Reg review Siemens comes relatively late to the smart phone market. Its first handset of that type, the SX1, finally began shipping in the UK in March, despite being pitched by Siemens as the next big thing more than a year ago.

Back in 2003 when Siemens chiefs were telling Symbian developers what a difference the SX1 would be, it was only up against the imperfect Sony Ericsson P800, some clunky Nokias and Handspring's slow Treo 300. Since then, PalmOne/Handspring has shipped the impressive Treo 600 and Siemens' rivals in the mobile phone business, Nokia and Sony Ericsson, have shipped the 6600 and the P900, respectively.

The upshot is that while the SX1 was a stand-out handset a year ago, it's up against some pretty stiff competition now, primarily Nokia's 6600, the device it most resembles.

Like the 6600, the Siemens handset looks like a mobile that's put on weight, but while the Nokia is clearly the one that ate all the pies, the SX1 hides its spare tyre rather well. Both handsets are 10.9cm tall, but at 5.5cm wide and 1.9cm thick, the SX1 is less bulky than the 5.8 x 2.4cm 6600. You can certainly feel the difference in size and weight (110g to the 6600's 125g), and I found the SX1 much more comfortable to hold.

Photos of the SX1 suggest a harsh, angular handset, but the phone's curves are smoother than that and images don't reveal the tactile band that runs up each side of the handset and over its top. Kitted out in a blue-grey metallic hue and with crisp, clear plastic buttons and chrome joystick below the 176 x 220 16-bit colour display, itself mounted underneath a speaker with a stylish chrome mesh, the SX1 looks every bit the executive-oriented handset in a way the its arch-rival just fails to do. The buttons light up blue.

On the reverse, the lens of the 640 x 480 digicam is mounted at the top of the handset, well away from obscuring fingers. Below it sits the usual battery compartment hatch, which is much easier to remove than most Nokia equivalents, let alone the 6600's. Inside you'll find the 1000mAh battery and a simple slot into which a SIM easily slides, but is rather harder to remove.

The base of the phone features a proprietary connector that doubles as both power and data port. On the right-hand side are buttons to call up the camera application and activate the handset's speakerphone. The buttons are flush with the case to prevent them from being activated inadvertently, but I managed to do so on several occasions.

Over on the left-hand side is the MMC card slot. While it's certainly disappointing that the slot doesn't support the more up-to-date SD Card format, Siemens wins points for the spring-loaded access hatch that securely locks an expansion card in place, and makes it easy to remove. And unlike other handsets I could mention, there's no need to remove the battery to do so.

The SX1 runs the Symbian OS and uses Nokia's Series 60 user interface. I found Siemens' implementation of the UI sharper, less flouncy than the Nokia 6600's version, with the applets that provide the sort of functions previously provided by menu options more sensibly corralled into folders, such as Setup, Games, Extras, Organiser - which contains all the phone's PIM applications - Camera and Music, home of the phone's Radio and MP3 apps. The SX1 also includes the usual SMS/MMS/email tools and an xHTML web browser.

Both of these make use of the handset's GPRS functionality, backed by a tri-band (900/1800/1900) GSM radio. The SX1 also features Bluetooth to support hands free kit, and data transfer. There's an infrared port and a bundled USB data cable if your PC doesn't have a Bluetooth adaptor installed.

Siemens also bundles an earpiece set, which doubles up as the FM radio receiver's antenna. It provides both manual and automatic tuning, but the latter only appears to list the first six stations it detects, so if your best-loved station is in the middle of the FM band or toward the top, you'll have to find it yourself. At least there are six pre-sets for you to store your favourite frequencies. And the signal strength indicator is cute, too.

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The MP3 player, written by Emuzed, works well enough, but the SX1's limited on-board RAM - just 4MB - means a memory card is essential. Video playback is handled by PacketVideo's recording/playback app, which grabs 176 x 144 footage in 3GPP format. Around 22 seconds of video with mono sound will occupy just over 200KB of memory, and the quality's (7.5fps) not bad. Siemens also bundles Real Network's RealOne Player, though it's arguably redundant.

