Mixture a la Siemens
Written: Jan 13 '02 (Updated Jan 21 '02)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Clarity: |
|
|
| Portability: |
 |
|
| Battery Life: |
|
|
|
Pros: Dictaphone, Mp3, Java.
Cons: Many limitaions.
The Bottom Line: Get it if you want the features but also have a look at the SL42 and S45/ME45.
|
|
|
| imreasztar's Full Review: Siemens SL45 |
This phone is not the newest phone from Siemens, but still at the top of the competition. For the first sight, it is very appealing, but there are some drawbacks revealed only by long term usage.
For myself it is great to have both the mp3 player and the phone in one device. Last year, I had to carry on me my phone, my pda and my walkman, three devices in my pocket. Now I have only one to try the SL45. Let me present it from this three point of views: mp3 player - PDA/organiser - mobile phone.
Summary
To use the Siemens SL45 as a dedicated mp3 player, you probably need more investment to buy a bigger (128 MB) MMC card, a USB MMC reader to transfer files and the large battery to have enough power to listen to the music. PDA features are advanced for an average phone, but basic compared to a PDA with the limitation of 50 agenda and 2000 phonebook data entries. The possibility to enhance the phone via Java apps is excellent, this is the way to make it e-mail enabled for example. The dictaphone feature is outstanding. MMC related functions are painfully slow, especially SMS archiving, and SMS writing is also very slow for heavy texters. Phone hardware does not impress me either, the construction feels cheap. You have IrDA, but no GPRS, no HSCSD, no Bluetooth, and they are not available as an option either. Many other phones of this price tag have these as standard!
The phone has a huge memory of 32 MB, but all the phone/PDA related features are restricted to those of an average phone and cannot take advantage of the storage capacity.
In the box
- Siemens SL45
- Travel charger
- 540 mAh Li-ion battery
- Stereo headset with key
- 32 MB MMC card
- Data cable
- Sync station (can attach data cable and travel charger)
- CD with applications
- Getting started flyer
- Brief 100 page Manual
Mp3 playing
Though sound quality is excellent, the phone is not 100% mp3 ready out of the box. First, the provided 32MB card is too small. Most of the songs, I would say 99% of the mp3 songs are encoded at 128 kbit/s and 44kHz, resulting in 4-5 MB for a usual pop song. So you can save max 6-7 song on your 32 MB card. Now I reencode my songs for a lower bitrate of 96kbit/s and 22 kHz to fit more on the card, but this is just extra time and trouble. I use the freeware CDex from http://www.cdex.n3.net. Going below 96 kbit/s will produce very bad quality with lot of background noise. I have about 5 GB of mp3 on my hard drive, but all of them is in 128kbit/s.
The connection is very slow to transfer mp3 to the phone. Maybe the original idea was that you will download your songs to the phone during the 2 hours it is being charged. The problem: if I have an incoming call and pick the phone up, and the transfer of the last song has to be restarted. Then, if the phone is in the provided cradle - what is excellent in itself - you cannot answer calls. If I change my mind, and want other songs to listen to, I have to restart the 2 hour process. I have seen 3rd party USB cables for Siemens, but the phone does not support them. There are USB MMC readers out there, but this is extra cost again. I haven't bought a USB reader yet, so I finished up not using the mp3 feature because I had enough of waiting the songs being transferred.
MP3 management on the phone is very basic. If you get a call, the song will restart from start. This is very annoying when listening to long audiobooks, and have to forward for long. No m3u filelist support, no replay for one song, and without ID3 it only shows a:\MP3\songname...
Finally, listening to mp3 seems to be very power hungry. After three hours of listening a day, what is not that much I think - for me it is one hour in the morning going to work, one for going home, and an other extra hour during the day to go around-, the batteries went down to complete zero. I could not even receive or make a call. The 1000 mAh battery would be the good solution to replace the provided 540 mAh standard battery. Weighing only 25 g, it would be still comfortable to wear it in my belt case.
