Gizmodo: musicphone

KDDI au Casio Phone Makes Music With a Touchscreen

Elaine Chow — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:00:00 EST

Surprisingly absent until now, touchability has finally made it into the KDDI au line-up. Casio's offering utilizes a 3.1-inch touchscreen for some funky music apps — making it a music studio in your pocket.

The screen swivels around a central hinge to hide the phone's regular numerical keyboard. Through a Yamaha piano app program, you can also play and record various other instruments on-the-go. Sounds like a fun concept, but it's hard to tell if the phone's specced out enough to handle that kind of program smoothly.

Also included in package: motion sensing, an "urban fitness program," a 5MP camera and 500MB of internal memory. Per usual, only available in Japan for now. [KDDI au]

Nokia Releases 5800 XpressMusic 'Tube' Full Video Tour

John Herrman — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 06:20:00 EDT

Our hands-on with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic 'Tube' was pretty conclusive: the 5800 is a solid, capable but somewhat underwhelming music phone. For a first attempt at a full touch interface, though, the adapted S60 operating system is actually pretty good. Slashphone has unearthed a mountain of demo footage displaying the different functions of the OS, so you can make your own judgment, but as with our hands-on video, you'll just have to try to ignore the damning, repeatedly unregistered touches that keep happening whenever the screen isn't pre-rendered.

The social networking tools are highly functional, but I'm not sure how eager people will be to build vanity feeds for their friends.

Excited about using your 5800 with Flickr, YouTube or Facebook? Well, Nokia's got a sort clone for you, I guess.

And finally, the most telling "feature": two styluses (styli?)—a guitar pick and a traditional pen. Manufactures should should really be required to call these thing "pokescreen phones." [Slashphone]

Benq C36 Cellphone Thinks it's a Webcam and Radio Recorder Too

Kit Eaton — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:50:00 EDT

Benq's new C36 cellphone is labelled a "Music Phone" but it also squeezes in a 1.3 megapixel webcam function and has a built-in FM radio with a recording function. This last even has a scheduling function, so you won't miss your shows. It plays MP3s, WAV, MIDI and AMR, has a 2-inch color LCD, built-in speakers, records voice notes, has microSD memory expansion and 180 hours standby and 2.4 hour talk time. The phone even has a "Health management" option, dealing with BMI and menstrual matters—we'd love to have been at the design meeting where they dreamed that up. The little 0.17-pound phone is available in blue, in Indonesia in May at first, with other countries to follow. No info on pricing. [Benq via TFTS]

Rhapsody In Music Cell from LG Sports iPod-esque Clickwheel

AddyDugdale — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:31:07 EST

LG launched its romantically named Rhapsody In Music mobile phone in Korea today. So far, so Richard Clayderman. Apart from a clickwheel—sorry, "Wheel Key"—that makes one nostalgic for Cupertino, what else has the LB3300, as it is also known, got?

Multimedia player
1GB memory
MicroSD slot
Bluetooth
DMB
2 Megapixel camera

All this is a whopping $537. You could probably get Richard Clayderman to play something smoove in your home for less. [Akihabara News]

Bang & Olufsen Serenata Hands-On Video

Jason Chen — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:50:24 EDT

Zara over at Shiny Shiny got her hands on the Bang & Olufsen/Samsung Serenata phone, which isn't just a phone, it's a "personal music system." Even after watching the video it's unclear how the music UI capabilities outclass say, the iPhone, but the external speakers seem like they sound pretty great—it even has bass. Not like Enya even has any bass in any of her songs. We'll see if we can get a closeup video of the UI for you. [Shiny Shiny]

Lightning Round: T-Mobile's Samsung Beat Music Phone

Jason Chen — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:11:22 EDT

The Gadget: T-Mobile's Samsung Beat, a music flip-phone with 2GB microSD support, 1.3-megapixel camera, Stereo Bluetooth streaming, Quad-Band GSM, myFaves, IM support, and a round green speaker on the front for impromptu dance-athons.

The Price: $99 with two-year contract.

The Verdict: For $99, this is a pretty decent music phone. The green circular speaker on the front is plenty loud for music on your own—we don't recommend it on the bus or anything just out of general principle—and the external music control buttons next to it are plenty convenient. The internal music UI isn't atrocious, which is a step up for music phones not from Sony Ericsson or Apple.

It's relatively small, which is good, and has good incoming and outgoing sound quality (someone said it made my voice sound deeper. Unconfirmed!). The keypad also has a nice graphite-esque texture, which adds to the overall appeal of this low- to mid-range phone. Overall, we'd give it a thumbs-up for regular folks who aren't interested in smartphone functions.

