musicphone
Latest
Sony Ericsson's new MBW-150 Bluetooth watch rocks AVRCP
Bluetooth wristwatches are all the rage lately -- or at least Sony Ericsson hopes so, because it has a vested interest in most of them -- and just like we suspected, the JV has announced its latest model, the MBW-150, complete with AVRCP support for wireless control of your music phone. This followup to the MBW-100 comes in three styles (Classic, Music, and Executive, pictured left to right) that all perform the standard caller ID / SMS notification thing, while tossing in the highly-desirable ability to change tracks and adjust volume as well as view track info on the face. No pricing or release details were immediately released, so we'll keep ya updated.
Sprint announces Samsung UpStage, 99 cent songs over the air
As expected, Sprint has announced the SPH-m620 "UpStage" dual-faced musicphone today, giving Sprint a decided "wow" factor in its lineup -- for the moment, at least. Manufacturers seem to be turning to unusual form factors in an effort to gain some differentiation in a crowded high-end and specialty phone marketplace, and the UpStage fills the bill nicely with a full side devoted to traditional phone activities -- "calls, text messaging, and contact management" to use Sprint's verbage -- while the entirety of the flip side takes the form of a traditional MP3 player; a button press switches between sides. Naturally, the phone offers a microSD slot for up to 2GB of external storage, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and stereo Bluetooth, while an included 3.5mm jack adapter lets folks use more traditional headsets if they so choose; even cooler, incoming calls are announced via text-to-speech while you're jamming out. Also included is a Music Manager app for sideloading tunes to the phone via USB and a unique "battery wallet" boosting the phone's stamina for playing music up to a solid 16 hours or 6.3 hours of talk time (up from 2.5 hours talk time without) -- you sacrifice a bit of girth from the phone's normal, svelte 1.73 x 4.07 x 0.37 inch form, but for music junkies, the tradeoff may be worth it. Simultaneously with the phone's release in early April, Sprint will be offering 99 cent over the air (nice!) music downloads good on its entire Music Store catalog, which we reckon is just perfect for a phone of the UpStage's nature. Look for it to hit shelves for $149 on a two-year agreement with a $50 rebate available.%Gallery-2281%
Samsung m620 to be christened "UpStage" for Sprint
So it won't be called the "Flipper" or the "Ultra Music" -- no, it seems Sprint wanted a name all its own for the very unique m620 musicphone from Samsung. When it launches at CTIA this week, the two-faced handset will get slapped with the name "UpStage," which in our opinion really doesn't convey the craziness of the phone's form factor appropriately -- but does give a nod to its unusually strong audio capabilities. As the Flash presentation points out, the UpStage's key features include touch-sensitive music controls, a 1.3 megapixel cam (which is shared with the phone side's face), stereo Bluetooth, built-in speakers for rockin' out the old-fashioned way, and microSD expansion. We're hoping that everyone is going to be able to waltz into their friendly local Sprint store in the next few days and pick up an UpStage of their own, but either way, expect some serious hands-on action from the floor of CTIA![Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Philips 598 combines style and tunes
Here's a novel idea: take a standard clamshell mobile and add in a media player so you can rock out to tunes right on your phone. But wait, we're not done! Give it some gold accents, too, to make it a sort of fashion accessory. Think it'll fly? Alright, we're just having a little fun here; the new 598 from Philips really isn't anything special, although the black / gold color combo is a little unique. Features include a microSD slot to facilitate the aforementioned rocking out, 220 x 176 internal and 64 x 64 external displays (with the latter being of the monochrome OLED variety), 128MB of internal storage, and a 1.3 megapixel cam. As we'd expect with a Philips piece, this one makes do without GSM 850, so we wouldn't count on a US launch.[Via Slashphone]
Samsung's F200 music phone stays slim and trim
Your options for a slim music phone are nearly limitless, and if you dig the sliders of the world, you've probably eyed Samsung's X830 a time or two before. The handset has apparently went over fairly well, as now we're seeing a very similar successor hit the market with a trimmed down feature set. The F200 touts the same elongated design, a 1.46-inch 220 x 128 resolution external display, support for MP3, WMA, OGG, DCF, and SMP file formats, and a paltry 5MB of internal storage versus the 1GB found on the X830. Thankfully, Samsung included a microSD slot for toting more than a tenth of an album at any given time, and you'll also find a hold switch and headphone jack to compliment the musical abilities. Per usual, there's no word just yet when this sucka will hit the market nor how much it'll run you when it does, but judging by the lackluster feature set, it'll shouldn't hurt too bad. Click on through for a few extra views. [Via Slashphone]
Nokia 3250 + 5300 = 5700?
