Siemens M75 review

Most mobiles smash into little pieces when dropped on a hard surface, but the Siemens M75 is a tough handset built to take a few knocks and the occasional water splash. It also plays MP3s and can synchronise your contacts and calendar with your PC.

The M75 is not particularly attravailable, but it looks solid and businesslike in Siemens' signature silver and black finish. The phone's toughened shell adds some bulk, but at 110g it's still quite light. The vulnerable sides and corners are surrounded by rubber and the screen is protected from scratches by the protruding aluminium bars down the side of the display and keypad. The charger and MMC slots are protected by a rubber bung and there is a detachable flap to cover the camera. The handset feels well made, too. After a couple of weeks, no dust had accumulated behind the screen as happens on many handsets.

The M75 has a bright and clear 262,000-colour screen. The menu system is logical and the central joystick and left and right soft keys do most of the work. However, some of the icons above these keys can be confusing. The joystick's click action is quite vague, so you could easily select the wrong option in the menu. Call quality is fine, and the phone has the loudest speakerphone we've heard.

The M75 OS doesn't support third-party applications in the same way as the Symbian Series 60 or Windows Mobile operating systems, but it contains many functions in common with a smartphone.

You can synchronise your contacts and calendar information with Outlook. The phone is supplied with a 32MB MMC card to store MP3s and photos. It has IR and Bluetooth, but it doesn't have a USB cable, so transferring music directly to the handset is a slow process. The supplied synchronisation software seems complicated and daunting at first, but most transfer operations can be done with a few mouse clicks.

Siemens claims that the M75 supports MP3 and Apple's AAC format, but AAC files refused to show up in the phone's music player. The supplied headphones have reasonable treble but a slightly muddy sound. The proprietary connector means you can't plug in a better pair.

The handset has a 1.3-megapixel camera, which performs well in low light conditions, despite not having a flash. However, there is a significant delay between pressing the capture button and the photo being taken, leading to blurry images if you move the phone prematurely.

Despite its bulk, the M75 is a light phone that can take a fair amount of abuse. Siemens has packed the handset with features, and the ability to synchronise with Outlook makes it a useful business tool. It is good value for a Bluetooth phone with a 1.3-megapixel camera, and it will be much cheaper to run when it's available on contract.

Author: Chris Finnamore