Product: Siemens SF65 camera phone Price: $3,480 Pros: It features trendy, high-gloss colours, a large display and a megapixel camera Cons: Expensive for its limited range First impressions count with Siemens' new SF65 clamshell-format camera phone. The stylish handset integrates a 1.3-megapixel digital camera, LED flash, 4x zoom, swivel-action screen, 64-chord polyphonic ring tones and a 65,536 colour display - all the fine aspects of digital photography wrapped in a mobile phone. Emulating recent models released by Nokia in Hong Kong, the SF65 has a high-gloss finish in colours described as Polar White and Onyx Black. At just 97 grams, the SF65 is also light enough to put inside a jacket pocket. The phone's camera function only works after turning the screen and snapping it flat, facing the user, on the clamshell phone's keypad area. This makes the SF63 look and feel like a typical digital still camera. The constant switching and snapping into camera position worried me because there was no user manual that came with the demonstration phone. I was extra careful because I was concerned the screen area might break off from the rest of the handset for each twist and turn to use the camera. The camera phone has 18 megabytes of memory, which allows for a maximum storage of 900 pictures. For all its much-touted hi-tech features, the SF65 I tested did not come with any pre-installed game. Not even a simple golf game or Tetris. The handset also did not provide for a program that enabled a user to compose ring tones, and there is no calendar program to mark appointments. It lacks a standard video-recording function and there is no Bluetooth connectivity - all it has is infrared. The phone is scheduled to be widely available in the second quarter.
