I work in the software industry. When selling software, we are always asked by customers to complete a "tick-list" of features when our product is put up against others. This reliance of features over form and perhaps reliability is the reason a lot of software implementations tend to fail and become "shelfware" instead.

So it is with this Siemens model. I liked other Siemens phones, but when I heard of a tri-band phone that allowed integration with my Outlook calendar and contact list as well as WAP to boot, I was immediately interested.

I bought my phone SIM-free in the Netherlands, where it was released onto the market before my native UK. I had receipts etc. so if I had cause to complain, I could at least return it. I did, after two days!

I found the firmware would hang after adding entries to the SIM card phone list or to the phone's ample memory. Spurious entries would appear for no apparent reason. Calls would be dropped more often than on my simple Nokia phone and callers would not be displayed properly, even though I had entered them into the phone. I think that may have been down to the phone's inability to detect the difference between a number with an International code and one without.

There is no doubt people find the phone impressively designed. It is small, reasonably lightweight and the function list is impressive. It fails to live up to my expectations though, as it is nigh-on useless as a phone, if the contacts are displayed improperly or are not even available to me when I try to search for them.

The battery life leaves a lot to be desired. I have to take the charger with me on short business trips, which is an annoyance. When charging it in my room, it has the awful tendency to emit a high-pitched screech and keep me awake. The charge time is mercifully short, though.

Initially, technical support in the UK did not want to know, when my second phone started playing up. Eventually I managed to get hold of a replacement off them, which worked as intended for 2 months. I am awaiting my fourth replacement phone from Siemens as I write this.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 350