Music Phones Info

The year 2005 was the year of the music phone hype. Several new music phones were introduced. Sony Ericsson introduced the Walkman phones, Motorola launched the ROKR iTunes and Nokia introduced the XpressMusic phone brand.

Over 100 million music phones were sold in 2005 and this is more than double the number of MP3 players. Some 12 % of the phones sold in 2005 were so called music phones. Nokia has said it shipped more than 40 million mobiles with integrated music players in 2005 (16 % of all Nokia´s).

What is A Music Mobile?

A music mobile is a cell phone that is optimized for playing music. Just like there are camera phones there are music phones. What characterizes a music phone? I think a music phone should at least have these key characteristics:

Large storage capacity
Support for poular audio formats
Good playback sound

Additional features to look for in a good music mobile is:

Support for the standard headphones 3.5mm jack
Dedicated keys for playing music
Good music software
Easy to upload music to phone

Nokia XpressMusicis a dedicated brand that was introduced to make it easier to identify Nokia's portfolio of music-optimized phones. Each phone with Nokia XpressMusic shares key features. The first XpressMusic phones introduced (2005) were the Nokia 3250 and the Nokia N91. XpressMusic features are: