Music Phones

You sometimes see cell phone manufacturers talk about music phones. What is it then? A music phone is a phone optimized for playing music. The idea with music phones, smartphones and camera phones is that one would have only one device instead of many. A music phone combines a cell phone and a portable music player. Every major cell phone manufacturer has them.

Sony Ericsson introduced the Walkman phones, Motorola launched the ROKR iTunes and Nokia delivers music phones under the XpressMusic phone brand.

More than 100 million music phones were sold in 2005 and that is more than double the number of portable MP3 players and some 12 percent of cell phones sold in 2005 were music phones.

Music Phone Characteristics

Here is some typical characteristics of a music phone. When comparing music phones look at these key features.

– Large memory (hard disk)
– Support for poular audio formats (MP3, AAC…)
– Good sound quality
– Support for the standard headphones 3.5mm jack
– Dedicated music keys
– Good music software (for PC and Phone)
– Easy to upload music to phone...