About Cellulars: CF62

The CF62 represents Siemens second (or third if you consider the Siemens S40) generation of phones for North America. The first generation A56, C56 and M55 did quite well in the entry level market while the S55/S56 and SL55/56 generated interest in the higher end.

The Siemens phones however were not perfect. Probably the most notable problem was that their screens were too low resolution and didn’t look all that great. 101x80 was a good resolution a few years ago but these days, if you use your phone a lot, you need something higher.

Since the first generation Siemens has released the C61 (it kind of fits between the first and second generation), CF62, C65, SL65 and S65. They feature higher resolution displays which look a lot nicer and can display more colours.

Quick Facts

Name:
Siemens CF62

Network:
GSM

Weight:
3.0oz, 84g

Dimensions:
94mm x 22mm x 45mm

Battery life:
(stand by)
12 days

Battery life:
(talk)
5.5 hrs

My phone was manufactured in:
(your phone's country of manufacture could vary)
China
Screen:

The screen has a resolution of 130 x 130. While the CF62 display isn't the brightest, most high contrast display out there it still looks quite nice.

The external display is black and white. It's very easy to see in all lighting and has really large text which is nice.

Keys:

The keypad keys are nice and large and easy to find without looking. It's too bad the CF62 doesn't come with side mounted volume keys.

You can change the function of the left soft key when the phones is idling. The right soft key and right directional key bring up the menu, pressing down takes you to the phone book, pressing and holding up activates voice commands and pressing left opens the messaging application.

Miscellaneous:

Around the edges of the bottom part of the phone are 7 LEDs (Siemens calls them dynamic lights) which flash when you open/close the phone, receive a call, have an alarm, etc. While the LEDs don't really have much practical use they are pretty cool.

Menu:

The CF62 has a grid style menu. You typically use the right soft key to descend a level, the left to go back a level or choose options. The end key is also used to go back a level.

Extras:

The CF62 has most extras features you'd usually expect from a phone including: alarm clock, calculator, currency converter, stopwatch, countdown timer (useful for cooking) and voice commands. There is also the ability to connect Siemens's optional camera accessory. About the only thing missing is a metric converter though you can always download your own to the phone.

Internet:

The CF62 can handle WAP pages up to 16KB in size. It doesn't sound like much but it can handle pretty much anything you'll find at HowardForum Mobile Edition. Scroll speed is pretty good once a page has loaded.

Ring Tones:

One huge problem with the CF62 is that it's built-in ringers are way too quiet. Even with the maximum ring volume, I had lots of trouble hearing the phone ringing.

Messages:

The message application can handle SMS and MMS. If you have the Siemens camera attachment you can take pictures and send them as MMS (some phones like the Sony Ericsson Z200 can't do this - the camera attachment doesn't work with that phone).

Address book:

The address book can handle phone numbers, email addresses, regular addresses, birthdays (you can have the CF62 remind you when it's birthday time) and pictures for picture caller ID.

The number of addresses which can be stored depends on available memory. I'm not sure of the exact number but I had 254 entries with some other media (like pictures and ringtones stored) and had 854KB to spare.

You can quickly jump to an entry by entering its name.

My Stuff:

The CF62 can play java games. Mine came with Mobiloko and Wappo. Both games are not a lot of fun and take a long time to load which is kind of annoying.

In addition to games, there is a dynamic light editor so you can create your own patterns. It's actually a pretty neat feature.

There are different colour schemes which can be downloaded (my CF62 didn't have any preloaded ones).

Organizer:

The calendar has a monthly or daily view. You can choose to view all entries in a list. It will get all entries even if they are on different days which is a handy feature.
Performance:

Performance wise the CF62 is about average, it’s not a bad phone when it comes to areas with weak network signal but it doesn’t distinguish itself either. Sound quality is also average but the maximum earpiece volume is too low for loud environments. The speakerphone is also too quiet to be very useful though I should point out most speakerphones are like this.

Conclusions:

In the end if you’re looking for a mid range clamshell phone, the CF62 is a good choice. It's better than it's competitors the Sony Ericsson Z200 and the Motorola v180. It has some nice practical features like a good address book and the notepad and has an interesting design. Just make sure you don’t use the CF62 in loud environments too much.

Business users:

2.0

The CF62 does have optional PC sync capabilities, nice address book and tri-band network support but it doesn't really offer anything else for business users. It has a quiet earpiece, no IrDA, and a small screen.

Gadget freaks:

1.0

Gadget freaks should look else where.

Budget conscious users:

4.0

For it's price, the CF62 is an interesting choice. It has a nice basic feature set and aside from the soft earpiece and ringers, the CF62 has most features a budget conscious user would want.

Fashion conscious/customization:

3.5

Most found the CF62's design to be interesting and attractive. It's too bad it doesn't have removable covers.

Rating Out of 5
Build Quality 4
Battery Life 4
Phone Related Features 2.5
Ease of Use 4
RF Performance 3.5
Degree of Customizability 3
Overall (not an average) 3
* Please note these ratings are temporal and are really only valid for the date they were assigned. Obviously a phone which receives a rating of 5 a year ago will probably get a lower rating today.

Pros:

Interesting design
Phonebook
Cons:

Earpiece too soft
Ringers too soft

CF62

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