Customer Reviews

Siemens S66 Phone (AT&T)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The siemens s66....where do i start? over the last year i have had many different phones, an lg vx6000, a sanyo 8200, a nokia 3200, a motorola v505, a motorola mpx200 and 220, a samsung e315, and the lg 1100...this phone is by far the best. i was very skeptical about it. the reason being that i am an indirect dealer of 2 carriers that carry siemens phones, i have sold te cf62t, the c61, the ct66, the m56, etc....their phones always seemed so flimsy to me. so i spent some time trying to decide between the s66, the nokia 6230, and the nokia 6620. my deciding factors were: screen size (atleast 3 times the size of the 6230), the size of the phone itself (looks big but doesn't bother me in the least bit), and reviews. this phone got great reviews. to top it all off my roommate (kyle--see above) won this phone from siemens. so after playing with his i came to a decision. and i haven't been happier.

the quality of this phone is great. the sound is superb and the functionality is above average. out of all my phones i've always made sure (atleast with the last few of my phones) that they had speakerphone, the sound on the speakerphone on the s66 is great. you can hear perfectly and the person on the other end can as well. the menu system on the phone is one of the best i've seen...its very similar to that of the sony ericsson t610/616. very easy to use while still compacting a lot of functions. the battery life is mediocre. i use my phone quite a bit. about an hour of talking a day, probably half an hour to 45 minutes of games (the games on this phone are great). the camera usually one a day atleast. and i can usually have it last all day. not a problem for me because i charge my phone every night anyway. i did decide though that it was smart to invest in a car charger for this phone for those long days when my battery would be dwindling before i am ready to charge it.

now on to the features! the 1.3 megapixel camera is easily the best camera i've seen on a phone. to those people that complain about camera quality on phones.....c'mon....its a phone. my only complaint with the camera is how easy dust gets on the lens. i usually have to clean it out every few days (though its not hard to clean at all). the video function is also the best i've seen yet. running at 15 frames per second. its not nearly as choppy and unclear as the samsung e315 or the nokia 6620. i actually tend to use the video portion alot since it is a good quality video.

the bluetooth has been great so far. i haven't gotten to use a headset or my laptop with it yet. and from what i've read (and this is pure rumor) i heard that it will not recognize a bluetooth adapter on a laptop. it will only recognize it if its built in. (kind of a bummer because my laptop doesnt have bluetooth built in). i have however used it for transfering files between my phone and my girlfriends t610. great speeds on transfers and very easy to use. i've noticed the bluetooth does not run the battery down much either which isn't the case with other phones (v505).

one of the best things about this phone is its abundance of organizer features including: calendar, appointments, tasks, notes, missed appts, voice recording, alarm clock (works very well), calculator, stop watch, countdown, etc...also in the applications is a survival dictionary. which basically translates key phrases into tons of different languages. not very useful for me....but if your in another country this would be great. kinda fun to play with too lol.

the phones memory is amazing. the phone comes with 11 mb built in which on medium resolution can store roughly 500 pictures. it also comes with a 32mb rs-mmc card which is amazing for saving videos and pictures. i don't know that i will ever run out of memory. my only complaint on memory is that it isn't shared. the 11mb is on there specifically for pictures, sounds, games, etc...it has no effect on things like the inbox. my text message inbox (and outbox) holds about 70 texts each. when you do 4000 a month like i do you tend to clear the inbox and outbox quite a bit. i have yet to find a phone that had much more than that capacity on it though.

the contacts list is great. it not only does multiple numbers for each name but gives a spot for their address, email address, birthday, and a spot to insert a picture for picture id (which works very well by the way).

there are a few bugs in the software. they can get a little irritating but after owning a motorola are definitely a breath of fresh air and really aren't bad at all. occasionally (usually while playing a game) the phone will freeze for a moment and then turn off. also now and then when i try to start up the camera it will say application error and i will have to restart the phone for the camera to work. again these things do not happen very often. every phone tends to have bugs so its not really a big deal.

my favorite thing about this phone is how much you can do with it...i find myself playing with this phone constantly where as with my other phones there really wasn't much to do. this phone is packed full of features and well worth the price. my recommendation is this...if you are looking for a basic phone, something very simple to use, if you are not very technologically savy....buy a nokia. if you are into features, and enjoy playing around with your phone then this is definitely the phone for you.