T-Mobile

Samsung Beat Clamshell Musicphone Heading to T-Mobile This Month

Jason Chen — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:45:51 EDT

Following up on the Samsung Blast, T-Mobile is going to receive ~~another slider~~ a clamshell from Samsung this month in the form of Samsung Beat. It's going to have a 1.3-megapixel camera, myFaves compatibility, on-face music control buttons, a green ring speaker and various other standard features that aren't really worth listing. How much on-board memory it has is still up in the air, but it looks more like a medium to low-end music phone for the average person. Zune Phone this ain't! [Boy Genius Report]

Shure iPhone Headset Adapter Lets Any Headset Make Calls

Jason Chen — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:09:55 EDT

If you've had any type of headphones plugged into the iPhone when you're on a call—including that tape adapter you have for your car—you'll notice that you can hear the person fine, but they can't hear you. Obviously, that's because there's no microphone on those headphones you're wearing. Shure's Music Phone Adapter let's you use any set of cans as a headset by adding an in-line mic in the adapter. Sure, it's pretty pricey at $49.99, but the privilege of using any set of headphones to make calls could be worth it if you have some expensive $399 Shure headphones you don't want to take off just to make a call. [Shure via MacWorld]

Latte Boom—the Boombox Cellphone Hybrid That Fails at Both

Louis Ramirez — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:10:43 EDT

From the looks of it, you'd think the Latte Boom was one of Samsung's new MP3 players (especially with its built-in speakers), but this tiny, bar-shaped handheld is actually a cellphone. And not a good one at that.

The folks at infoSync put it through the test and found out that the $240 phone has little (if any) redeeming qualities. Looks-wise, it'll set itself apart from the rest of the pack, but for practical purposes, the phone fails all around. Call quality on it is bad, texting is difficult (due mainly to the small keypad and screen), and even as a boombox, sound isn't top notch. We'd spend our dough on one of these phones instead. – Louis Ramirez

Latte Boom Music Phone [infoSync]

Sprint Joins Us in the Real World: Over-the-Air Tracks 99 Cents in April

Matt Buchanan — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:30:42 EDT

Piggybacking on the UpStage phone we've oohed and ahhed over for the last couple of days (and months), Sprint is lowering the price of OTA music downloads from their 1.5 million track library to 99 cents. Thank. Christ. OTA music prices have been obscene for far too long.

You can't use the tracks as a ringtones, however, even on the UpStage, a music phone, which is patently ridiculous. Still, it's a great move nonetheless, and could actually get people to use their phones as music devices—the whole disruptive potential is in grabbing tracks whenever, wherever, but before it was prohibitively expensive. Now that the price is reasonable people might finally take advantage.

Sprint's also rolling out two new music-oriented unlimited data plans in April: Power Vision Access and Power Vision Music. Bullet points after the jump.

Power Vision Access ($15 a month):

* 10 commercial-free radio channels from Sprint Radio, powered by mSpot
* exclusive video programming from Sprint Power View, including a weekly top-song countdown, breaking music news, tour information and artist interviews and performances and
* songs at $ 0.99 each from the Sprint Music Store.

Power Vision Music ($20 a month):

* another 40 channels of commercial-free radio channels from Sprint Radio (for a total of 50),
* a channel from Sprint TV that features music videos, powered by MobiTV, including hip-hop, rock and alternative as well as flashbacks from the 80s and 90s and
* songs at $ 0.99 each from the Sprint Music Store.

Seems like Sprint's serious about this whole music deal, which seems like an interesting way to try to differentiate itself from other mobile carriers, kind of like what Helio is doing but on a smaller scale. It all seems fairly reasonable, moreover, which is a first when you think about digital music and mobile carriers, at least in the US. – Matt Buchanan

Press Release [Sprint]

Even More Samsung Upstage Details

Jason Chen — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:10:56 EDT

We just got done talking to Sprint about their latest (and some would say best) music phone, the Samsung Upstage. Here are some previously unreleased details that may have not been found here (or anywhere else).

• It's cheap: Only $149 with contract. That's way low for a music phone with this kind of featureset.

• Unfortunately, the Upstage won't play any other form of DRM (the songs from Sprint aren't DRMEd, actually, which is nice). So your iTunes, Zune, Napster, and other form of DRMed music won't be able to be played on this.

• It comes with 64MB built-in memory, but will accept 1 and 2GB flash cards.

Jump for some more bullets, and a shocker!

• The Upstage will not be able to use music you've downloaded from their 1.4 million track repository for MP3 ringtones. In fact, from what Sprint said, you can't use MP3 ringtones at all. Ouch. We blame the RIAA for this inability to use music as a ringtone in a music phone.

• You can download tracks both over the air (OTA) or on your PC, and the service will remember which tracks you've downloaded.

