Most Popular MP3 Cell Phones
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Most Popular MP3 Cell Phones
Cell phones aren't just cell phones anymore; they're multimedia machines. One of the hottest trends among the mobile phone community is to throw in music playback capabilities, allowing people to leave their standalone MP3 players (otherwise known as "DAPs", or "digital audio players") behind and only carry a cell phone for both communication and personal entertainment purposes. Music-centric phones are hitting the market fast and furious, and many sport external controls dedicated to the music playback function. This way, you can raise and lower the volume, choose the next track, or pause the tunes without having to go through the cell phone's main menus.
It seems more difficult to find a mobile phone that doesn't have a built-in camera these days than it is to find one that does, and by all indications, the same will soon be true with multimedia playback. After all, MP3 ringtones used to be new and sexy, but they have become a fairly standard feature on most new handsets, even entry-level ones.
Here are three of the most popular MP3 cell phones on the market today, as well as a few notables that you should definitely look into if music playback is something that interests you in a mobile phone.
Motorola SLVR L7 with iTunes
The "slim is in" mantra may have started with the uber popular RAZR from Motorola, but the even skinnier SLVR has taken the world by storm for its thin profile, vibrant color display, and -- best of all -- iTunes music support. Not available with the lower-end L2 and L6 varieties of Motorola's thin bar-style phones, iTunes-compatibility means that all those songs that you downloaded from the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) for your Apple iPod can quickly and easily be transferred to your equally attractive cell phone. Unfortunately, the Motorola SLVR L7 only has 11 megabytes of built-in memory, so you will need to make use of the provided microSD / TransFlash expansion slot to store any reasonable amount of tunes. The high resolution TFT display is great for watching tiny videos, as is the VGA digital camera for taking those memorable snapshots on the go.
Sony Ericsson W900 Walkman Phone
Touted as the crowning jewel among the Walkman line from Sony Ericsson, the W900 is a powerful beast in a rather porky package. The not-so-common swivelling form factor will certainly capture your attention faster than a more standard clamshell or candybar. To overcome its larger than average girth, Sony Ericsson has packed this phone with lots of features that leave the competition in the dust. In addition to an amazing 470MB of internal memory with Memory Stick Duo Pro expansion, the Sony Ericsson W900 also sports a 2 megapixel digital camera, UMTS high speed data, Bluetooth, and a suite of 3D mobile games.
Nokia 3250 Music Phone
It took less than four months for this hot handset from Nokia to become a million-seller. Following the Nokia 3250's launch in March 2006, it started selling like hotcakes, not only for its music-centric functionality, but perhaps more so for its unique rotating bottom half. The upper section, housing the large, vibrant display remains still, while the bottom section can be spun around depending on which aspect of the 3250 you want to make use of. On the one side, you have the standard keypad for dialling numbers. On the other side, you'll find dedicated music controls and a button to activate the integrated 2 megapixel camera. Complete with Bluetooth, the Nokia 3250 is compatible with a wide variety of audio formats including MP3, M4A, RealAudio 7/8/10, WMA, and eAAC+.
Other Notable Handsets
- Motorola ROKR E1 is one of the first widely available (in North America) phones to feature the capability of playing back some rocking tunes through a set of stereo speakers. Its successor, the ROKR E2, should be available soon.
- Samsung SCH-a950 falls under the Verizon umbrella as one of their key V-CAST capable handsets. Its design isn't particularly inspiring, but it is set up to download new music on the fly thanks to Verizon's high-speed service.
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i have a cell phone
-- Contributed by: d
This page has been accessed 6,684 times. This page was last modified 03:49, 23 August 2006.
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