For still photos, there's the usual camera app, Snapshot, and album viewer, Images. Image Fun, meanwhile, provides some basic image manipulation tools. A necessary adjunct for a business-oriented phone? I doubt it, but with smart phones increasingly appealing across the board, Siemens is probably right to bundle such frivolous stuff.

Just as the MP3 player app exposes the SX1's paucity of internal memory, so Image Fun reveals the weakness of the handset's controls. Yes, it appeals to the eye, but the tiny chrome joystick is a pain in the neck to use. Positioned for to be moved with your thumb, the joystick's smooth curves make it almost impossible to nudge one way or t'other without pressing it down too. As with the camera and hands free buttons on the side of the handset, Siemens has given the joystick a low profile to avoid accidental knocks, but equally that also makes it hard to move correctly.

Since the joystick is not only used for navigating around the phone's UI and applications, but for controlling the speaker volume - I discovered this by accident; it's not at all clear from the handset which buttons you use - and other features, this is a real problem for any user who lacks the daintiest of fingers.

Ditto the numeric key array. After a few days' use, I started to get the hang of the SX1's keypad design, with numbers one to five down the left hand side of the screen and the rest down the right. Siemens' user research clearly suggests that folk dial using two hands and so the company has positioned the SX1's twin key arrays to be each operated by one of your thumbs. Fine. It does work that way. But try doing it one-handed when you're carrying a briefcase. It's possible but uncomfortable.

Texting is even trickier. That's partly because, used as I am to the more standard layout on my Nokia 6310i, I have a different mental map of the keys than the SX1 presents. But more to the point, it's bloody hard reaching over with your thumb to press a key the correct number of times to get the character you want, particularly those reached through keys 1, 2 and 3.

There is one benefit to the layout: it provides a series of buttons on either side of the display that can be linked to on-screen items in the same way that the two buttons on either side of the joystick correspond to the two action named at the bottom of the display. In a number of apps - selecting pre-set stations in the radio, for instance - this eliminates the need to use the joystick.

Had Siemens put the numeric keys where they are on 90 per cent of handsets, the SX1 would have scored rather more highly than it does. Design, we're told, is at its best when it's not obvious. Alas, Siemens seems to think that it's more important to offer a phone that will garner glances than one that's comfortable and convenient to use. It's by no means alone in holding such a view - Nokia has it to.

Otherwise, the SX1 was a joy to use. The display appeared slightly darker than the Nokia 6600's similarly sized equivalent, but was much easier to read with the backlight turned off. Its battery life is certainly better, but probably not much more than the bigger capacity (1000mAh to the 6600's 850mAh) yields. The SX1 definitely feels faster than the 6600.

Verdict

Dodgy keypad layout aside, the SX1 is never going to rival either the Treo 600 or the P900 for entering larger volumes of text than brief SMS messages. Siemens no doubt considers those phones as rivals, but they're really battling it out with each other, leaving the SX1 head to head with the 6600. Both are phones that offer a good deal of PDA functionality - the Treo 600 and the S900 are coming at the problem from the other end, as PDAs that have been shaved down to work as mobile phones too.

Which approach best suits you with depend on how you use your phone. For me, it's about voice communications and the ability to carry personal information around - my inbox is too full of spam for my phone to be a viable email platform yet. Out of the SX1 and the 6600, I prefer the former, despite being a long-time Nokia user. I could get used to the SX1's unnecessarily annoying joystick and weird keypad layout - the 6600's 'wading through treacle' speed, bulk and poorer battery life would be more difficult to acclimatise to. ®

Siemens SX1
Rating	75%
Pros	— Comfortable size and weight — Decent feature set — Solid build quality
Cons	— Terrible keypad layout — Joystick navigator fiddly to use — Too little internal memory
Price	£400 SIM-free; less with an airtime contract
More info	The Siemens SX1 web site (http://www.siemens-mobile.com/sx1/)

Related Reviews

Nokia 6600 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/02/nokia_6600_smart_phone/)
Sony Ericsson P900 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/12/03/sony_ericsson_p900_smartphone/)
PalmOne Treo 600 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/03/palmone_treo_600_smartphone/)

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