Samsung
Uproar
Samsung and Sprint merge cell phone and MP3 player
Play
MP3s on Your Cell Phone: Called the Samsung Uproar,
this cell phone lets you download MP3 files from a
PC directly onto the handset. Uproar also has a personal
organizer with a calendar, to-do list, and microbrowser
for viewing Internet content and navigating audio
playlists. Samsung and Sprint merge cell phone and
MP3 player $400. The two companies have partnered
to build a $400 cell phone that plays digital audio
files. This cell phone lets you download MP3 files
from a PC directly onto the handset.
Uproar also has a personal organizer
with a calendar, to-do list, and microbrowser for
viewing Internet content and navigating audio playlists.
The musical phone includes 64MB of internal Compact
Flash memory, which holds about an hour of music.
A lithium ion battery provides 10 hours of life (with
no calls) for audio playback, and about 60 minutes
of talk time or 16 hours of standby time.
The logic behind the pricey device is
to merge a high-end cell phone and an MP3 player to
save money and pocket space for anyone who would otherwise
buy and carry two separate devices. It has a boxy
silver exterior with a standard-size LCD and a flip-down
panel. It also has standard inputs and outputs for
the charger and headset, and it has an added Universal
Serial Bus port to import music from a PC. Included
is a stereo headphone cord equipped with a specialized
control that can play, pause, and skip tracks.
Sprint
and Samsung
have partnered with several companies to help you
obtain, manage, and download digital audio onto the
phone. One partner, HitHive, lets you store and download
your music online at a new Web site called Sprint
PCS My Music. Storage is free for one year and costs
$10 monthly after that.
RealNetworks' Jukebox software will
be bundled with the phone to help you organize and
manage your music collection on a PC. Sprint plans
to let you stream music directly from the Sprint PCS
My Music site to the phone. But wireless MP3 streaming
and downloading won't arrive until Sprint deploys
its next-generation, high-capacity wireless network--expected
in the first half of 2002.
