Siemens CX75 disadvantages

Siemens CX75 review

Siemens CX75 is the first phone of the new series to hit the market. Unlike its successful forerunner it can boast of a megapixel camera, Bluetooth, memory cards support and finer display. Moreover, it features a slightly extravagant design.

Key features

• Bluetooth
• Memory card slot
• MP3 player
• Megapixel camera
• Very good phonebook
• Rich extras menu

Main disadvantages

• Much too embedded joystick
• Display is better quality, but smaller than the one of the forerunner
• Unattractive graphics in the main menu
• MP3 player does not run in background
• Controversial design

Just about a year ago we were testing Siemens CX65. It was the first mobile of Series 65. It stood out among the competitors due to its rich functional menu, its huge display and its brilliantly elaborated phonebook and calendar. It hit the market in June, at an initial price of about 270 euros. Since then, however, its price has fallen to half the original one, so it is no wonder Siemens CX65 has become an immensely favorite mobile among the consumers.

Yet, a year in the mobile technologies is quite a long time... The market requires innovations and hence a new successor is on the way. Struggling to meet customers' requirements, Siemens mobiles has designed the new Siemens CX Series 75 model. The phone was officially presented together with other models of the same series at this year's CeBIT fair..

It is moving up

One quick look at the new Siemens CX75 is enough to reveal the aspirations of this phone to let go the middle class and move a little bit upper in the mobile hierarchy. The phone is decorated with chromium elements and looks special and luxurious. As you will see a bit further in the review, the range of its functions is also very wide. Already the previous CX65 model was one of the middle-class phones best equipped ever. However, technology moves forward bringing along common achievements that once used to be innovative. As a result, in the new model you can look forward to a megapixel camera, Bluetooth and memory cards support.

It seems that the equipment of CX75 is richer in order to partly cover the gap, which flew open after the missing successor from the S series. The only mobile within the Siemens brand to be better equipped will be the SXG75 model, designed as a multimedia device. It will be shooting at exquisite and pretentious users, who appreciate and are willing to pay for a 3rd generation net support, a 2 MP camera and other types of equipment.

Gleaming all over around

Lying in front of us is a phone meant to serve the mass users. Its design, however, is quite extravagant and I dare foresee this detail will probably discourage many customers from buying the mobile. When I first saw the phone, I thought there was far too much chromium placed on its covers and tended to look at it with certain contempt. Nevertheless, step by step, I have become to like the design. Compared to the rest of the mobiles on the market, including the older Siemens CX65, the new phone looks representative and pretty luxurious. It will be offered in two color versions - metallic gray and beige-silver. We obtained the former as a tester.

Compared to its forerunner, CX75 has grown in all directions - it is 110 × 48 × 19 mm (Siemens CX65 was 108 × 46 × 18 mm). The increase in weight by 8 g to 98 g is also quite significant. The basic difference, however, between both generations is most evident in the design.

The most interesting part of the new phone is its upper edge. It is utterly even and buffed up, and can be therefore used even as a tiny mirror. The reflection is, however, quite oblong, because the surface is round, continuing into the front side of the device, where it modifies into two narrow parallel strips creating a frame around the display. The functional part of the keypad is also chromium and glossy. It is basically where the strips around the display pass on accomplishing this way the front cover design. As not a single finger print can stay invisible on phone's glossy surface, I do not doubt many dactyloscopy fans will love the device.

The display is not so big to reach the glossy margins. The space in between is covered by grey, metallic-like surface. All this is protected by a gloss cover, on the top of which decorating signs with the manufacturer's logo (above the display) and the type of the device (below the display) are placed. Moreover, the protecting glass cover is thick which, together with the grey background, enables for impressive shadows of those signs in daylight.

You may easily pass the earphone slot for it is an extremely narrow oblong rent placed above the display. I should not forget to mention the tiny slot mounted on the top edge of the device. Even though it looks like an eyelet for a string, there is no way you fasten one here. It is a tack point for the automobile handsfree holder. The rest of the front side of the phone is occupied by the numeric part of the keypad, whose big grey keys are decently designed to create a well-balanced entity.

Who has dug this hole?

The parts of the phone's sides that reach the margins of the front cover have a silver nuance. The silver hems copy the fillet at phone's top part and extend to its rear side. Here you will find the manufacturer's logo engraved in a silver strip. The rest of the phone's sides and the entire back cover have been designed in a darker tone of silver-grey polish.

Surprisingly, it is not the camera that catches the eye on the back side of the phone the most, but the huge hole of the external antenna connector. Considering the fact that the majority of users will hardly ever use this connector, it could have been stylishly hidden. Next to the abyss with golden bottom is the unobtrusive silver frame of the camera lens. The latter is oblong and slightly embossed. Here the manufacturer has placed camera's main parameters, using a small size font. In the model we were testing, the lens was mounted a bit sideways from the middle of the glass cover. Let us wait and see if the final design will show any improvements.

A removable cover creates the rest of the back side of the device. Under it there is a lithium-ion battery of 750 mAh capacity, which is expected to supply the phone with energy for 250 hours in a stand-by mode or 300 minutes of calling. Unfortunately, we have not had a chance to test battery's real durability yet. Under the cover there is a standard Siemens bed for the SIM card. I mean, if you need to remove the card, be sure you have a big nail and a lot of patience. Otherwise you will break it.

PAlthough Siemens CX75 looks like a metal mobile, its covers are plastic. Constructional work is quite good. And still, a bit stronger pressure makes the phone gives out slight creaky sounds. Any comparison to the forerunner, however, reveals positive changes.