Siemens C60 Review

Overall Rating

Compact, good battery life, easy battery removal, colour display.

Keypad buttons too small, menu button too frustrating, display too dull in daylight.

At first glance the Siemens C60 looks like a good, reasonably priced mobile phone. Similar in size to the NOKIA 3315 it boasts a full colour display, polyphonic ring tones and interchangeable CLIPIT covers (sold separately). The menu is quite easy to navigate around and it also has the option of adding a Siemens camera to it (MMS is supported as is WAP).

There are a few frustrating features on it though. For individuals with big fingers, the keypad with small buttons is difficult to use. The central control key (or menu navigation key) is very frustrating. You can't feel it click and I've found myself continually pressing the down arrow on the key repeatedly without any success. I have pretty small fingers so someone with larger ones will probably end up throwing it at the wall before getting used to it. The plastic face of the leather pouch is already worn on the menu key's down arrow after 2 weeks.This appears to be a design fault rather than a faulty phone. The CALL key is also diabolically close to the menu key and if you're not careful you can call someone when trying to scroll through your menu.

The colour display looked great in the shop before I bought it. If you intend to wear your mobile on your hip though, a leather case and sunlight will virtually render the display useless. I've played with all the contrast and darkness features and still in daylight, in a leather case, it's almost impossible to make out more than shadows on the display.

The native polyphonic ringtones that come with the phone are quite ordinary though I haven't downloaded any others.

The Earpiece takes a bit of time to get used to and if you don't have it in exactly the right place against your ear, you may not be able to hear the caller. I've also had callers become very faint and difficult to hear though this may be that the phone doesn't drop calls when the transceiver signal weakens, it appears to hang on.

I've also found most callers have a very "bassy" tone to them. All in all, not the best phone I've had.