Mobile Phones as Mp3 Players

[Wigeon Incognito]

Not sure where this should be posted, but I'd say mobile phones are 'Stuff'.

I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on which mobiles offer the best Mp3 playing capability.

Sound quality is more important than all the other gadgets. I would like it to have a camera though. Internal storage space is unimportant as long as it has a memory card slot of some sort. Oh, and nothing too big either.

So far the shortlist is:

Nokia N73
Samsung D900
Sony Ericsson K800i
Sony Ericsson W810i
Sony Ericsson W850i

So, any opinions of the above both in general terms but more specifically as Mp3 players, and any other phones to consider too?

Edited by Wigeon Incognito on Friday 1st December 09:23

[agent006]

Whichever has a 3.5mm jack socket built in. The nokia needs a rather clunky inline adapter i think.

[LukeBird]

Well I've got a Motorola V3i with a 1gb card which is great as an MP3 player.
It doesn't have a 3.5mm plug but you can get a little adaptor for the USB.
Slim and good looking as well!
Camera is very good quality I've found. It's 1.3MP though and those ones you're looking at are 2.0MP are they not?

[jodypress]

my vote goes to the Sony W800i, now the w810i. Great phone. works well, and mp3 interface is great, with top sound quality.

bit of a pain transfering music with sony software, but sooo easy to use on the phone.

[mikeg996]

Playing MP3s can wear the battery down fast, potentially leaving you stranded with no phone.

Buy a new Apple Shuffle instead, it's about the size of a postage stamp!

[basil brush]

The K800 is great for mp3 use, and it has one of the best cameras currently available.

[leorest]

SPV

[roop]

I have got the W810i which replaced a Samsung D500. The difference is unbelievable. Sound quality on the Sony is superb - helped tremendously by the very good headphones. I struggle with regular in-the-ear style headphones as my ears are small so listening can be very uncomfortable. The Sony units are small and have a rubber surround - they are incredibly comfortable and the sound, particularly the effortless bass is just amazing. Transferring MP3's is easy peasy - I use a card reader which accepts the supplied 512MB MemoryStick Pro or whatever it's called and transfer rates are very good. You can also transfer via a supplied USB cable (both phone memory storage and memory card appears as separate disk drives in Windows - excellent), or I also transfer via bluetooth when out and about which is fast than you think and fine for adding so long as it's a handful of tracks (around half a megabit speed so you wouldn't want to transfer lots). You get full playlist control, shuffle and repeat, equaliser with both presets and individually adjustable bands. A colleague an I did a back to back test against his iPod playing a handful of exactly the same MP3s (we transferred from my phone yo his PC then into his iPod) and we both agreed that every single track we tried sounded better on the Sony. There was less hiss, it went louder before distorting, and the bass was much more natural.

I know this sounds like a Sony advert, but it really is top. I normally think their products are crap (I have had loads and reliability has been poor) but this devide really is excellent.

No wonder Sony sell more MP3 phones than Apple do iPods. These things will kill the iPod and similar devices...!

[combemarshal]

Got to be the Nokia N73, It has 4 speakers built into it and it is so bloody loud, you have to hear it to belive it!
It comes with headphones that though not standard jack are far better than those that come with any other phone, plus they double as handsfree so if you get a call it buts in!

[ehyouwhat]

I agree with the suggestions of the SE W810i that others have mentioned. It offers the best balance of great MP3 capability along with a good camera and a small size. I prefer the Nokia N73 overall but it is a fair size larger than the W810i and does not offer better MP3 facilities.

My own stepmum recently needed a phone for MP3 playback (whilst commuting on the train) and knowing my career in phone testing she asked me to choose for her. It took about four seconds to recommend the W810i as the best possible option.

[ThePassenger]

Out of interest, when playing music and I'd assume running a media card of some description. How long does it knock off the battery... x min played = x min standby depleted sort of thing?

Got an ipod so sorted but just curious about how much juice playing MP3's will take.

[ehyouwhat]

ThePassenger said:

Out of interest, when playing music and I'd assume running a media card of some description. How long does it knock off the battery... x min played = x min standby depleted sort of thing?

They all vary, depending on many things including how many times the controls are used, whether tracks are skipped, how much the backlight on the phone needs to be on, etc. Generally I would imagine battery power overall is similar to on an iPod, so using the MP3 function will take a similar proportion from the overall standby time.

Edited to add: Something like the SE W810i can be used for three or four hours of MP3 use every day and still be useful for that day as an actual phone, providing it is charged the next night/morning. I infact used the MP3 facility of my Nokia 8800 Sirocco for several hours during a weekend away and the phone lasted for the whole weekend.

Edited by ehyouwhat on Friday 1st December 19:18

[Wigeon Incognito]

Thanks for the replies everyone, it was the SE W850i that was being leant towards as there are some great cash back deals on it at the moment, I assume in MP3 terms its very similar to the SE W810i. N73 is still a strong contender too.

ehyouwhat, the Mp3 phone is actually for my father but I'm just about to upgrade to an 8800 Scirocco - how do you find yours? Any major cons? I know from experience the old 8800 suffered poor battery life so does the Scirocco really have it sorted?

Any other Mp3 opinions still very much valued, the decision is yet to be made. In particular any experience of the Samsung D900 would be useful as thats the other phone that particularly catches my father's eye.

Edited by Wigeon Incognito on Friday 1st December 19:30

[combemarshal]

I'll just add that I had a Nokia 6680, I used the MP3 player all day long (8-5), I'd get about 1 and a half days out of the battery.
And If you got fat fingers you'll have problems with the top row of keys on the Sony, And don't listen to the mp3 player via bluetooth, You'll be lucky to listen to one album (ok, it's not quite that bad!) If Your gonna want it for the camera the Sony's isn't very good, the w810i's is better! Oh, and on any phone, if you don't use bluetooth, turn it off, you'll get 50% extra battery life(ish)!

Edited by combemarshal on Friday 1st December 21:02

[scared but happy]

The XDA range? My XDA IIi is perfect.