• The OTA versions are more compressed than the ones from the PC—which has standard MP3 compression—so if you wanted to, you could download a higher quality version of the song later for free (see above bullet).

• You can use the phone in USB Disk mode along with their own proprietary music manager service.

• Head to sprint.com/upstage to sign up for their 4/1 launch.

And finally, when we asked Sprint how this compares to the upcoming iPhone (since they are both music-centric phones), Sprint gave us four ways in which they're different. Here they are, in bullet point form.

• It's much cheaper. $149 vs. $499

• It's smaller.

• It has OTA music downloads.

• The touchscreen feature on the iPhone will be hard to use for the majority of users.

– Jason Chen

Upstage [Sprint]

T-Mobile Gets Musical With Nokia 5300 XpressMusic

Jason Chen — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:15:28 EST

Although the phone won't launch until February 28, T-Mobile's starting up the sign-up process for the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic already. The phone marks T-Mobile's effort to target the music-loving crowd, with dedicated music buttons, microSD card for storage, and free tracks from Yahoo! Music.

There's also a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth A2DP connectivity, and a sliding design. It's going to be pretty cheap as well—$99 with contract—and comes with MyFaves support. Hmm, this or the iPhone? Tough choices are a'comin. – Jason Chen

Signup Page [T-Mobile via Crunchgear]

Samsung Z610 Slider Cellphone On Its Way

Charlie White — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:15:54 EDT

Samsung is knocking on the cellphone styling door from all angles, and now it's following the iPod's lead, imitating the familiar creamy white form factor. We get this sneak peek at the Samsung Z610 as it begins to pass muster with the FCC, so we might be seeing this attractive little bauble by the end of the year.

The 3G-supporting slider handset has a mildly respectable spec list, with a 2-megapixel camera, a microSD expansion slot, and the capability of playing MP3/WMA/AAC audio files. Expect to see more music-capable phones with high-style design as we get closer to the inevitable mobile music phone launch from Apple. – Charlie White

Samsung Z610 iPod-style cellphone appears at FCC [Electronista, via CrunchGear]

Asus J206 Music Phone

Jason Chen — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 18:35:12 EDT

Another music phone that has a control structure conspicuously like the iPod—who would have thought?. The Asus J206 has the iPod click-wheel interface copied, right down to the icons and placement. It has MP3/AAC/WAV support with 12 hours of playback time. 60 MB of internal memory and a microSD slot allows you to put up to 2 GB of music on the phone.

This is a slider phone, with USB connectivity and a headphone jack built right in. Bundled with the phone is "Music Manager", an iTunes like music syncing program. We don't know whether the phone will be available with English menus for importing, but if you can read Chinese then you're set.

No availability or pricing yet, but there's going to be an even newer model of this released in Q3 2006, so we expect this one to be out soon. – Jason Chen

Asus J206 [Sogi via Slashphone]

Toshiba W44T Music Phone

Jason Chen — Tue, 23 May 2006 16:30:25 EDT

Toshiba, maker of laptops, TVs and other electronics, is trying to wedge its cellphone business into the big leagues with the new W44T music phone. Lots of features in a small, attractive package may mean Toshiba has a hit on its hands.

A large 2.6" screen inside a flip-and-twist phone lets you view the quality pictures taken on the 3.2-megapixel camera. Add to that MP3 support that's rated at 19 hours of playback—longer than most dedicated music players—and a miniSD slot for expanded memory, this phone is functional as well as good looking. Two traits no one can say about Paris Hilton.

Press Release [via i4u via Digital Lifestyle Magazine]

Pantech Shiny White Music Phone Looks Kinda Familiar...

tgrumet — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:54:50 EST

It just never stops, does it? Though not as blatant as the Dbtel M50 cellphone we showed you yesterday, this Pantech IM-U110 music phone does look quite like a certain MP3 player we all know and love. I will, however, give credit where credit is due and say that this Pantech beauty has some cool-ass features—starting with a built-in 1GB flash memory for music storage. It also has a media player that supports AAC, AAC+, MP3, MPEG4 and H.264, a 2-megapixel camera, PictBridge for photo printing, a 2-inch screen and stereo speakers. I also like how the music controls are on the outside of the phone, with the keypad tucked into the clamshell design. Sure, cool, but worth $650? I'm not so sure.

Pantech IM-U110 1GB Flash Memory Music Phone [i4u]

iPod Design Rip-Off Alert

tgrumet — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:34:05 EST

So you just can't wait for Apple's fabled cellphone, eh? Well, perhaps you'd like a handset that looks like an iPod instead. This is the Dbtel M50 cellphone, which is curiously shaped like an Apple iPod. The controls are pretty much based on the iPod, and the phone is small and light, weighing in at 2.8 oz. Other design features include a 2-megapixel camera and, strangely enough, no keypad. So basically, you are dialing using the scrollpad—which doesn't seem like such a great deal to me (though I guess you'd get used to it). But what makes this more of an iPod cousin is its music player, 16MB of built-in memory and large color display. I'll stick with the ROKR E2, thanks very much.

