BenQ-Siemens S88 review
February 21, 2006 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under BenQ-Siemens, Bluetooth, Camera phones, Cell Phones, Cell phone
UPDATE: Alas poor BenQ-Siemens we knew you well. Sadly, BenQ-Siemens is no more. Read more about it here. My friend in retail is now having a much harder time selling off the S88 after the company declared its last hurrah.
The S88 is BenQ-Siemens’ first flagship phone for 2006. It comes in two colors – black and white and from afar borrows a lot from the Sony Ericsson design. I was able to borrow the S88 for a few days and here is my hands on review.
The front of the unit real estate has the regular 0-9 keypad with two menu buttons and two call buttons. At the center is an embedded 5-way joystick that for once, doesn’t hurt my thumb.
The sides of the phone contain the volume control keys on one side and the camera shutter button on the other. I was dissapointed with the camera button because it wasn’t very well constructed: it’s hard to tell if you did a full or half press.
What gladdened me was that BenQ-Siemens applied the Nokia keymap layout (the “0″ is spacebar) for SMS which means that I didn’t have to relearn another user interface for sending SMS.
In a nutshell I was impressed by the improvement in design. The pictures here show the vibrand difference between typical cellphone displays and the OLED screen of thte S88. When I first held it, it seemed like I was holding a dummy unit because the screen seemed like it was plastered on.
Camera
The S88 comes with a built in 2.0Mp Sony lens. I was expecting it to fare in the likes of the k750i but was gravely dissapointed by its slow shutter response. Images on the viewfinder were a bit laggy which makes still night shots a bit hard to do unless you have a really steady hand. Fortunately the S88 also comes with a built-in flash. Here are some samples of the S88’s pictures:
Music
The S88 comes with a microSD card. Internal memory houses 20MB of data. So this leaves very little for internal memory music. Now since music is better heard that read about, watch this video.
Wireless Connectivity
Bluetooth beaming was a little slow. The S88 comes with its own sync software. Sadly I was not able to pair the phone with my Macintosh. iSync would recognize it but have no software available yet. I’m pretty sure of the rollout in the next few months though since BenQ-Siemens will be a powerful player in the phone market this 2006.
Availability is set for April 2006 in Asia.
Pros
Bright OLED screen
Loud speakers
Nokia-like button-mapping for SMSCons
Camera is a bit slow
Phone UI a bit slow
Does not sync with a Mac (at least now yet)
Correction: The S88 has a 2.o mpix camera not a 1.3 as stated in the article.
The tester seams not to have been aware that the S88 has a real optical auto-focus, activated by the shutter key. Images are blurred in the view finder until the shutter release is gently pressed. Then the AF sharpens the image. If the user is unaware of this they can get the wrong impression of this great feature.
Also the S88 has a full digital camera menu. This means the user can set up the camera to suit different photographic requirements. The ’sport’ setting gives a faster shutter response for example.
A truly great feature of the S88 is the plug&play USB connectivity. This lets the S88 simulate a data stick which allows users to manage the phone content using windows explorer – i.e. copy/paste, drag&drop – and no extra software required on the PC side!!!!
Hope this helps.
… can you tell I love my S88 !?!?!?
geoff,
did i say 1.3MP? eek! guess i had one too many beers that night
thank you for correcting me.
i must say that for a flagship phone, the S88 brings in the good word for BenQ-Siemens.
how much did you buy it for?
and how much is the cost of S88???in europe…i like the desing,it´s realy nice,but i don´t know if is better then my k750i:D,also i have a m75…but i want to know the price,txs
like you, im also waiting for the price announcement. will update this when i find
BenQ-Siemens S88, How much is it?
Here in Sweden the price for S88 is 2800SEK. That’s about 365USD.
i payed for my s88 245€
This is a crap phone.
Definitely worst off than most other phone out there.
1) Searching for contacts is really inconvenient!!
For T9 searching, every letter u type follows by a long pause before u key in the 2nd/3rd char.
2) If you have just slightly more than 5 SMSes in your inbox…. u start to see extreme slowness in showing inbox contents!!
3) Camera is rather slow too.
This piece of crap…. look nice on the outside… but cannot fulfil basic functionalities of even the most basic phone…
It fails big time for its firmware and speed
well i think for a non siemens user the s88 quite complicated. but for a long siemens user, i think this s88 is wonderfull just as other siemens product, even better considering the technology improvement. so if u want a uniqe mobile phone with so much customable features and different advantages, s88 is very reccomended. but if u dont like technology in ur hand, go for nokia or SE
goodbye BENQ SIEMENS!
thanks for this review, I read it before I went to buy my s88, after I bought it really not everything you said was true about the phone, some stuff are better…
I read in one of the comment about having more than 5 SMS in your inbox would take like forever loading, I had 230 SMS there and it took 1 second, I had 20 and it took 1 second too. maybe its software version…
camera is best available as 2MP as features and ability, flash is very good
phone in general is slow but stable
its not a siemens style phone, its benq from head to toe…
about the camera button, actually its very good and you totally can sense when its half pressed or fully pressed. although u don’t need to half press it usually since its autofocus
Yo tengo un telefono y me ha salido muy bueno, lo recomiendo ampliamente, esta muy discreto y tiene excelentes caracteristicas en cuanto a funciones
it’s very good…..
hey whats up friend one question the benq s88 cant send music an videos for the bluetooh conectivity???? this is my question bye….
