While I’m all in favour of innovative and intelligent design evolution, I’m utterly baffled as to what the Siemens designers were thinking when they put together the new SX1 cellphone. First impressions rouse a few oohs and aahs, but upon closer inspection, there really is absolutely nothing practical, nor ergonomic about this little number, and one runs a real risk of dislocating one’s thumb trying to punch out an SMS in a hurry.
In breaking up the numbers and letters keypad into two separate rows of five keys running in a vertical fashion on either side of the screen, the SX1 has abandoned the universal (and perfectly useable) convention of the regular keypad. I can only imagine that the Germans have a manual dexterity unrivalled by the rest of the world’s cellphone users.
Now it could be a case of having to get used to the new interface, but when trying to type with one hand, your thumb smears greasy fingerprints all over the screen in traversing the handset to and fro, and the fact that the size of the lettering on the keys is about six-point doesn’t help matters along either.
It’s a pity this design faux pas detracts from all the other super features as it’s a pretty good phone, otherwise. Let’s look at the rest of it.
While marginally better than the Nokia 6 600 with a capture time of 13 seconds, the video clip tool is a rather redundant feature on most of these phones, but could be good for a giggle, I guess. The camera, however, is lots of fun. With a fairly good resolution of 640 X 480, the user can edit the pic with the photo manipulation tools provided, inserting other text and images or playing around with the distortion tools. So you can discreetly and satisfactorily enlarge that prize catch or the ankles of your mother-in-law, or what not.
Then there are the usual wireless, infra red and Bluetooth capabilities that come with of phones of this calibre, as well as polyphonic ring tones and organizer functions like a calendar and To Do list with sound alerts (although be warned, you may dislocate a digit trying to input any).
Additional funky features include an MP3 player and radio. The accompanying ear piece acts as an antennae that picks up the local FM stations, so joggers, you can take your phone out for a run in the mornings too. As a triband phone, it operates on all five continents.
For those hard of memory, the Picture ID function allows the client to associate colour photos of their contacts alongside their respective details in the phone book. Games can be played in multiplayer format with Bluetooth technology. GPRS enables high speed data transfers and, as the SX1 is a smart phone, you can view Excel and Word files on it too.
If cellphone designers want to break the mould and simplify things for the user, why not bring out a phone that the number crunchers among us would appreciate and configure the keys exactly like a calculator’s? Now that‘s progressive design.
The Siemens SX1 retails at around R6000
Web guide:
www.siemens-mobile.com/mobiles