We’ve been seeing rumors of the Sprint UpStage aka the flippy Samsung M620 phone with a phone on one side and an MP3 player on the other and now have word that it’s going to be called the UpStage and will be available come CTIA.
We’ll probably have some good hands-on action with this in Florida, but from my experience with it in South Korea, I can say that the form factor is quite ingenious. The real question is, as always, will people listen to music on their phones. My experience with the Nokia 5300 says yes, but what say you?
Poll post jump.
Do you listen to music on your phone?
I’m not particularly happy with the design. They have taken the 2-in-1 design to a new level but it doesn’t seem efficient or convenient.
Out
I think one problem with “music player phones” is that most phones don’t have enough onboard memory to start. I know I have a LG VX7000 (Chocolate) and that it has roughly enough memory to take a few pictures and store a couple of ring tones, maybe a handful of songs. However, like with almost all phones, I had to buy a microSD card to upgrade the memory. Even still, there is a limit to the amount of music that I can store on my phone. This is because SD cards are still limited in storage capacity. I can’t exactly expand my phones memory with a micro HDD.
I don’t think the phone music industry can really take off unless several things happen. One is simply that to market something as a music player, you really need to market (at least today) it as having a lot of memory. It is darn near impossible to do that, because it’d be ridiculously expensive to package every phone with 2 to 4 gb of internal memory (I chose 4 gb to compare to the iPod Nano).
Another problem is that when they make music phones, there isn’t any desire made by the company to really get the user to use the music capability of the phone. For instance, my LG are all music capable, but the music player is really shoddy, and I had to pay a truckload (not really, but it’s the concept) more to get a USB cable which would connect to my phone, and then get a 2.5 to 3.5 mm adapter for my headphones. Finally I can’t really even “sync” my phone automatically towards any program or folder. I actually find it easiest to just remove the microSD card and manually load music.
I just got the Upstage and I love it. Its a pretty cool device. Im the first one to have one of its type amoung my friends. Although people have been saying the software is hard to use because of its two sides, I would have to disagree. Once you use it for about 5 min you will get the hang of it and it will be easy. I suggest to get this phone if your into the stylish type phones and not the pda type phones.
I just got the phone and wasn’t too sure about it for the first hour or so. The more I play with it the more I like it. It is a bit of a hassle to use as far as entering letters and numbers and the touch pad takes alot of time to get used to but its a very cool looking phone. Just wish it came with small stereo earbuds because now I have to go out and buy some so I don’t have to use my DJ headphones with it. Heh. Overall, a good phone for gadgety people.
I’m actually a radioshack sales associate, and I’m getting the phone today. I’ve been playing with the live demo, and I love it. The only problem I’ve noticed is that people try to use it like an iPod. See, the interface resembles that of the iPod, and so many people have grown accustomed to iPods that they find the interface of the UpStage annoying. I, having never owned an iPod, found the learning curve of the phone rather easy and have had no problems learning the controls. I love this little phone man.
It’s flippin’ awesome.
(bad pun alert)
Can you use a 4gb card with the Upstage, or is it limited to 2 gb?
I’m not sure on whether the 4GB will work or not but would like to know if you find out. I just got one of these phones and was really pretty disappointed. The whole thing seems like a compromise of engineering. And if you have big fingers stay away from it, within two days I have already traded mine to my wife. Not enough memory so you have to buy more, not enough power so they strap on the bulky annoying power cover. That slaps you in the chin while you are talking on it. It just really feels like someone gave up on the design of this thing halfway through and my four year old son finish it up. Guess that is what happens when you are in a rush to copy the iPhone.
for the last comment……the upstage was actually in development and production as the F300 WELL BEFORE the iphone…..so it was not a rush to copy the iphone….do your research…..plus…the upstage is 3g capable, GPS enabled, and has stereo bluetooth capability (IPHONE DOES NOT)…maybe IPHONE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN some pointers from the upstage(f300)….the phone is a decent music phone and looks great. And for people complaining about having ot flip the phone back and forth…..why did you get a 2 sided phone???
The upstage came out 1st of course, like in april and Ive had it since may 1st and at first it was tricky but now i love it you know whn you hav to flip the phone, but the only thing is that i dislike texting on the mp3 side, other than that I love it, And I love the external battery feature, and everyone who asks me who it is wishes they had one. Now the beyonce one is comming out and im going to upgrade to that one, i guess because she mi fav. singer. But its a great phone. And I love how slim it is unlike the slim flip phones that are vulnerable to break in half, it fits comfortably in mi pocket, and it was excellent for me last year when i was in high school b/c of it being smaller than the size of my hand.