Dbtel M50 [Sogi]

Sony Ericsson W810i - Walkman Deux

johnb — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 10:40:54 EST

See, now I'm digging this incarnation of the Walkman phone. It's not my dream phone, by any stretch, but this one seems to have a bit more panache than the abortion that hit the streets last year—can you believe we have to say "last year" now? Ultimately, I think this is way we're headed in terms of convergence devices and SE seems to be on the ball.

This versions suppoers Quadband and EDGE and has 20MB of storage, a considerable drop from the original version. No FM tuner, apparently, and it comes with a 512MB MemoryStick. It's available this quarter. Maybe they're trying to streamline it or maybe all the EDGE support took up precious cubic centimeters.

Sony Ericsson unveils the W810i [ClubSonyEricsson]

HTC Muse Is Coming

gizmodo.com — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 17:27:02 EST

The HTC Muse is the latest HTC phone to come out and pack a huge punch in traditional HTC fashion. Designed as a music phone, the Muse will be running Windows Mobile 5.0, will be triband 3.5G (EDGE, UTMS, and more), and will feature a 65k color 240x240 screen. Aside from the lame screen, you get features out the ying yang. FM Radio, 4GB of flash memory for storing music plus an SD card slot if you need more, Wi-fi, Bluetooth, and a 2.1MP camera with TV Out. Whew! 64MB of onboard RAM and a 416-Mhz processor power this "phone". Still drooling? Wipe off your mouth and straighten up because you won't be seeing this until at least the end of Q2 2006. No idea of what carrier will get this one, but we have a hunch it'll be Cingular.

Exclusive: HTC Muse unveiled [MS Mobiles]

Don't Call It A Comeback: The New Walkman Phones

gizmodo.com — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 13:23:02 EDT

Unlike Motorola with the ROKR, Sony-Ericsson got the music phone down 100% right with the W800 Walkman phone. Now that the W800 has been out for awhile, the W900 is here to be let out of its cage so that it may take names and kick ass. But that's not all. Americans actually get something cool, this time! The W600 in the Americas and W550 are to be released about the same time as the W900 so that there are different price points for the consumer who is going the path of Sony-Ericsson. So the W900 is going to be a UTMS handset with a generous 470MB of internal memory for storing your tunes. If that's not enough, go ahead and throw a memory stick DUO in that bitch for up to 2GB of more storage. The W900 is also designed for ease of use with drag-n-drop functionality for transferring music and included software called "Disc2Phone" which makes it easy to put your CDs on the W900. It'll play all the basic formats like MP3, WMA, AAC, etc etc. But what about the other goods? I mean it's a phone...but we all know it's more than a phone. Well the goods can be viewed on a stunning 2.2 inch QVGA 262K TFT screen. The camera included is a whopping 2MP (sadly, no Zeiss optics) with LED flash that also sports the ability to capture video. After the jump you can catch the entire list of hotness that is the W900.

Sony Ericsson W900 Cell Phone [MobileWhack]

* W900i - Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) - GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa
* W900c - Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) - GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Mainland China. Launch for mainland China dependant on availability of 3G services.

Imaging and messaging

* 2.0 MegaPixel camera with Autofocus
* Video call camera
* Digital Still Camera user interface
* 8 x digital zoom
* LED photo light
* 240 x 320 pixel QVGA TFT display
* 2.2 262K color display
* Video recording and full screen playback
* Adobe Photoshop Starter Edition 2.0
* Apple QuickTime Player for PC
* SMS and MMS
* Instant Messaging
* Push e-mail

* Entertainment Video Call
* PlayNow ringtones and games
* Walkman player (MP3/AAC/AAC+)
* Stereo Portable Handsfree with remote control (3.5mm jack)
* 40 polyphonic tones
* Java J2ME and hardware Accelerator
* Embedded Java games: Asphalt Urban GT 3d from Gameloft, Power Ball Arcade in 3D, QuadraPop in 2D
* MegaBass
* Macromedia Flash Lite
* VideoDJ , PhotoDJ , MusicDJ
* Disc2Phone PC Software
* PlayNow ringtones and games
* Horizontal full screen games
* FM Radio

* Connectivity Sync ML.
* HTML browser
* BluetoothTM and Infrared
* PC Suite
* USB cable in the box
* USB mass storage
* Memory Stick PRO Duo slot
* External antenna connector