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Mobile music uproar
By William O'Neal
(March 17, 2005)
Years ago, Samsung released a product that apparently was ahead of its time. That product was a cell phone that doubled as an MP3 player: the Samsung Uproar. Aside from being a mobile for Sprint PCS, the Uproar boasted 64MB of built-in memory that users could use to store MP3 files. The product wasn't well received for a number of reasons. For starters, it was expensive. Add to that the facts that MP3 players had yet to reach the state of ubiquity that they currently enjoy, and that, well, users didn't really know what to make of it. Oh, how times have changed. Today, the word iPod is as common in the English language as Kleenex, and it seems that everyone under the age of 30 can be seen walking down the street with tiny, white earbuds dangling from their heads.
Sony Ericsson K750i
As memory prices have plummeted and cell-phone technology has improved, the time for the cell phone/MP3 player may have arrived. To wit: in a recent MP3 Insider, MP3.com editor Eliot Van Buskirk posed the question, "Will your next MP3 player be a cell phone?" Well, it seems that he may have been on to something. In addition to high-speed cellular networks that enable you to download multimedia content, many of the manufacturers at this year's CTIA highlighted their mobiles' ability to double as MP3 players. And now that many multimedia-positioned cell phones have memory card slots (many of which have capacities of as much as 1GB), it may only be a matter of time before standalone MP3 players give way to MP3-capable cell phones. Here are a few that caught our eye.
Motorola V1050
Leading the charge is the Sony Ericsson K750i. Late to the MP3 player game, the K750i is not only one of the coolest phones that we saw at the show--it has a 2-megapixel camera and an awesome 262,000-color display--but the company is openly positioning it as a Walkman. In addition, it ships with a 500MB Memory Stick, and there's no doubt that this thing is all about music. Oh yeah, and making calls, too.
With support for 3G networks, the Motorola V1050 rocks a 1.23-megapixel camera, an MP3 player, and a TransFlash card slot for storing all that data. The Kyocera Slider Remix KX5 also sports a megapixel camera, and its music player supports both MP3 and AAC formats. It also has a TransFlash card slot (with a capacity of as much as 512MB) to store your music files.
Samsung a800
The originator of the cell phone/MP3 player, Samsung, is not to be left out of the party with the introduction of the a800. This sleek slider phone has a 2-megapixel camera, an MP3 player, and a memory card slot for your music and video files. Lastly, with its update to the LG VX8000, the company's VX8100 has a 1.3-megapixel camera, stereo speakers, and a Mini SD card slot.
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