So, the phone can play mp3, that's all. To turn the phone into a real mp3 player, you will need to buy a bigger 64/128 MB MMC card, a USB MMC card reader and a 1000 mAh battery.
Organiser/PDA
I mainly bought this phone to partly replace my Psion Revo/ 3mx/5mx or whatever Psion I had on me during the last 5 years. The phone has very good organiser in fact with a calendar, extensive address book and note taking facility.
The calendar is somewhat basic, but good for its purpose. You have two graphical views, a monthly view (day selection only) and a weekly busy view showing appointments in a up-down scrollable way. Day view with a simple list of the day's entries. Unfortunately no empty time slots in the day view. There is a basic repeating function to enter my friends birthdays, lectures, etc. I currently keep my Agenda on my Psion Series 7, sync it with MS Outlook on my PC then sync back to the phone. Unfortunately there is no separately listed "to-do" entry types for day entries. The whole works well, just I have to pay attention for long entry names as the phone can hold about 20 chars for a day entry.
If you want to use the phone alone as an organiser, you can use the provided Siemens QuickSync software to customise your calendar and addressbook on the PC. When using MS Outlook, you have an extra Siemens menu in Outlook's tools menu. Personally, I do not like MS Outlook, I would prefer to use Lotus Notes or Organiser. But Symantec Act! is not supported either.
The address book is a big disappointment. The phone has 32 MB of data, but you are limited the average phone abalities. Capacity is restricted to 500 names and 2000 fields, say 500 names x 4 telephone numbers = 2000 data fields. My addressbook is also kept on my Psion Series 7, and I try to sync it to the phone. On the Series 7 there are more than 30 different fields in a record. The SL45 only has 13 (Last name, First name, Company, E-mail, Phone, Tel.office, Tel.mobile, Fax, Street, Postcode, City, Country, URL). I really miss a "memo" field for custom data, and sometimes I missed the second set of address fields. In this case I turn back to my Psion S7's excellent Contacts application. Synchronising is difficult, I always palyed with Outlook to fit into the 500 name and 2000 field limit, and finally I gave up, and just use one way transfer to the phone, storing the most important contact details in the SL45.
I also had to customise my database before synching to the SL45: using ";", ":", blanks at the end of lines, ENTER in the fields troubles a lot the software. Not an easy task to check all the entries when there are several hundreds of them. I have exported my database to .csv, and replaced all these characters with a simple txt editor and then imported back to the Psion, but it took almost the whole afternoon to find out how to do.
Browsing the addressbook is somewhat slow as all the MMC related features on this phone. It takes about 2 sec to jump to the desired entry.
So, the SL45 address book is good to be a companion for your PC or PDA addressbook, but it won't stand up to my expectations alone.
Note taking is very basic, you can enter simple text that is kept in a list. It is good for a shopping lists, long term to-dos, but I also keep my bus/train schedules here. This cannot be synced to any application, though, you can download enchanced note taker java applets if you need something more comprehensive.
Connection to the PC can be done via the provided RS232 cable, or via IrDA and the connection speed is satisfactory for organiser synchronisation tasks. USB is not possible as far as I know, say I haven't seen any USB cable sold by Siemens for this phone. You can see the contents of the MMC card in Explorer, but you also have a browser on the phone itself. Files have standard extensions, the addressbook is .adr (renaming the file to a different extension will cause the addressbook become empty, but with this trick you can have different addressbooks), Java applications have .class, .jar, .jad extensions, .mp3 is for mp3 music and .vmo for the dictaphone files. .smi is for inbox sms, .smo is for outbox sms archives.
