Siemens M65

Posted by T3 Online on Wed 31 Oct 2007

Armour-plated, sir? Like a bit of rough and tumble?

"Rugged" mobile phones are almost a contradiction in terms. Despite various attempts at tough-looking cases, they're still the same fairly delicate electronics in a rubber-and-plastic shell - they might resist a bit of dust and a few splashes, but you'd be a mug to try submitting them to any real abuse.

To up the ante, Siemens has tried a different approach to the fetishistic rubberised norm - this new tri-bander features a steel-clad case that wouldn't look out of place wrapped in one of Arnie's mitts in the Terminator films. It feels solid (and not too heavy at 104g), but that metal brace becomes a pain when its protruding contours start snagging on clothes and fingers.

There's also hassle involved in changing the SIM card, as you have to take the whole thing apart like a Meccano set. All orifices, including the recess for the camera lens, can be plugged with rubber bungs, but they're loose and tend to go astray. Thankfully, you get a spare of each.

The stylised buttons continue the Cyberdyne Systems theme, but the large 65,000-colour, 132 x 176-pixel screen is a delight. Its built-in 0.3- megapixel video/still cam takes good pics - something Siemens has consistently got right, even if the company's screens haven't always done the cameras justice. It has a 4x digital zoom and can record up to 15 seconds of video footage, which you can send by MMS if your network can handle it.

An add-on camera fl ash is available as well as an optional "Bike-o-Meter" accessory - a robust mobile phone holder with cyclometer functions such as distance and time measurement. The latter helps this to become a seriously sporty phone, worthy of a podium position but not the top step.