Siemens joins 3G club
Siemens has become the latest manufacturer to promise a 3G handset for the UK. Its new phone, the U15, will launch in November via the Three network in November.
Strangely the model is not quite as new as it might seem. It is in fact a version of the Motorola A835 that is due to launch imminently via the Three network. There are a few differences. The Siemens’ livery is all silver, where as the Motorola’s is black and silver. The interfaces look slightly different and the line up of buttons on the phone isn’t identical.
Overall the U15/A835 looks like a promising handset. It has many of the features of Three’s flagship phone the Motorola A920, but is notably smaller. Alongside Three’s highlight feature video calling the handsets boasts MP3 and video playback, GPS, Internet and e-mail facilities and Java.
The phone runs on a Motorola operating system unlike the A920 which uses the established Symbian system. It comes with a 64MB Secure Digital card for storage of music, images and video. However this card is integrated into the handset and cannot be replaced by a high capacity card.
Annoyingly in the UK the handset will only access a walled garden of a few nternet sites. It also handles e-mail, but this is only available through the web browser and not via the phone’s interface.
Look for a review of the U15/A835 very shortly.