If you have the SL45i, e-mail reading is also possible via Java applications. Siemens offers MicroMail, that can be downloaded for a small amount from their website. Early versions of this app contained many bugs, later versions on their site are OK. You can find other e-mail applicatons, too, like mail4me. POP3 e-mail is a major addition for "emergency" situations, when you must check your mail on the move. The e-mail size is limited (I think to 2-3 kbytes), but this depends on the Java application itself. Other JavaMicroEdition applications can be transferred to the phone, as well. They are mostly games, even very enhanced multi screen arcade games are included, but you can find some useful apps, too, like enhanced calendars that can be synced, fitness calculators, etc. I am looking for an enhanced addressbook that could hold all the entry fields of my Psion Series 7, but I haven't found one yet. An average Java application for the SL45 is about 50kbyte in size, so you can fit as many as you wish on the 32 MB MMC card.
Phone features
The SL45 is rather an average phone. With a good feature set including vibrating alert, user profiles. Call filtering is rather simple, but satisfactory - in the address book there is an extra VIP field, and you can restrict incoming calls on this basis. Profiles cover ringer settings, volume, melodies, silent alert (vibra), service tones, key tones, big letters and call filtering. There are three predefined but customisable profiles for normal-noisy-quiet environments, and you can set up three more user profiles. I usally use Normal / Family calls only (others are diverted to mailbox + vibra) / Dont disturb me (all calls are diverted to mailbox + no vibra) / Outdoors (all settings at the loudest possible + vibra).
Earlier firmware versions were famous for random switching off - especially when browsing the inbuilt help - and freezing when you play and have an incoming call. Press *#06# then upper left NO button to check the firmware version, any service point should do the upgrade for free. Firmware version 49 also upgrades the SL45 to SL45i and turns the phone Java enabled (the SL45 without "i" is not Java enabled), but this costs about 50 USD in Hungary.
T9 is very useful for text input on the phone, many languages are available (to be purchased separately from my-siemnes.com website). You can turn T9 off if you want. However, SMS writing is hyper slow. The phone is always words behind me.
The keys are very unresponsive, and it occurred many times that I wanted to press "back", then nothing happened, I pressed again and then my whole message was gone. The phone can hold 10 messages on the SIM card, 10 in phone memory, and you can archive any message to the MMC card. In this case, you have to enter a name for each message to be archived. Archiving, storing, retrieving messages from the MMC is painfully slow, the please wait screen is there for 10 seconds before the SMS is saved. So, I gave up archiving on the SL45's MMC itself, I rather use the excellent PhoneMan Pro software via IrDA on my Series 7 to archive the messages.
One of the best features is the dictaphone. Thanks to the large space provided by the MMC card, recording time is not limited. This is very useful when I discuss my research project with my tutors and cannot take a note of all the interesting things. I can also record important telephone calls, ex. directions.
The specifications say that the 32 MB card can store up to 5 hours, but I did not reach that limit yet. You can transfer your recordings to the PC, and the sync software converts your files to .wav. But you have the problems of slow transfer speeds discussed above for mp3, and if you copy over the USB reader you can not convert to .wav from .vmo.
There is a London City guide on the MMC for demo purposes. All in all, the SL45 is an excellent choice for journalists as dictaphone.
As part of the dictaphone system, the phone has a built-in answering machine. This can reduce call cost, as incoming calls are free for you. The only drawback for the answering machine is that it will not operate when you are not reachable.
Reception is rather average, it had no signal where my old Ericsson SH888 still had something. Voice quality is also average. I tend to use the provided headset to communicate, having also a mic and a button to initiate/terminate a call. If you don't use the mp3, a one eared headset would be better to use. The ringtones are not very original, but the problem is that they are not loud enough. Fortunately, there is the vibra! If the phone is on my belt, and I walk outside in winter times in a heavy traffic, I don't hear the phone ringing, but I feel the vibrating alert very well.
The phone does not have GPRS nor HSCSD, but I would never use them either, they are still very expensive at my service provider. I have set up my unix e-mail account on a way that it sends an sms notification message if I receive mail with the Form and Subject fields. If I receive an important mail and I am far away of any PC, the plain 9.6kbs connection is still enough to download that mail.