Yes it can, it takes a while to send but it is able to send that stuff from phone to phone, believe me. I’m just sad that the company is no more because all my phones have been Siemens and now when this one is done, I’m going to have to try another brand and that’s just sad.
Great phone..a bit slow..but for its price is ok..I want to update the firmware..altough this one is working just fine…he shutter button is ok..you CAN feel when it is half pressed..the camera is G-R-E-A-T, the only thing that annoys me is the contacts list…but that’s it : ONE minus —MUCH MORE PLUSES!!!
cool design, good 3d sound, …good signal quality
a little bit slow, but acceptable.
I love it, ….u can use flash light as the torch…
CAn it send videos and musics through bluetooth and how much letter can we enter while writting message so that if our message is big we dont have to write it in diffrenet way like in most of the phone you can write mesages upto 400 letters and phone send it automaticallty in 3 message without making you write meesage three time in three segements
and does it show phone contact and sim contacts together and how many contact can phone. memory take how many messages phone can take as i heard some 1 saying that his phone had 200 some messages in s88
i got one like it…
i love it
it’s great one
Thank you for this review>I have a benq-siemens-s88 and ia think that he is a better
cute phone. thanx for making it
I am very sorry that I am not satiesfi by using s88. I accept more and I think it is possiable by them.
Thank you after all.
does anyone know how to format benq siemens s88 phone memory? and which audio format it supports except mp3?
Its a nice phn. i think it should be more better.
I think its a wonderful creation but Its too slow.The company should take more care of making phones.
Emteaz
Its a nice and fantastic phone but its camera is too slow and i think it should be more better and company can do it.
F@him
the mobile is good..colour is better ..camera is good….any one can buy it…..but the headphone is poor..i hope the company should take care of it….because its the age of compitition….thank you……………afnaan (bangladesh)
The s88 is worth nothing and you better believe me. I bought one for my wife and 1 for myself. It looks nice and that’s all. Stay away from it. Standby is less than 48h. A few calls or sms and the battery is empty. I am not talking about listening mp3 coz than you have to charge twice a day. It will not give you any speaker sign of low battery unless it switches of itself. When it does it is too late and you have to charge. It loses the date/time when this happens. Sending messages it shows you the number only, not the name… and I can go on for many more things. The software is 0, a big ZERO. It is a long list with complains. Never ever BenqS. Many people think the same as Benq-Siemens is no more.
I have been trying to use my seimens but its all in chinese, can you please help me formate my cellphone into english…No software formate it. Thank you. I like the cell though despite the shortfalls.
hello ….i’ve got one problem with my s88 phone too..anybody can help me? i cant seem to install any .jar java games into it….when i tried uploading the .jar java files from my pc to my mobily by Qsyncher…it does not seem to install any java games on my mobile…has anyone tried??
hello ….i’ve got one problem with my s88 phone too..anybody can help me? i cant seem to install any .jar java games into it….when i tried uploading the .jar java files from my pc to my mobily by Qsyncher…it does not seem to install any java games on my mobile…has anyone tried??
To emily: You also need to upload the .jad files.
I simply dont get it why do some users make such comments which are not true. In fact I’ve been using this phone for 8 months now.
- The UI isn’t slow at all. It seems slow because of the animations like “Saving…” While that animation is going on, you can simply press the red button, come back to standby and operate the phone normally.
- Among all the brands of phone I’ve seen, this is only phone where you can immediately make a call after switching on the phone.
- Half-press of the shutter is easily noticed unless someone is wearing gloves of the medieval ages.
- Camera lag isn’t much under adequate light.
- Camera sensitivity is way better than any SE under low light condition.
- The battery is superb. Many times I’ve talked for about 7 hours without completely draining the battery. Usually everyday I talk for about an hour, listen to MP3s for 3 hours, take around 20 pictures. This way the battery lasts over 2 days. I charge the phone 3 times a week.
- ISO control of the camera really allows some creative shots.
- 3D sound option is quite good.
- Playlist management is poor.
- No possibility of installing new color themes. There are only 3 given: Red, Blue & Green.
- USB connectivity is simply great, i.e. plug n play pen drive style.
- Loudspeaker quality is fabulous especially for a call, the voice of the side sounds very natural. In extremely crowded and noisy environment when it’s not possible to hear the other side, you can turn on the loudspeaker, decrease the volume a bit and hold the phone with the backside (loudspeaker side) to your ear and carry on a conversation quite easily.
Overall, I’m satisfied with the phone, especially the camera quality and battery life.
i have problem to replace the existing micro sd card with a new one. the phone doesn’t recognize the card, but i can use it to store files through PC. any idea wat’s going on to the card? or maybe there are some folders which must be created first prior to inserting the card in order to be detected by the phone?
plese one benq siemens
ey i need a softwarw for me benq siemens s88 send me please
If id free busty milf refuse, your fingers while you. She said, mf part 2.