Siemens CX75 review: Bluetooth, MP3 and chrome

Time organizer

For most users, the most important time organizing function in a mobile is the alarm clock. In this respect, Siemens will perfectly meet most customers' requirements. It offers a classical alarm clock, which can be assigned various melodies and preset to get activated on particular days. It will even wake you up when the phone is off, unless you have activated the airplane mode of the phone.

Alarm clock

The calendar is remarkably well organized, even though it does not feature any innovations. It offers a month, week and a day view. When you select a day, the event assigned to this particular day appears in the bottom part of the display. The calendar's view is clear. Yet, on the larger displays of the older Siemens models it used to be even clearer.

A month… • …week… • … and day view at the calendar • entering a new reminder

You can enter up to six different types of reminders into the calendar: from a simple text reminder up to a call, meeting, birthday or holiday reminder. It is also possible to record voice notes.

The phone is equipped with a standard task organizer.

The tasks can have various priorities, according to which they are additionally sorted. The phone also offers a text note manager function. In it, however, for some unclear reasons the text can consist of no more but 160 characters. A matter of course is the voice memo option, which allows for saving any number of records, whose duration is then limited by the size of the available shared memory only.

Organizer menu • task organizer • notes

Extra functions and multimedia

The extra functions menu does not lack anything significant: a calculator, a unit converter or time zones indicator. The phone has also a stopwatch and a countdown timer. Once again, none of them has been changed since the older Siemens models of the 65 series.

Extras menu

The innovation here is the multimedia player, which allows you to create various playlists of your favorite pieces. Yet, its functions are not so numerous. The joystick helps switch from one piece to another or regulate the volume. It is also possible to start or stop a playlist entry, or set it to repeat. Unfortunately, the player does not run on background when using other applications. It also turns off when the context menu has been selected.

Playlist • playing music • context menu

We still do not know whether Siemens plans to deliver earphones together with the CX75 model. If it does, it may be easily possible to use the phone as a common MP3 player. I tried to play music through the loud speaker only.

I should not forget to mention the Push to talk function. Its concept is similar to the one in the CX70 model, which means it is significantly different from the concept of Nokia mobile phones.

Push to talk menu

If you happen to miss a certain function in this phone, you can download it as a java application. The manufacturer has prepared several interesting programs - a simple picture editor and a cocktail manager, for example.

Applications menu • Cocktail Manager • picture editor

Still, Java is most used with games. The phone offers three games, none of which is new. All three have already appeared in one or another of the older Siemens models.

Games menu • demonstration of the Worms game • the Siemens 3D Rally game

Connectivity

Bluetooth is the application that grips you the most in the data services menu of this Siemens mobile. By the way, this technology was not present in the previous model. The phone also offers an infrared port and can be easily connected to a computer through a cable.

Connectivity menu

What the phone lacks is software, which helps manage the device from a computer. Apparently, a completely new version of the said software is being currently prepared for Siemens CX75 denies communicating with the software created for the older series of the brand. It should also be possible to synchronize the phone with Outlook and Lotus programs, as it used to be with other Siemens models. The menu contains an option for distant synchronization, as well.

The two-way file traffic between the phone and the computer ran without any problems, both through infrared port and Bluetooth. I also tested Bluetooth using the earphone and everything worked according to my expectations.

Data communication in the GSM net is represented by GPRS Class 10; the phone does not have EDGE. Feel free to use the phone with your computer, provided the latter needs a hardware modem. The phone is equipped with an internet browser. WAP is a matter of course.

A mobile for everyone?

Siemens CX75 represents both the older CX65 model and its manager sibling - the S65 model. It offers plenty of improved functions, being suitable not only for work, but for multimedia activities, as well. The design of Siemens CX75 is somewhat controversial and will hardly appeal to everyone, which may hinder the sales. Anyway, we are being offered a pretty good mobile, which does not lack any significant feature any modern phone should have.

Luxury or kitsch …

This new model is going to be launched at the end of June or the beginning of July and is expected to cost approximately 250 euros. Considering the quantity of functions the phone is going to offer, its price is quite reasonable. Siemens CX75's most serious competitors will be the older high-class models of the other mobile brands, whose prices have fallen since they first hit the market.