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Siemens SX-56 |
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| Overview | |
| I stared with this unit when they first
came out. The software was buggy and support from AT&T was a
joke. The T-mobile version was known for having its paint peeling
and the screen was not the brightest. It lacked both sufficient
memory and speed. Yet, several of my clients are still using
theirs. After numerous firmware upgrades and thanks to the web
site xda-developers.com,
patches, fixes and enhancements were constantly developed. The
lack of the 850 band is its biggest draw back today. The
speakerphone was and is outstanding! There are companies that will
increase its memory and it is still a good phone.
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| Results | |
| With the latest version of the firmware and a few third party applications, this is a very usable phone. Voice dialing always worked will for me whether I used Fonix voice dial, MS Voice Command or Voice Signals system. Speed was very acceptable to me except when opening large Power Point presentations or large pictures. For Word of Excel spreadsheets it was quick and far faster than the Blackberry's third party application. I was always blown away at how good the microphone on this unit is. In a car it works as a speakerphone and the other party can't tell you are using it as a speakerphone. In hotel rooms I have held small conference calls using it as a speakerphone and it worked very well. We could all hear the other party and they could hear each of us without having to be right on top of the unit. The clarity was always very good. | |
| Conclusion | |
| I also tried the Samsung i700 and it too was a good unit, but in some ways this was a benchmark. With the Samsung was impossible to get upgrades until the vendor made them available and they were really slow to address the problems. With any of the HTC made devices (all of the XDAs) there was a large community of people making firmware, patches, custom firmware downloads and more readily available. Not having to wait on a carrier is a real plus for any device as the carriers tend to be very slow to put out fixes. If you can live with its limitations this is still a good unit. However, there are newer versions that offer more capability and have superseded the SX-56. The new XV6600 is such a unit. | |
