› See More: Siemens SX66 Review

Quick Update:

Battery life is still OK, but significantly less if using BT and/or WIFI. Should still be able to get about a day out of it with one of these on most the time. Extended batteries are available through third parties.

WIFI problems I mentioned seemed to have been fixed in an upgraded ROM (available on xda-developers.com). It seems to be the most stable ROM combination I have tried to date.
System ROM 1.40.00
Ext ROM 1.40.124
Radio 1.13