I am finding a little more time to return to Ciao after a long absence. Will try and catch up with o...
I am finding a little more time to return to Ciao after a long absence. Will try and catch up with old friends. As to the writing side of things... well, I have few things to write about.. Now it's just a matter of finding the time... Derek
Member since:26.04.2005
Reviews:74
Members who trust:93
The Siemens C45 is getting a bit long in the tooth as far as mobile phone technology is concerned, but seeing that my wife and I have had over 3 years of trouble free service out of two C45s, I thought I would do a review. In my view Siemens are to be congratulated on this phone.
Before I got the C45, I had one of the early pay-as-you-go vodaphones from Tesco - remember those? Anyway, one day I was getting into the car and didn't notice that I'd dropped my phone on the road and reversed over it. It still worked OK but the slot to plug the charger in was completely smashed. So a new phone it had to be and off I went to the Vodaphone shop in Cardiff.
Because I was not a heavy user, I would stay with pay-as-you-go and this little neat little C45 measuring 12 X 5cms caught my eye for £75 and with a little bit of bartering (I always barter) they threw in a leather case as part of the deal. I simply whipped my
sim card into it so I could keep my old number. I did this because it is a very easy number to remember - something you don't come across very often with mobile phones.
Well all I can say is that this phone has been (and still is) absolutely great. A year after buying it, I dropped it into a mug of tea. I dried it out with a hair dryer and it continued to work fine. I was so impressed that I went on to ebay and got an identical second-hand model for £40 that my wife now uses. They are probably even cheaper than that now.
One thing that I do enjoy using on this phone is the SMS text messaging. I didn't have that facility on the previous Tesco phone or the "brick" I used to carry around before that. Remember analogue phones? The only complaint I have with the texting is that the keys are small and I need reading glasses to see them. But hey? Small phone, small keys - it would look a bit daft with big ones!
There are two menu buttons at the top. The left one is pressed to go straight in and create text messages, while the right one is your full menu. And for a phone of this age it is quite a comprehensive menu.
First of all there's the help function (folder) - this tells you how to use all the phone's facilities. That is good if you lose or do not have an instruction manual. Then you have the messages folder - in here is stored all your incoming messages and outgoing messages (or you can store previously composed messages). Then there's the voice mail (I've never used this), Internet surfing (a tad expensive on pay-as-you-go) so I don't use this either. Then you have records of calls received, calls sent, missed calls, calls dialled, and something else I never use, is the conference calls facility - where a group of people can be talking on line at the same time with you acting as co-ordinator.
Other things this phone has is an alarm clock, diary to keep important dates in and games. I looked at the games once, but I'm not a fan anyway. But I should imagine they would be good if you are waiting in a waiting room somewhere and there is no reading material.
On this phone you have a choice of a few ring tones. Again this is something that doesn't particularly interest me, except for the fact that I have set mine different to my wife's phone so we know which one is ringing - I have a Mozart piece of music. The phone also vibrates, so if you're somewhere noisy and you have it in a pocket, you can feel it when you have a call.
On the view screen you can also see the number of the person calling and if you have them in your "phone book", their name comes up also.
There is a divert facility, that means you can divert callers to another phone - but there again, that is something that I have not used, because I tend to switch it off when I'm at home anyway.
An optional hands-free kit can be fitted to this phone, but I was not impressed with the quality of the sound, a lot of crackling making it difficult to understand what the caller was saying. But I was in the car at the time. Now in the car, hands-free or not, the phone is switched off unless someone is with me to answer it. This is because if someone is calling me, I nearly always need to consult my diary - not easy when you're driving!
You can enter a lock code (pin number) for the phone via the menu. I did not need to use this though as it was already set up on my sim card.
To summarise… For it's age, this phone still looks like a modern piece of kit. It's very small and comfortable to use, you can get different coloured faces for it and I'm sure that there is a lot of other accessories you can get for this phone from ebay. I won a spare battery for a fiver. And yeh, there's a screen-saver. I've got mine set as the clock that tells me what time it is… The battery stand by is excellent. I've actually left it turned on once for two days running and the battery was still a quarter full.
Great review, loved it. This was my 2nd mobile phone and i thought the world of it. My first was also a "brick" handed down to me by my mum. I was teased by all my mates for that phone, and it still pops up now and again - the monster!! It was a motorola. Anyway, the C45 was a good phone..especially the games and horoscope thing...tells you your love life for the day, haha. I thought i would get a girlfriend when it was full hearts. Anyway, really good review and it made my laugh. Thanks
Delicate_Orchid 26.06.2005 11:51
Being a member of Ciao, I have of course read a wealth of mobile phone reviews over the last few months. I am generally very loyal to my Nokia - but this is seriously the first mobile phone review that has REALLY tempted me to buy something else for a change! x
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Advantages: A small, nice looking phone with a good range of features - and how many mobile phones have chains of ducks walking across the screen? Disadvantages: sometimes slightly slow and, for Nokia familiars, a bit dificult to use.
angel2k 10.11.2002 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Siemens C45
Advantages: A small, nice looking phone with a good range of features - and how many mobile phones have chains of ducks walking across the screen? Disadvantages: sometimes slightly slow and, for Nokia familiars, a bit dificult to use.
angel2k 10.11.2002 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Siemens C45
Advantages: Sturdy and Robust - I have dropped it multiple times and it has stayed intact Disadvantages: Controls are very confusing - the buttons mean different things at each menu
bee-ell 16.02.2004 (16.02.2004)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of Siemens C45
May 25th, 2005
very helpful by (100%):