Remember the twist-a-riffic Nokia XpressMusic 3250 -- that S60 baddie with the rotating keypad? Apparently there's some legitimacy to the odd form factor, because rumors are swirling that a new 5700 model will update the 3250 with some of the 5300's thoroughly modern elements. The QVGA display, 2 megapixel cam, and UMTS radio are all well and good, but there's nothing like a little S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 to brighten our day in the land of music-oriented mobiles. Since this is far from official, we've got no word on pricing or release date -- but given the rather professional-looking stylized graphic here seemingly advertising the aforementioned model, our money is on it being real (just don't expect it this side of the pond).[Via Slashphone]
Motorola's ROKR E2 reviewed: welcome, what took you so long?
Sure, the ROKR E1 musicphone never quite lived up to the hype. Not by a long shot. Still, don't count Moto out of the musicphone game just yet. Mobile Burn got their hands on the followup ROKR E2 and come away "really happy" from the review. For starters, this "solidly built" tri-band GSM / EDGE candybar features Motorola's new JUIX (a Java / Linux mashup) user interface which Mobile Burn swoons over due its new tabbed menus and overall speed. In particular, the address book has been improved "by leaps and bounds" over other Motorola phones. Even better, the much maligned 100-song cap in iTunes is gone, as is the iTunes software. Instead, a new "integrated player" (hint: it supports RealAudio) is used to playback music loaded onto your favorite SD card -- up to 2GBs now supported. Music sounded "excellent" with adequate bass and the dedicated music controls along the side of the phone worked well. And like all good musicphones, it features a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack for use with any off-the-shelf cans, an off-line mode for listening to music on an airplane, and the ability to play music in the background while using other phone functions. The keys were a "joy to use" with good tactile feedback and the 2-inch TFT screen was found to be "really sharp and bright." With such a positive review, all we can say is this: welcome back to the game Moto.
Sanyo M1 pics revealed, launch set for the 3rd
The rather decked Sanyo M1 has managed to get musicphone-yearnin' Sprint fanboys salivating already, without even a complete set of press shots to glom onto. Well, we're here to set the story straight, with a few press photos from an anonymous tipster of the M1 in all its glory, along with a full-on spec sheet for your perusal. As evidenced by those eBay shots we spotted in October, the phone isn't exactly RAZR bustin' when it comes to slim, but it's still plenty pocketable, and those fancy deets like 1GB of memory, a 2.0 megapixel camera (with flash), A2DP, and a QVGA internal display should justify the bulk here -- for wearers of all but the slimmest of jeans, at least. The best news is that the phone is purportedly set for a soft launch tomorrow, December 3rd, and some reports are coming in of phone orders going through already. Apparently the phone costs $349 -- we believe that's without contract -- but we suppose we'll find out all of this tomorrow, so no use sweating the small stuff at this point. Keep reading for that spec sheet and a few jumbo pics.
Study: for most, all-in-one phones aren't
Hey, isn't the idea of a cameraphone to have the luxury of leaving your big, fat digicam at home? With a smartphone, isn't the PDA supposed to be history? And doesn't that iPod belong in the circular file now that you've picked up that fancy musicphone? According to a newly released study by In-Stat, phones with extra goodness packed in aren't prompting their owners to leave other devices behind. In fact, over half of multimedia phone owners are still toting a dedicated MP3 player, some 75% of smartphone users lug a PDA as well, and a staggering 80% of cameraphone owners "regularly" carry their digital camera. Will the latest generation of superphones like the Nokia N95 start to change attitudes, or is the concept of a true all-in-one device nothing more than a myth?[Via ZDNet]
Nokia's XpressMusic 5300 and 5200 announced, 3250 gets makeover
If the hoard of N-series Nokias raining down from Espoo yesterday was a bit too much on say, the fuddy-duddy side of the generational slope, then check these new XpressMusic cellphones kiddies. Well "new" only if you missed the 5300 and 5200 peeped before. Still official is official so let's run 'er down again. The 5300 slider is the biggest news here, going tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900MHz with GPRS/EDGE support and 262k color TFT LCD, QVGA (240x320) resolution. It features up to 2GB of microSD storage, dedicated music keys, an adapter for 3.5-mm headphones, built-in IM software, FM radio (with Visual Radio), 1.3 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and an expected retail of €250 pre-tax, or $317. The 5200 shares the looks of the 5300 but features an even lower rez camera and display for a pre-tax price of €200 or $254. Meanwhile, the original XpressMusic 3250 twister sports a new look with added support for 2GB microSD cards. Expect the 3250 to pull a pre-tax €400 or $507. All phones, according to Nokia today in New York, will "begin shipments in select markets within weeks." MobileBurn however claims that a US variant of the mix will hit Q1, so who knows. Click-on for a snap of the updated 3250.[Via MobileBurn]
Sanyo prepping 1-gigabyte M1 for Sprint?