So I actually won this phone from Siemens, and have been in LOVE with it ever since! I have had it for two weeks now, and have been very impressed. I also own an Mpx220, Mpx200, Motorola a630, and a Samsung e315, and I use this one only all the time! On to the specs...

Battery life is sufficient--I am on my phone non-stop doing text messages (over 3000 per month), checking email, sending picture messages, and talking--I'll get a good 24 to 36 hours with each charge. When I have been a little more sparse with my use, I can go two nights without charging easy.

Picture quality is stellar for a cell phone, I find its best to make sure you clean the lens before taking any high-res pics, as dirt gets in there pretty easily and makes the pictures a little more grainy. The pictures generally come out clear and LARGE! I leave it set on the medium setting usually, and can store 500 pics with the phones memory alone.

I have had absolutely no problem with service, it actually gets a stronger signal than my Motorola and my Nokia phones that I've had before. I'll get one, even two bars more in weak places than before--good job Siemens! Speaker phone is clear and loud, I don't usually set it on the highest setting or it gets a bit garbled, but on 3 it is nice and audible-- and the ring tones are LOUD!!! I set it on the highest setting...

The phone looks great, and seems stronger than it looks--a couple drops, but not even a scratch!

Couple negatives, which don't bother me but could be annoying to some--it has reset on me a few times, strangely when I SEND emails it seems to shut off after sometimes and then I have to power it back up. This has happened twice a week. Not a big deal to me, again, could be annoying to you.

Also, because I do a lot of text messaging, Siemens style of t9 input has set me back a little to learn it. The space key is the 1, and is set really close to the send button, so I've sent quite a few unfinished texts or emails when trying to hit space!

Keys are a LITTLE small, but it is not usually a problem. I've hit the wrong ones a few times, and if you have big fingers I wouldn't recommend this phone.

All in all, GET THIS PHONE! Anyone into techy stuff or just a sweet looking phone will love it, and the functionality and features are rich!

If you are looking for a functional, user-friendly phone, this is NOT the phone for you. I never thought I could actually "hate" a piece of plastic, but i find myself cursing this phone constantly. I am currently looking to replace my S66.

This phone puts on a great front: with a sleek design, it brags about its many features and functionality. Unfortunately the only thing this phone has going for it are good looks. The phone is functionally inept. As a long-time Nokia user, this phone falls short in its ease of use. I find myself navigating through dozens of poorly-translated menus, to accomplish the most simple of tasks (ie: turning on Bluetooth, going to the calendar or alarm clock.) I consider myself fairly technologically savvy, and yet I cannot figure out the logic behind the programming of this phone. The calendar and contacts are dysfunctional: Rather than starting at A, my contacts list starts somewhere around the C's, and it took me an entire night to try to understand the complexities of the calendar.

Structurally, the keypad is ridiculously small, I find myself constantly mis-pressing numbers. The 1 button is used as "space" for text messaging (confusing for us Nokia users) and so close to the "send" button that I have sent more one-word text messages than complete ones. The soft key functions change more often than i can keep track of.

The battery life is atrocious. This phone brags a stand-by time of many days, while i have had to charge it two times in one day. This may be because I am an avid user of Bluetooth, but my Nokia managed to maintain a charge of two days with Bluetooth permanently on. The screen is too big for its own good - it does not have the resolution or color ability to support its size - images appear grey and dull.

I feel as if I have lost a part of my life trying to sync this thing to my PC. I have yet to get it to do so seamlessly after weeks of adjustments. The out-of-date software that you download from Siemen's convoluted website was not written for Bluetooth connectivity and is just plain ugly. For the outrageous size of the manual, there is not even a half page dedicated to the sync abilities of the phone. Leaving you with an awful program and your imagination. This is a far step from Nokia's seamless sync abilities and very functional program.

Just plain dysfunctional and a disappointment, don't pay for the good looks.

Now I feel like contributing a little since I've had my phone for 2 months now.

