www.fridu.net

After using a Siemens C450IP for more than one year, I bought the new Siemens S450IP phone in March 2007 on www.ldlc.fr and use it under Asterisk with 5 active SIP accounts.

 While the external box of the new S450IP  is the same as the one from my previous C450IP , looking at characteristics the internal electronic must be significantly different. C450 only support one SIP account when the S450 support 6 of them. 

• Up to 6 handsets and 6 SIP accounts from different providers
• Up to 3 calls in parallel: 2 VoIP calls and 1 fixed-line call with multiple handsets
• Dual mode: Easy switch from VoIP calls to fixed line calls by single keypress
• E-mail notification with time, date and subject

• Firmware update automatic notification and activated directly from handset.
• Handset directory backup and restore from web interface.
• Simple and efficient Dialing Plan
• Support multiple SIP provider allowing you to call directly Gizm, Vonage, ... users

• A direct incoming selection for the analog incoming call with DTMF selection . The functionality was available on my old Analog DECT/Siemens-4015 where I had a small voice message to help people to find the good extension. I miss this option that was also very useful to discourage people who call you in the evening to sell this and/or that 
• A redirect to a SIP client for the analog line when no one answer (I dream of this functionality, that would allow me to receive my analog phone call on my Laptop when I'm traveling)
• A smarter dialing plan for analog call, with a functionality like ringing 1st phone for 3 rings before ringing the other one.
• No option to respond from a second phone while first one is ringing (almost force you to have analog line to ring all phones).

• The fact that 1st firmware update was NOT OBVIOUS. When unpacking the phone, documentation promised me 4 SIP accounts, but I only had one (like my old C450IP !!!). Furthermore the online update from WEB interface did not work and placed the DECT base in a Zombi mode !!! Nevertheless the update from the handset worked, I will never know if the problem was coming from my factory firmware or from gigaset network. If you have the same problem (as today look like this bug is still living) switch on/off your base, then do a software upgrade from the DECT handset without even connecting on the base through the web interface. Cross fingers, it should work.
• Siemens support is poor, because of my previous problem, I obviously tried to contact Siemens support, while they answer, the help they propose is fairly useless. See mail extract here after.

Dear Mr. Ar Foll, e thank you for your email from the 3/23/07.We took good not of your query, and we will answer as soon as possible. hope this information has answered your query.Have a great day and thank you for choosing Siemens for your phone needs. f you require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us via e-mail or phone. Yours sincerely, thank you for the interest you show in our product and we stay to your disposal for any further questions.Yours sincerely,Denise Customer Service Terminaux de Telecoms, nformation and Communication ProductsSIEMENS. Informations – Warranty : +33 (0)1.56.38.42.00, Helpline : 08.99.70.01.85 (1.35€ at the connection and 0.34€ per minute)Fax: +33 (0)1.56.38.42.01See you soon on our Webpage : http://www.gigaset.siemens.comDiscover our new products : http://www.gigaset.siemens.com

Conclusion: Outside of this Small initial update issue, while I did not test email/SMS that I do not use, everything else worked fine for me. I deeply recommend this phone that I paid 135Euro, the extra 40Euro on top of the C450IP are more that justified, not only SIP functionalities are not even comparable, but handset series "S" are much nicer . Check Siemens Gigaset portal for model descriptions and technical characteristics gigaset.siemens.com