Music Player Cellphone Flubs

(Verizon)

As a Verizon Wireless subscriber, I have a selection of new cellphones I can get for free or minimal cost every two years when my service contract comes up for renewal. New toy! But what to choose?

I had considered forsaking Verizon altogether and getting an Apple iPhone, but finally decided against it because:

I don't want to switch to AT&T phone service.

I wondered if surfing the Web and playing music would run down the battery and leave me without cellphone service – my primary need.

I'm mad at Apple over my iPod mini experience.


A bit more on that last point. Awhile back, I paid $275 for a gleaming silver 6-gig iPod mini, a beautiful thing that I loved for about six months before it started acting up. Since then, I have had to get it replaced FOUR times because of weird battery issues. To their credit, Apple has cheerfully continued to supply me with new iPod minis. But it is a flawed product that the company discontinued for precisely the reasons that have plagued me: the battery doesn't know whether it's charged or not, and turns itself off randomly. I found that if I put the lock button on, I could make the iPod mini play for hours past the point that it thought itself dead. Of course the minute I turned the lock switch off to skip a song or adjust volume, it would swoon again. I also found that the mini could not hold a charge for more than a few days away from the charger.

I bought the iPod player as a little luxury for myself, and resented that it became an infuriating device. This was true, sooner or later, of all FOUR of the iPod Minis that Apple cheerfully gave me. At one point I almost threw my little Mini into the Hudson River. So much for luxury.

After much online research conducted during work hours, I decided to try a Verizon phone that combined the cellphone with an MP3 music player. Since I don't carry a man bag, it would be one less device to jam into my pants pockets.

This month Verizon released the eye-catching Juke, a narrow rectangular player-phone that looks like an oversized pack of chewing gum.

But I settled on the unassuming LG VX8350 for the sole reason that it has music play buttons -- rewind, pause/play, and forward – on the front of

(Verizon)

the phone. Most phone-MP3 players make you lift up the lid to fiddle with them. Not something you want to do on your roller blades or exercise bike.

Priced at $129, the LG VX8350 was free to me for my new 2-year commitment to Verizon Wireless. I paid $29 for a music kit which included ear buds with an on-off switch on the cord to take incoming calls; a CD with their proprietary music library program; and a USB cable to connect my phone to PC.

I also paid, separately, $25 (a good deal on special!) for a two-gigabyte Micro SD memory card for the phone to hold my music.

On the plus side, the music sounded good, with rich bass. And while walking home jamming to my tunes, I was able to receive a phone call by hitting the inline play button on my earbud cord, answer the call, and then hit the button again to pick up the music where it paused. All of this without ever flipping up the phone lid or even pulling it out of my pocket. Neat!


Now comes more infuriation. After installing the Verizon music software, it took a smart, tech savvy guy like me entirely too long to figure out how to transfer music to my phone. And I was dismayed to find, after more research, that I am not able to transfer existing playlists from my computer to the phone. You have to transfer a big clump of music and then create playlists WITHIN the phone. Ugh.

Although you can shuffle and play your entire music library, you are unable to shuffle the order of songs in your playlists once they're created.

This last is a deal breaker to me. I use the playlists to exercise (Madonna, Garbage, U2, Oasis) and I need to be able to shuffle the song order on a daily basis. Hearing the same songs in the same order makes exercising even more boring than it already is.

Which brings me back to Apple iTunes with its wonderful array of play options: drop and drag playlists, smart playlists that update themselves automatically, ability to give your favorite songs a five-star rating, shuffle options from random to not-so random, etc.

So despite my negative experience with the iPod mini, Apple's top-notch music interface has apparently ruined me for any second-rate system.

Apple, you win. For Christmas I'm going to treat myself to a 4-gig iPod Nano for $149. And if that cute little device starts acting up like the Mini did … Well, it's not going to be pretty, Steve Jobs.

And my LG VX8350 can just be a phone, which it is perfectly competent to do.

[dmhanco]

How strange Kenneth ... my previous phone was also the Motorola e815 ... which worked fine ... on the plus side, the LG VX8350 doesn''t have the little antenna poking out of it .. phone service in NYC has been okay, i was worried that losing the antenna would mean dropped calls, but it''s been okay so far .... I went to Halloween parade on wednesday and really missed not having the flash on this phone''s camera, too

[kennedb2]

I just acquired the LG 8350---but I dont use its music function---I am a multi-device person...for now.

As a phone, I am dissappointed so far at the sound quality---rated high on CNET and consumerrreports.com...I thought it would at least equal its top rated predecessor on those review sites...namely the Motorola e815. I will update if I find this phone starts to perform better...for now, I''m not thrilled.

I will advocate a great 3rd party software which Verizon makes free for many customers...backupassistant.com. It''s an online storage location for your contacts...if you lose your phone or get a new one, this will allow any verizon phone (and perhaps others) to bring your contacts into the new phone. Also it is easy to add or update numbers through the website.

[cyberdjs4]

David, you truly are a sucker.
Don''t buy into Apple''s BS.

If you are not going to get an all-inclusive phone/player, get the player you truly want. The iPud was a good player years ago but this is 2007.

Creative, iRiver and Sandisk are forcing Apple to get with the program and put some feature in its players. Hype only goes so far once you do the research.

As for iTunes, ignore it.
I use MediaMonkey. It''s better simply because it will sync with all iPods and you don''t have any Apple entanglements.

When did Apple turning into Microsoft?

[j_flood]

Ya wanna music player - get a music player - wanna phone --- get a phone. Trying the ''all in one'' idea just isn''t so plausible when you get right down to it. You''ve never seen a practical all in one, pencil, eraser, pen, flashlight, condom holder?

[dmhanco]

yes, it has the smaller .25 mm headphone, which is why I ponied up for the $29 music kit which included their headphones ....

[sblake63]

Verizon blows LOL. Go to sprint and get a LG "muziq" phone or a Moto Razr 2 (v9m) they both have wireless stero bluetooh and external players. Stand alone MP3 players are going to fade out...

[larrymagid]

One of my gripes about most cell phone/music players is that they generally use a .25 mm headphone/headset connector instead of the usual .35 mm used by most headphones. You can get an adapter but it''s one more thing to buy, carry around and probably lose.

Do you know what size headphone jack this phone uses?

Larry Magid