The menu system is poorly designed, many features are classed to unexpected places. Selection buttons are not effective enough to navigate, too many keypresses are required to reach the desired place in the menu system. Ex. to enter a new address 6 keypresses are required, 11 for a new appointment, 12 for a new note, and 14 to enter a new task. Fortunately, all the number keys can be programmed as a Fast-key to reach a customisable function.The ten keys can cover the addressbook, calendar, etc., - all the functions used frequently.
Call logging is very brief, only the last 10 dialled, last 10 unanswered calls are logged. With such a large memory in the background, I would expect a call logging for more calls in the past.
To have fun, you can compose melodies, download and use bitmaps and use midi files for ringing tones. I use none of this features, however.
Hardware side
If you don't play mp3, the battery is good for the phone features, it lasted me 2-3 days, and recharges in two hours. The cradle is very useful when recharging the battery, as the phone is in a stand-up position, you can see on the screen what is happening even from the other side of the room. However, if you want to answer an incoming call, you have to take the phone out of the sync station, but if you do not like this, you can plug the charger's power cord directly to the phone instead of the synchstation.
The manual is very brief. The hundred page booklet only covers the most important features, and never goes in detail. At this price tag and feature set, a comprehensive manual would be a must! There is also a flyer to get started with the most important features.
The screen is clear and high-resolution, the orange backlight is also comfortable. One of the best features of this phone is its excellent, large screen. If you game a lot, the low response of the LCD screen is annoying. Well, this device was designed to funtion as a phone, not a Gameboy.
Buttons are located too close to each other, I have problems entering text with my bigger than average fingers. I think the phone is too small to be used as a PDA with frequent information input. The button response is also problematic, and the button colours are fading, revealing the orange coloured plastic. The side buttons are useful, the +/- key can also be used for up/down navigation in the menus.
The built in IrDA works at the possible maximum of 115kbs, and can also be used to sync the phone with the PC. However, for this price, later phones also have bluetooth what would provide a higher speed and more comfort to sync with the PC/laptop.
The accessories are a bit hard to find. My first purchase was the excellent Siemens black leather belt case. Why the case is not included with the phone if you pay hundreds of dollars for it??? A good looking, high quality the belt case is required for me - I don't like the cheap looking Samsonite zip cases. Like that, the phone is always with me, and personal with the vibrating alert. If you don't feel the vibra, try to fasten your belt. You can also buy a so called "Home Station" (not to mix it up with the syncstation). If you connect your landline and landline handset to the home station, you are able to receive incoming GSM calls on any landline handset connected. If you use wireless landline handsets, you have to carry only one phone in the house. I think this is a really good thing to impress your visitors, and can be handy if you receive a lot of incoming GSM and landline calls, like in a small office.
Overall, the whole phone construction feels cheap and delicate for this price tag.
PC Connection
Connecting to the PC is only available via the serial port. I had no success to sync via infrared, but you can use it as an infrared modem if you want.
The SL45 phone ships with a base station, where you have to plug both the power and the data cable. Like that, the phone can be synchronised and charged in the same time. The station also holds the phone in a stand-up position, so you can check on screen what is happening.
USB connection to the phone itself is not sold by Siemens, and the 3rd party USB cables are not supported by the SL45. The only solution to copy files to the phone is the USB MMC card reader, that you can find for about 20-30 USD. However, the phone can not be synchronised this way, only through the serial cable.
What I really dislike in my SL45 is the slow serial speed. PC connection is really at the heart of this device, and it is a really painful fact that USB is not implemented!
The phone comes with two applications to be installed on the PC.
Data Exchange is responsible for the SL45-PC connection. After installation, you will have a drive called "mobile" in Explorer. You can browse the contents of the MMC card of the phone, drag&drop is supported to copy files to the phone, like mp3 or the Java applets.
