Siemens A56 Mini-Review
We recently switched cell phone providers and got a Siemens A56 phone (can’t find it on Siemens’ web site, but it’s similar to the A55). Over the first few days we used the phone, we grew so frustrated by its many usability flaws we traded it in for a more expensive model from Sony Ericsson. This is a mini-review of the major issues we had with the phone.
- The menu structure was inscrutable. Neither my wife nor I could easily find settings or functions. We don’t have this problem on our Nokia or Ericsson phones.
- Some of the settings had 3 states. On (checked), off (unchecked), and I-have-no-idea (question mark). The phone didn’t seem to know if it was forwarding calls or not. Strange.
- You could adjust the volume during a call, but only by pressing the middle button. You know… the one pressed up against your face.
- The left soft key can be programmed (to call a number, check messages, etc). However, whenever you press it, the phone asks if you want to proceed with that function or change the hot key. Now I see (as I look at the online manual) that you need to press and hold the button to bypass that dialog. They sure got that functionality backwards, even though it’s consistent with how the programmable number keys work.
- The phonebook had 3 groups that always sat at the top of the list. We never figured out how to remove the groups, which you would have to scroll by to get to the entries you cared about. This was the most annoying issue.
I think this is the first time I’ve returned a product simply because of usability issues. Usually, I can get by but these problems convinced me to pay an extra $25 + shipping for a much more user-friendly phone.