While Sanyo's phones are known for their tendency to leave customers delighted here in the US, one thing they're typically not known for is keen industrial design -- with the possible exception of the Katana released earlier this year. The Katana's proven to be a decent low- to midrange piece, but now it looks like the Japanese manufacturer is gearing up to take on the SCH-A990s and Blades of the world with the rather attractive (as best as we can make out from the smallish picture) M1 clamshell. As music phones go, the rumored specs leave almost nothing to be desired, with a QVGA display, 2-megapixel cam, external controls, Bluetooth with A2DP, microSD expansion, and an impressive 1GB of storage on board. We don't quite know what to make of the circle on the phone's front, which we're guessing plays into the external music controls somehow -- but if its a scroll wheel, get out of our way, people; we've got a Sprint store to get to.[Via phoneArena]
Sprint's pipeline gets clearer; T-Mobile along for the ride
Quick: what's the diff between the two flips on the left? Very good, one's branded T-Mobile and the other wears a Sprint badge. The SPH-M500 for Sprint (pictured left) and SGH-T619 for T-Mob (center) are virtual dead ringers for one another, the only obvious difference being that the T619 sports GSM with EDGE data, while the M500 is a CDMA piece with EV-DO. Other notable specs include dual color displays, 1.3-megapixel shooter ("notable" might be a stretch there), and a microSD slot. Moving to moderately more interesting Sprint equipment, we told ya about the A720 a while back -- and thanks to our pals at the FCC, we no longer need to go cross-eyed looking at shoddy cameraphone pics of this thing. The squarish clamshell is clearly music-oriented thanks to external controls (touch-sensitive, no less) and A2DP -- a viable alternative for folks turned off by the name of LG's Fusic.Read - SGH-T619 for T-Mobile and SPH-M500 for SprintRead - SPH-A720 for Sprint
Cingular's belated V3i getting ready to ship?
Who woulda thought Cingular would have so much trouble getting Moto's little ol' (emphasis on ol') V3i out the door? Well, they have; rumored release date after rumored release date has gone by without so much as a peep from corporate on the matter. We're at the point now where far more exciting things lie on the radar in Cingular's pipeline, but for folks just looking to to replace a RAZR with another RAZR -- and we know you're out there -- the V3i still holds a lot of promise. So where is it? Amazon seems to think they know, claiming they'll have 'em ready to ship in 1 to 2 weeks. Rumor has it these things may be bundled with a 512MB microSD card, but with the infamous track limit in place, we might recommend something other than iTunes content to fill it up.[Thanks, John]
Samsung's 8GB SGH-i310 gets FCC approval
Unless you actually work for Samsung, packin' 8GB of storage in your phone is a mighty good thing, we say; happily, the FCC agrees. Samsung's SGH-i310, perhaps the only Windows Mobile 5 smartphone with enough street cred to truly deserve the "music phone" title, looks to have won approval this week. Lending to its air of legitimacy are the true mechanical scroll wheel and relatively vast storage -- all well and good, we say, but what's really promising is the fact that the i310 rolls on all four GSM bands. Even if your carrier frowns on this kind of goodness, import with wild abandon, knowing this sucker's got you covered for spectrum no matter where you might be.
