GSM Phone (I)

The Siemens S56, in my opinion, is not a particularly well-designed mobile phone. It's pretty and curvy, and serves as a phone, but the UI leaves much to be desired. I'm no expert, but here's a quick analysis of my experience thus far (based on my personal preferences).

Hardware (Physical)

- The bottom corner keys ("*" and "#") have less than half the real estate than all other keys, making them extremely difficult to press.

- The 4-way arrows are nice, but the up-key is difficult to press at the angle it requires, when the thumb is positioned in the middle of the four. (It means you have to place your thumb over the up-key to press it, instead of enjoying the ability to "rocker" your thumb and get each direction you need.)

- The keys on the side (voice memo, volume up-down) are large and can be easily hit by accident. The throws on those switches also seem a little too easy to depress.

- If you use the Siemens (wired) headset, you cannot charge your phone at the same time -- they share the same port at the bottom of the phone.

- The antenna SMA connector is exposed on the back of the phone and should have had a cover to protect it. Most other phones have this covered.

- The LED light pipes do not illuminate the keys nicely / evenly, particularly those bottom corner ones. (Seems like those two keys keep getting neglected.)

- Ring volume isn't particularly loud (even at the highest setting), and the vibrate isn't particularly strong.

- It's cool having the speakerphone feature, though it's not really loud enough to be practical in use.

Those are just the ones I've found since Thursday night.