Mobile-review.com Review GSM-phone Siemens SX1. External and internal memory, processor

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Review GSM-phone Siemens SX1. External and internal memory, processor

The phone’s sides are made of antiskid plastic that creates a velvet feeling of the case being made of rubber. Tactile impressions are similar to Ericsson T68’s back cover. The right side has two soft-keys, one of them is made for voice memos, and the other for Camera. The left side features MMC-card slot. The developer claims that the device can work only with MMC cards maximum amount of 128 Mb, but that’s not truth. The phone works nicely with bigger capacity cards as well, and no problems are encountered. Some users are connecting the software issues with the MMC brand that is used in their phone. In my opinion this statement is false. The mistakes are not caused due to hardware part, but it’s all about the software of the smartphone. I’d like to make it clear, that with the release of firmware v6 the number of bugs got significantly decreased. However the memory cards that are used for other devices as well (Pocket PC for example) and were formatted with FAT32 system instead of FAT16 can become unreadable for Siemens SX1. If you insert this card into your phone you will see a message that this card should better be formatted. This is slightly annoying, especially if you plan using one memory card for several devices. If the card is meant to be used only for SX1 no problems will be encountered. Standard package lacks a memory card; you will have to buy it separately.

The main aim of buying a memory card is storing various applications. The write speed for MMC card is not very high; once again we see the same situation as it was for Simenes SL45. Buying a card-reader can be counted as the only solution. You will have to ability to upload music and files faster than doing it via Siemens SX1.

Siemens claimed that its smartphone supports hotswap of MMC cards, this feature was expected with huge expectations since Nokia’s products don’t have such feature, and you have to turn off the device in order to exchange the memory card. But in the real life we get the following picture: software only allows inserting the card while the device is turned on, and not removing it. As the manual says (p. 60) the card can be removed only when the device is turned off, otherwise you can lose the data stored on it. Here is this very passage:

“MultiMediaCard must be removed only when the phone is switched off, because otherwise the content can be destroyed”.

Do we need to make any comments? I think not; however we made several tests by removing the memory card and the phone being turned on. In most of cases when you remove the memory card and start the “memory” application (Extras\Memory), you will see the card’s content, but when you will decide to perform any operation it will lead to an error. A number of errors cause the phone getting switched off, but most of them – just a little freeze, after which the phone will return to the usual working process by itself.

We recommend following the sequence of actions and exchange the cards according to the manual. In that case stable work of OS and the lack of any errors are guaranteed. However we don’t exclude the fact that hotswap problems will get resolved with firmware upgrades. The new version change log already features this option. But the question remains opened and demands research being made. This is a rhetorical question for most SX1 users who have big capacity memory cards.

Now if since we talk about the memory, let’s end our story by telling you about the internal memory, since there is another myth related to it. There are only 4 Mb of memory available for user, and 16 Mb more dedicated for RAM, in which all applications are running. But that’s not all, only 3.7-3.8mb of memory is available from 4 Mb; a small amount of memory is occupied with system applications. In case you want to optimize the memory amount – use third party software, but I believe that this is not worth it, since only 100-200 Kb of memory can be freed up.

The amount of memory is not really big on the modern day scale. If you install video recording software, some games and a portion of new ring tones, wallpapers you will end up with 2mb left. If you want to work properly with SX1 you will have to buy an additional MMC card. The capacity will depend on your needs, in case you want to listen to mp3s – you should by the maximum capacity card, but if you want to install several applications and make a lot of pictures – 32mb, 64mb will be enough.

Working speed with internal memory is not a weak point in the system, that’s why we will not describe it. What we will describe is the device’s processor. It’s called OMPA310 and is produced by Texas Instruments. It’s specifications can be found here.

Please notice that technical specifications mention 175 Mhz. However Siemens released docs for developers, and frequency is 132 for SX1, meanwhile the competitors have 120 Mhz; higher frequency causes more energy consuming, and marketing attractiveness. Siemens SX1’s frequency was decreased to 120 Mhz during the testing, mostly because of the fight for minimal energy consuming.

Published —13 February 2004

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