Apple and Amazon have been selling DRM free music for quite some time but Nokia’s Comes with Music offer may actually be the best cake consumers would want to take a bite from. Simply put, free music for one year when you buy a new Nokia phone. Tempting offer. Unlimited downloads for songs and to be honest, even if these tracks had DRM in them, you wouldn’t care. Or would you? I probably would if I wanted to transfer them to my computer. But when the DRM war is finally abandoned, Nokia’s Comes with Music option may actually prove to be the best deal in the world. Is there a loophole here? The cost of buying the cheapest XpressMusic phone, assuming it “Comes with Music” is still cheaper than buying a year’s worth of tracks. With no more DRM, transferring songs would be so easy.

So it makes me wonder … would you be buying the phone to get the free songs for an entire year?

[source for image]

Post from: Cellphone9

The S1 Audio NxSet Neckphones have been announced. Wilmer Valderrama seems to be the spokesperson behind S1 Audio. What it basically is: a replacement for your headphones. It looks like a yoke which you burden behind your neck housing a pair of speakers on either side. I guess the day of the boombox has returned?

Nah.

Post from: Cellphone9

If I were to change the title of this post, it would go something like “The iTunes Promo you didn’t hear about.” With many iPhones being sold all over the globe, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you can have access to the iTunes Store for music downloads. Several countries, like the one where I hail from, have the iPhone in stock at telco centers and certified (and bootleg) Apple stores. Imagine your surprise when you can’t download music just yet because the store isn’t supported. Well, here’s one way of going around it, without the need of an iTunes prepaid card or a US credit card – a promo, that unfortunately (how sad!) has ended!

Oh well.

[Photo c/o Tunecore screenshot]

Well yeah, that’s about all I have to say about THAT. What a let down.

Post from: Cellphone9

With the great success of Motorola’s first low end music phones in the W230 and W270, Motorola has unveiled a slightly upgraded version for 2008 Q3 release, the Motorola W388. This phone will be priced higher than the W230 and will cost roughly PHP 3,200.00 or roughly USD $80.00. Note that this is an estimated price based on the press conference and not the real SRP. The main difference between the W388 and the W230 is the inclusion of a VGA camera and a bigger memory bump.

We must note that the VGA camera does not come with video capabilities. Phone memory has been increased to 7.5MB for 750 SMS and 1,000 contacts to be saved on memory. There isn’t really a huge upgrade to the previous phone and quite frankly, Moto may have a make or break for this particular model. It really depends on how much more people are willing to pay for a camera and bumped up memory when the previous model already served them well.

Other features:

FM Radio
2.5mm audio jack
MP3, MIDI, imelody, AMR compatibility
VGA camera (no video)
CrystalTalk Technology

Post from: Cellphone9

Let’s do a quick revisit. Back in February, Motorola announced the ROKR E8, their flagship music phone and I was able to get a quick glance over dinner. Now that it’s out and after going a few days with the ROKR E8, I have a few insight’s on Motorola’s latest music phone. It’s a big step from the ROKR E2 – as the new phone incorporates their ModeShift technology that relies heavily upon the touch sensitive virtual keypad that is case sensitive.

My feedback is that in the few days I’ve used the phone I still can’t get through the learning curve of getting used to this type of input method: I still can’t quite understand why they didn’t use the traditional keypad input method. Or maybe I just have really huge fingers. But then again, it isn’t like they’re using a touch screen. I sincerely believe that it’s hard to put a middle ground between a pure touch screen device and a keypad. Sure, there are devices that have both input methods, but to have keypad hardware that acts like a touch screen isn’t too promising. Although it looks cool for all intents and purposes (yeah it really does!), why not just go for the tactile feedback approach of a good keypad?

Luckily, the ROKR E8 doesn’t take the concept all the way, and incorporates some sort of tactile feedback, but with some of the keys cramped together closely, it presents some problems with getting the right thing you want on screen.

Post from: Cellphone9

The Pandora has two modes. When it is closed, it serves as a digital music player. In fact, from afar it even looks like a Creative Zen micro.

When opened (as in ‘opening Pandora’s Box’), the phone reveals a small keypad that’s still amazingly easy to use. The back of the phone houses a 1.3MP camera (!!!) as well as the external stereo speakers. Sadly I didn’t have the chance to try out the music playing capabilities.

This phone was announced back in 3GSM and will be available mid-year.

[Tech Digest has a short overview of the specs]

Post from: Cellphone9