How to make a music phone good enough to use

Michael Gartenberg | November 09, 2006, 08:15 AM

i've been thinking a lot about this lately and why most of the music phones on the market don't work for me, even as casual listening devices. Here's what I think you need in a good music phone or at least one I would use to actually listen to music. We'll be doing some research here shortly to back this up. We'll talk about cameraphones another time.

1. Real headphone jacks - eriously, if I can't use my Shure headphones, it isn't happening for me. Stop with the silly proprietary connectors and supporting Bluetooth isn't enough.

2. Workable UI - That also means dedicated buttons for navigation and playback.

3. Seamless sync to WMP or iTunes - Last thing I want is another piece of software on my computer. Make it work semalessly out of the box, no drivers required with one or both of these.

4. At least 8gb of flash - That's the new standard. At least for this week. And the price of the overall phone can't be much more than an 8gb Sansa or iPod

5. 8 hours playback + 6 hours of talk time - I want to listen to tunes and talk. If you can't give me both, then I'll still carry a Nano or Sansa.

Bottom line, carrying a phone along with a Shuffle, Nano or Sansa is not a burden. Those devices are so small as to be ubiquitous. Unless the phones can start to meet even the most basic function of dedicated players, they will have a hard time co-existing with them, much less displacing them. Forget OTA song purchases. Make the phones better first.