Siemens S56 Cell Phone

The new stylish phone, with color screen, is one of the most compelling Siemens devices available. Camera Phone Ready.  Requires Camera Attachment (Not Included)

Siemens's latest offering aims to reach both business users and consumers who enjoy the fun side of cell phones. Like other Siemens mobiles, this Cingular Wireless handset is a stylish model with its fair share of strong features. This handset supports lots of entertaining extras, such as an optional camera attachment, but business users may be disappointed with its battery performance.

At 4 by 1.7 by 0.7 inches and weighing only 3 ounces, the S56 is a typically svelte offering from Siemens, with the blue, gray, and silver accents lending it a sleek look. We also like the white lighting of the keypad, which makes it easy to see in dim settings, as does the vibrant seven-line, 256-color display.

Though the navigation buttons are a bit small, they make it easy to wade through the graphical menus. The volume-control and voice-memo keys rest on either side of the unit. Because these buttons are identical, it's easy to get them confused at first; mastering the phone's interface will take some practice.

As noted earlier, you can also attach a mobile camera with a built-in flash. While not as sleek an option as the phones with integrated cameras, it doesn't add much girth to the S56's slim form factor.

The contact list stores up to 250 entries and includes such details as company name, street address, and URL. You can also include a picture with the contact info, which will appear on the display when that person calls. Additionally, you can store another 250 names on the SIM card. The call-records feature is somewhat skimpy on details, displaying only the phone number, not the time or duration of your dialed calls. On the upside, the integrated speakerphone provides clear quality on both ends. Along with voice dialing and voice memos, you can record brief phone conversations without a cumbersome connection to an external tape recorder, but make sure you tell the other party that you're recording the conversation first.

On the fun side, the S56 supports Java (J2ME), so you can download games, images, and applications. There's also a vibrate mode and polyphonic ring tones, more of which you can download to the phone. If you opt for the optional mobile camera, you'll be able to take pictures in low (160x120 pixels) or high (640x480) resolutions. You can send your images to others via e-mail, IrDA, MMS, or Bluetooth. We transmitted four low-resolution pictures to our work computer via e-mail without a problem, although even the tiny (5K) files took about 10 minutes to travel over the GPRS network.

Since this phone is Bluetooth compatible, you can use it to transfer data wirelessly to other Bluetooth devices or use accessories such as wireless headsets. The S56 easily paired up with both the Plantronics and Siemens headsets that we tested with the unit. However, trying to get the phone to recognize both simultaneously caused a conflict, so you'll want to disable one headset before activating another.