QuickSync is needed if you want to synchronise the phone with MS Outlook, or if you want to edit the agenda/addressbook of the phone.
If this is not enough, you can purchase Soft Data Link from my-siemens.com. It includes some additional features like easy SMS sending from the PC.
Alternatives at Siemens
There is the less expensive (but not that much), reboxed SL45, called Siemens SL42:
- 16 MB MMC card only
- no data cable
- no synchstation
- no stereo headphones, no handsfree.
You have IrDA to connect to the PC - but no firmware update or synchronisation through infra!. For dictaphone features only, this is enough. However, to listen to mp3 on the SL42, you have to buy a bigger MMC card and, a MMC card reader, the stereo headphones, and download the free connection software from Siemens. The SL42 is identical to the SL45, can also be upgraded to SL45i v49 firmware to be Java enabled. The SL42i is planned for Jan 2002.
Close brothers of the SL45 are the S45 and the ME45 (the dust/water proof version of the S45) with a large built-in memory of 348 kbyte to store your addressbook, appointment entries, sms and short voice notes. Text writing on the S45 is faster (no MMC, no slow MMC access). The phone is not Java enabled. A firmware update with a POP3 e-mail client is planned by Siemens. There is a USB connected MMC based mp3 player for this phone, if you decide to get mp3 later. The S45/ME45 also has a speakerphone and GPRS, and the ME45 has EMS, too. Keys are also small on the S45/ME45.
The advantage of the SL45i over the S45/ME45 are mp3 playback capability, huge storage place to record and expandability via Java.
On the web
Browse to the following links to see an example list of the available Java applications for the SL45i, including games, simple spreadsheet implementations, even video.
http://javamobiles.com/midlets/games.html
http://javamobiles.com/midlets/applications.html
http://www.microjava.com/downloads/productivity?content_id=2184
http://www.cocoasoft.com
http://www.club-siemens.com/midlets.html
http://midlet.org
For forums and backgound info check
http://www.sl45.com
http://www.sl45i.org
http://www.s45.de (german)
My wish list for the SL45
- Speed, speed, speed! See addressbook, sms, calendar!
- 64 MB MMC, USB connection, bigger battery out of the box.
- No 500 limit for names, 2000 for entries.
- No 50 limit for calendar entries.
- No limit for 10 notes.
- More addressbook fields (only 13).
- More user groups (only VIP).
- E-mail preinstalled (have to install Java app).
- More solid construction (feels cheap).
- Louder ringtones.
- Possibility to convert .vmo voice notes on the PC (supported only via synchronisation).
- Loudspeaker (like s45 so maybe we can hear mp3s from the phone... :-).
- Slightly faster LCD screen (slow for some games).
- Internal antenna.
- Better menu structure.
- Multitasking (to browse sms and play mp3 at the same time).
- GPRS, HSCSD, Bluetooth - others have it for this price.
- Sync via infrared.
- Lotus Notes, Lotus Organiser, Symantec Act! support.
- More battery capacity, probably Li-polymer.
- Auto feature to play all song without the need to build a playlist first.
- Different sorting options for addressbook (default is Last Name, First Name order).
Should you buy it or not
You are a patient person - no problem.
Want a GSM Gameboy with POP3 e-mail - this is for you.
You are a heavy sms user - slow typing speed, forget it.
Big hands, big fingers - big problem here, keys are small and close.
Want to store more than 501 contact entries - no luck, limit is 500. Also the 2000 data entry limit is there.
Want an mp3 player, check if have the budget for MMC/USB reader/big battery.
Want a dictaphone only - see SL42, less expensive with same drawbacks.
All in all, this could be a great phone, but simply it isn't, it just a device that can play mp3, nothing more. It is an excellent dictaphone, however!!!
If you still want to get the SL45, be sure to get the updated, Java enabled SL45i.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 330
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
imreasztar
|
|
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Reviews written: 28
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
Bio/chemical engineer who loves mobile tech
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.