Basics: Cellphones For The Music Fan

AT a tree-trimming party at his Chicago co-op apartment, Eric Spanitz supplied seasonal music, a mix of Bing Crosby and A Charlie Brown Christmas, which issued from a certain well-known compact portable electronic device — a mobile phone.

Sprint’s Fusic has an FM transmitter that allows it to play on an FM radio and also offers exclusive content like live music.

About a year ago Mr. Spanitz, a professor of management at Lake Forest University in Illinois and a business consultant, finally decided to buy a phone and a music player, but he didnt want to carry two devices. Instead he bought a Sony- Ericsson W800i Walkman phone that combines both.

I use it more often than I expected, he said of the music function, with which he listens to tunes on plane trips and in his hotel room, and even uses his selection of 60s rock, jazz, classical and German electronica to serve as a D.J. at impromptu gatherings. The constant reaction is, Where are you hiding the speakers? That sound cant come from the phone, he said.

Speculation that Apple Computer will announce a combination iPod and phone at the Macworld convention in San Francisco next month has fueled interest among people who, like Mr. Spanitz, dont want to carry multiple devices — even though most phones already have multimedia players that handle music.

The problem seems to be that few multimedia phones, if any, are as easy to use as an iPod. Of course, most people pick phones primarily for the phone features or service plan, but for those who put high importance on music, there is a subset of media phones designed with the music fan in mind. A few can give an iPod a run for the money.

At the top of the list is the Motorola iTunes phone from Cingular ($200 after $50 rebate with a two-year contract). The handset is a modified Motorola RAZR, called the V3i, with a music note button that takes you right to your songs. The V3i uses the same menu system as the iPod. The phone lacks the iPod click wheel, so an up/down/left/right button substitutes.

The phone screen displays not only the basic song information, but also a picture of the CD cover — if you have downloaded the image into your iTunes file. Plugged into a computer with iTunes software, the V3i practically sets itself up. With a few button clicks it randomly fills with songs. Like an iPod, the phone can recharge from its U.S.B. connection or from a wall socket and works equally well with Mac or PC.

The sound quality is Pod-worthy, but the V3i does have its limitations. For one, it can hold only 100 songs (6.9 hours of music, its maker says.), and the memory cannot be expanded, as is true for most music phones. Because Cingular does not sell music over its network (just ring tones), you cant buy songs and have them instantly transmitted into your phone.

Another Cingular music phone, the Sony-Ericsson Walkman W810i (the newer version of Mr. Spanitzs phone is $99 after a $100 rebate with a two-year contract), offers a memory slot to store a heap of music, but uses only Sonys proprietary Memory Stick cards, which are frequently more expensive than generic memory.

A candy bar-style phone, it has an adapter for other brands of headsets, although the Sony in-ear headphones that are included are decent — crisp sounding, if lacking in bass. Setting the built-in equalizer to bass helps.

Loading songs should be easy but proved initially glitchy in a reporters test. Plugging the phone into a U.S.B. port sets it up as a drive; then you can drag and drop songs. The W810i should recognize music and store it properly, but it didnt work in the test. When music was dropped directly into the folder labeled MP3 on the card and the phone restarted, it worked perfectly.

The Sony does pump out a lot of sound through its three tiny speakers. While it is loud enough for small gatherings like Mr. Spanitzs, fidelity is the quality of a 1960s transistor radio.

The Walkman phone offers 50 streaming radio stations through MobiRadio for $8.99 a month. Channels range from rap to classical, but the tinny sound quality and signal drop-outs will disappoint hi-fi fans. The built-in FM tuner (found under the Entertainment tab, not Music) sounds far better at no extra charge.

From Verizon Wireless, the LG VX8500 Chocolate phone ($99 after $50 rebate with a two-year contract) has plenty of cool factor, but how much you like it depends on your regard for the buttonless, touch-sensitive control pad. The red backlight glow will attract admiring glances, but it takes practice to develop the right touch to operate the pad.

The slider phone has a hot button to take you right to your music, and loading songs, while not flawless, worked with some persistence. Sound quality was a bit thin but acceptable.

The display while music is playing shows the album cover in a larger size than others, a nice graphic touch.

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