Unboxing Verizon's Chocolate
Screw waiting until the official release this week -- we want to live vicariously through the few lucky souls who've already managed to score a piece of Verizon's Chocolate. A HowardForums member has managed to hook us all up, putting down his glossy black bundle of joy just long enough to snap a few shots of the VX8500 being extracted from its packaging materials. As might be expected, the phone looks to quickly get covered with smudges and fingerprints, but such is the price one must pay for mobile exclusivity these days.[Thanks, Damian]
Wild speculation: iPhone to launch in August?
Alright, dear readers, you know the drill: proceed with caution. We have no confirmation here, but sometimes a tip is too juicy not to share, no matter how suspect it might be. A reader is reporting to us that a coworker's tech-unsavvy friend, who is regularly hired by Apple to do marketing photo shoots, was recently brought on to take some shots of "the sleekest, sexiest damn phone he's ever seen." The launch date? "Some time in August." Yeah, not a typo -- August. Now, to be perfectly clear, we don't know what the iPhone (if it exists) will be actually called, we've never seen a real pic of the elusive beast, and this doesn't really jive with the time frame suggested by Peter Oppenheimer's recent comments -- but we want to believe, and we don't have to wait very long for this one to get debunked or confirmed.
Apple on iPhone: "We're not sitting around doing nothing"
Apple's been dogged with rumors of an iPod / phone hybrid (the real deal, not a rehash of a Moto E398 with iTunes support) for nearly as long as the iPod's been kickin' around. Apparently looking to beat the dead horse yet again, an analyst mentioned Sony's success with their Walkman line of music-oriented phones during Apple's Q3 earnings call, prompting CFO Peter Oppenheimer to respond with a fairly solid non-denial: "As regards cell phones, we don't think that the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time, that is likely to change. And we're not sitting around doing nothing." Knowing Apple, of course, this is about the biggest admission we'll get until the iPhone actually drops, so relish in the moment, keep your eyes peeled in a year or so, and if you're really hard up, you could fashion your own, like the pictured Nokia 6680 makeover.[Via MacDailyNews]
Sony Ericsson W300i music phone reviewed
The W300i may not be the most fascinating phone out there, but golly, it's good to see a midrange flip once in a while coming from someone besides Samsung and LG. The music-oriented W300i earned a 7.6 on CNET's 10-scale, earning praise for its "remarkable" call quality but getting knocked for its tricky button placement, lackluster VGA cam, flimsy feel (attributed to the phone's feather-like 3.3oz), and tendency to freeze for a few seconds on occasion. In our opinion, the dismal 20MB of internal storage doesn't really jive with its Walkman branding -- thankfully, the Memory Stick Micro slot is there to bail you out. No word on any US carriers picking the W300i up, but it's rockin' quadband GSM plus EDGE, so feel free to buy your own if you can stomach the $299 Sony Ericsson is asking.[Thanks, Jen B.]
Philips 588 music phone drops in Taiwan
Sorry, fellas, this one's for the ladies. Philips has officially launched its 588 model in Taiwan this week, a featherweight (78g) clamshell targeted at the fairer sex. Available only in purple and white, the feminine 588 sports triband GSM, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and -- as you may have guessed from the external controls -- a music player feeding off a little over 100MB of internal storage with no expansion slot. No word on pricing for the Asia-only flip, but with its lack of Bluetooth and external display, we're guessing the 588 is designed to be a fashion phone for the masses. At least the female masses, that is.[Via Slashphone]
BenQ-Siemens christens Q-fi line with EF51
BenQ-Siemens has been looking to jump on the "Is it a phone? Is it a music player?" bandwagon with its Q-fi series of music-oriented devices, and although the EF51 isn't the first device announced in the series, it appears it'll be the first to ship. The EF51 is supposedly so music-oriented, in fact, that BenQ Mobile is calling it "a music device with an integrated mobile phone." It packs A2DP, which is all well and good, but what's the one thing you absolutely cannot live without in a music player, folks? That's right, memory, and BenQ has ominously left that aspect of the phone's specification off the press release. We've seen reports that the phone might be shipping with a scant 20MB, and if that's the case, the EF51 is dead in our eyes as a music device. As a phone, the EF51 holds its own on the low end with tri-band 900/1800/1900 GPRS, 1.3 megapixel camera, and a 128 x 128 display. A MiniSD slot is mercifully included, but in our opinion, a music player that can scarcely fit five MP3s without the aid of a memory card is not a music player at all. The EF51 drops this month in tri-band friendly parts of the globe.[Via Slashphone]
