Siemens S75

As politically correct as we like to think we are, we still fall into using national stereotypes, even with mobile phone handsets. Sagem’s models, for example, display the quirky design flair that’s common to the French, but also their questionable build quality. Admittedly the designs aren’t as patchy as your average Citroen or the Maginot Line, say, but you just don’t feel that confident about them. Now take Sony Ericsson; the winning combination of forward-thinking Swedish design and bullet-proof Japanese construction means that the company’s handsets not only look as fresh as something from Ikea but that they’re as reliable as a rolling pin with it.

So it’s no surprise, then, that the Germans come out with something like this, the Siemens S75. It’s got all the national design characteristics you’d expect from a Teutonic handset manufacturer; the black with chrome detailing is pure Audi, the angular indentations on either side could be straight out the Bauhaus and although it’s lightweight (just 99g), it feels as tough as a German audience at a comedy club. It’s looks all the better for it, too; the square joypad is a really neat touch and as a whole the S75 looks as though it means business.

And while it is suited to boring office worker-types, there’s more than enough entertainment on offer to liven up the hours post-5:30. An innovative friends list lets you see who among your contacts is online if you use mobile phone instant messaging and an amalgamated inbox lets you see all of the new emails, text messages, instant messages or missed calls that have arrived and are waiting for you. An integrated MP3 player puts the included 128MB RS MultiMedia memory card to good use and you don’t need to fill up memory that should be reserved for music with contacts and the like, because the S75 has a separate 24MB of handset memory for the sensible stuff.

It sounds good, too; the supplied headphones are decent and when you set an MP3 as your ringtone, odds are you’ll be too busy rocking and rolling to answer. And when your friends and family tire of leaving messages on your voicemail, you’ll be free to play games. While the screen isn’t brilliant – the resolution is pretty low, so the visuals occasionally appear jagged – it is bright and colours are strongly reproduced. And though we were initially worried about playing with a joypad rather than a thumbstick, our fears proved to be misguided; because the square pad is raised in comparison to the surrounding buttons, it’s easy to keep your thumb in the right place for rapid responses.

The firmness of the controls means the S75 is a pleasure to play with as you’re very unlikely to press anything by accident. During the early days you will mess up when you fail to press a button hard enough, but you’ll soon get used to it and we prefer that over slack, overly-sensitive controls every time. We just hope that the S75, which was launched officially in October ’05, gets better support from the games publishers and developers than do other Siemens handsets. It certainly deserves to, as it’s capable of handling itself with aplomb. Although it’ll never rival the Sony Ericsson W550i, it’s going to appeal to people with an entirely different sensibility. And those people are going to be very happy indeed.