Camera Phones Plaza

BenQSiemens engineers are working on - the BenQ Siemens Oxyon cellular phone. The BenQ Siemes Oxyon is designed in Apple’s style which is white in color and in oval nice looking shape which make it as attractive as an iPod.

Overall looking, the BenQ Siemens Oxyon cell phone is more like a concept phone rather than a working cellular phone that you can carry with. The Oxyon is has an amazing full QWERTY keypad that underneath the LCD screen, which you can slide out smoothly.

The features and specifications of the BenQ Siemens Oxyon gadget blows me away. This cell phone comes with a top class VGA (640 x 480 resolutions) TFT LCD screen (almost all the cellular phones in the market has only 320 x 200 resolutions TFT LCD), 3.0 megapixel digital camera with 3X zoom, digital music player that plays MP3/AAC/WMA and WAV, and micro-SD expansion slot.

Via handcellphone.

BenQ-Siemens’ last sojourn into girly-phone territory, the CL75 Poppy, launched late last year, was a pastel pink clamshell with a poppy tattooed on its front.

That handset apparently did so well that it has been updated and the Benq-Siemens EF61 Mia is its replacement. You can buy it SIM free for £129.99 plus £4.50 delivery (inc VAT) from BenQ-Siemens’ online store.

Siemens pushes the EF61 as a handset with a screen that doubles as a mirror. It also suggests that you can use the phone to decide what shoes will go with your new outfit by sending your best friend an MMS. While this isn’t going to float every woman’s boat BenQ-Siemens clearly thinks there are enough fluffy-heads out there to warrant a Poppy update.

The EF61 is a smallish clamshell tri-band handset (88 x 46 x 23mm) that’s very light at only at 99g. Its physical design is somewhat reminiscent of Motorola’s PEBL in its rounded, bar-of-soap like looks. It feels rather nice in the hand, and has obviously been designed with smaller mitts in mind.

Flicking the clamshell open is no problem thanks to its hand-friendly size, though there is no groove to help you get a finger hold between upper and lower sections, and those who like an expensive, spring loaded feel to their flip mechanism will be disappointed.

With the clam opened you get to what is one of the key marketing features of the EF61 Mia - that mirror like main screen. Whatever you may think of the idea, it actually works rather well. You switch the screen on and off using a dedicated button sitting beneath the navigation key, and when it is off, you really can use the screen as a mirror.

So, to the camera. On the plus side, there isn’t a huge shutter lag. You get a self timer, three white balance settings, a fair few pre-set scene modes such as landscape, sunny, sunset, snow and even text, effects such as sketch, negative, sepia and embossed and a nine shot multi shot mode. When viewing a picture you can record voice clips, which are then associated with them.

These features lift the camera from the realms of the truly mediocre into something you might want to use. However, the camera lacks a flash and so it’s not what it could be when it comes to indoor shots.

Also, I found it difficult to avoid camera shake and the lens doesn’t produce the clearest or sharpest of images or the brightest colours. The sample shots, taken indoors at the highest resolution and quality available with the camera on auto settings, shows the kind of thing you might get from shooting typical indoor ‘snaps’.

The conclusion is that despite the misgivings, clearly enough people bought the Poppy for BenQ-Siemens to consider a follow-up. There are many small, light, brightly coloured handsets brimming with features, but I feel that the EF61 Mia’s screen-mirror trick will help it stands out from the crowd.

Read full review on TrustedReviews.

BenQ-Siemens has not been around all that long as a handset manufacturer, but the company has quite a range of phones under its belt and its flagship at the moment is the EF81, a slimline, flip, tri-band GSM with 3G affair.

Inside and out the colour scheme is a mix of two shades of silver and black. A large proportion of the outer fascia is given over to brushed steel and the number pad on the inside is also made of this. Adonised aluminium forms the back of the casing, while the front display is protected by hardened glass. The overall impression is of materials that should handle the knocks a modern phone expects to encounter.

BenQ-Siemens EF81 gets away with a single camera for video calling and stills shooting by locating it on the hinge so that it swivels when you open and close the clam. With the clam closed the camera faces the back of the handset, with the clam opened it swivels to the front.

Using a single camera may have helped achieve the slim design of the EF81, but it is a bit hampering when it comes to shooting stills and video because you can’t swivel the lens manually. With the clam opened you can only shoot stills and video of yourself. With it closed you can shoot away from yourself but have to use the front screen to frame shots and its relatively small size makes things far more difficult than they would be using the internal screen.

The camera shoots stills at up to 1.2 megapixels. It lacks a flash for indoor use, colours are not as vivid as they could be and I had trouble producing shots that were not blurred. It is below the quality I would expect from a high-end handset like this.

The conclusion is that BenQ-Siemens’ EF81 could be an alternative for anyone considering buying Motorola’s RAZR V3x. But you shouldn’t expect a great deal from the camera when shooting stills.

Read full review here.

The BenQ-Siemens E81 is aimed at individuals wanting UMTS 3G data connectivity in a small package, and certainly delivers a nice combination of form and function. This mid-range handset not only looks good, but also delivers a specification list beyond what would be expected from such a small handset.

Measuring in at 99.8mm x 46.7mm x 16.7mm (3.93" x 1.84" x 0.65"), the BenQ-Siemens E81 is definitely not the smallest handset in the world, but compared to most other 3G handsets, it is very compact. Limited video conferencing functionality is available, due to the handset featuring only a rearward-facing 1.3 megapixel camera, but a 1.8" 262k color TFT display with a 176x220 pixel resolution is included to clearly see the other party. Storage capacity of the glossy coated BenQ-Siemens E81 can be expanded with microSD cards, and Bluetooth and USB connectivity are available for transferring files on to and off the device.

The attractive BenQ-Siemens E81 will be available in Europe come September 2006, and in Asia starting October.

Via mobileburn.

The last phone announced by BenQ-Siemens in Munich was the BenQ-Siemens SL91 slider phone.

Equipped with a touch-sensitive keypad it resembles a lot the LG Chocolate that we reviewed not while ago. The main difference is the technology used by the two manufacturers. While the Chocolate used touchpad reacting to the electro-conductivity of a person's skin, the new SL91 would use a Force Sensitive Resistance technology which practically means that the BenQ-Siemens touchpad would react to pressure instead of electro-conductivity. This way the SL91 touchpad navigation keys can be used even with gloves - something impossible for the Chocolate.

The fun doesn't end with the touchpad. The BenQ-Siemens SL91 also features a 2" 16M color TFT display with a QVGA (240x320) resolution along with a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus with a maximum picture resolution of 2048x1536 pixels, a microSD memory card slot, tri-band GSM/GPRS/UMTS support with video calls, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, stereo FM radio with RDS and a MP3 player.

The retail package would also include a desk cradle for the phone which would serve the double purpose of charging the battery and connecting the phone to the PC for synchronization. The desk cradle would be fitted with an integrated microphone and stereo speakers and would notify the user of events with color light signals. The BenQ-Siemens SL91 would be available in the last quarter of 2006.