At first, I was hating it because the battery life sucked and I could not figure out the calender. Then I learned, hey, Bluetooth, high lumination, stuff like that uses up the battery so I only turn on the blue tooth when I need it and set my illumination to low enough to see. That helped A LOT! So instead of charging every night, every other night is possible. I use my phone about 2 hours a day, 2 pix per day, calender checking all the time.. about 5 SMS per day... and I still think my cingular bill is too expensive!

I bought a usb bluetooth from FRYS and plugged it into my computer. Installed Outlook and synched my yahoo calender to Outlook then through my bluetooth I synched my phone and outlook. I didnt even need that syncML from Siemens even though I did install it! It was great! I don't know if the sync was provided by the USBstick software or if it was built into the phone or if SyncML installed itself into the USB bluetooth adaptor menu. Anyways, its cool. I just have to figure out how to get the repeating events, like birthdays, to sync. They were dropped.

Ringtones and sounds are loud on this thing, but speaker phone.. don't know... The not as clear as the Nokia Communicator I think.

The screen.. You know, bigger screen but not more pixels meaning lower resolution than a Motorola. That pissed me off.. but once you look at your pictures on your computer.. WOW!

And yes, it sucks that the internal memory and the card memory aren't shared. Or maybe not. Anyways, I got a 256mB card for mine anyways. It'll be the cooler memory stick.. hehehehe

But something strange, I poped in my SIM card from my old phone in Finland because I wanted the phone numbers, but my phone wuold not read the card. I wonder why.

So, what can I say. I like this phone. I wanted a phone with calender sync capabilities and a good camera. I almost went for that Treo or Blackberry but realized they have crappy cameras. So I saved 300 bucks by going with this phone!

Now I just have to figure out if I can use this IR port to open my garage door or change channels on my TV.

I've transfered things thru IR and Bluetooth, it's awesome!

oCT 25, 2006
After owning this for one year, it died! No more siemens for me. How do I change the rating?????

I have recently purcheased a Siemens S66 phone. This phone has mean nice features and a few draw backs. The first thing to notice is that it comes with bluetooth, InDR, and a 32 megabit scandisc card (for storing photos). The phone has a very large display and it isnt a flip phone. It is Tri-band functional, and gets service better then any other phone I have owned with a internal Antenna. One of the nicest things I have noticed is that you can actually see the screen just as well in direct sunlight as you can in the dark (major kudos in my book). The only draw back I have found is that they battery life isnt all it is cracked up 2 be and it weasn't untill I got a bluetooth headset that I was completely satisfied, a must have with any bluetooth cell phone.

This phone has lots of nice features: A nice large screen, a 1.3 megapixel camera, bluetooth, and good games(even worms).

However, it was a bit bulkier than my Sony Ericsson T637, didn't have a significantly larger screen, and the bluetooth didn't work well with my headset. I don't think the voice quality on my bluetooth headset was quite as good either.

I have seen pretty nice photos taken with the camera of this phone, but they show up on the LCD with lots of noise. And it crashed once while trying to take a photo in the less than one day I owned the camera.

This was the first phone I've used which had games I wanted to play, including Worms. The size of the LCD made playing games a real possibility.

For now I'll stick with my T637, and maybe I'll upgrade to a RAZR when they become cheaper or a new Sony Ericsson phone in the future when there is a compelling upgrade.

Okay, where do i start off. This is and still is my first phone. I love it, i really can't complain. I use many of the features everyday. Expecially the Spanish translator for my spanish 2 class, lmao. However it does have a crappy battery life. I have to charge mine every day. And only can talk on it for about 3-4 hours. The camera is O.K. Things tend to be dark, and if you carry it in your pocket like me then you are always cleaning the lens with a q-tip. This phone also has covers made for it which i couldnt belive, i bought two and changing them can be a bit tricky. Plus i dont know anyone who has this phone and everyone always tells me how awsome it is. :] All together i give this phone a 3 out of 5

Love it...has all kinds of neet stuff on it. Will buy another Siemens phone when this one goes out.

Everything about this phoe is perfect. But if you want the battery to last charge it for 3-4 days straight after the battery has been compleatly depleted.