What to look for when buying a music phone

In the last few years mobile phones have become increasingly proficient at playing music to the point where standalone music players may some day become obsolete. At the same time, there are a bewildering number of phones to choose from. Here are some tips on what to look for when buying a music phone.

Headphone and headphone jacks

The headphone is big part of the music experience and you want as much choice as possible. Ideally the phone should have a 3.5mm jack which means it will work with most of the headphones sold in the market.

If the phone has a 2.5 mm jack your headphone options are more limited. However you can use a converter to connect to a regular 3.5 mm headphone.

A converter might cost around Rs 300 but it does have some limitations; not only is it an extra piece of wire but the phone probably won't accept inputs from any control buttons on the headphone.

Regardless of the type of jack, you should seriously consider buying a new headphone instead of using the one that comes pre-packed. You can get decent headphones for around Rs 1,000 and these will probably be better than the original ones.

There are two types: inbuilt flash storage and a memory card inserted in a card slot. Some phones have both: for example the N97 has 32GB of inbuilt storage as well as a microSD card-slot giving a total storage of 48GB with a 16GB card. Each GB can store roughly 300 songs.

There are several different memory card formats out there: microSD, M2, memory stick pro duo etc. Of these microSD is generally the cheapest: for example a 8GB microSD costs around Rs 1,000 whereas an 8GB memory stick pro duo card costs around Rs 2,200.

Another thing to check is the maximum allowed memory card storage on the phone. For example one phone may have a limit of 4GB while on another it's 8GB. Sometimes it's possible to use memory cards with more storage than the official limit but this can create problems like slowing down the phone.

If you have a large music collection you may consider carrying a second card in your wallet and swapping it to listen to different music. This is much easier if the phone has a 'hot-swapping' feature for the memory card that you can switch cards without shutting down the phone.

Convenient controls of the music player are a big part of the music experience. Ideally you want as many hardware controls as possible. For example the Nokia Xpress Music 5320 has two volume buttons on the right and three music control buttons on the left side.

Music controls on the headphones can also be convenient in allowing you to control your player without having to remove the phone from your pocket.

Another interesting control mechanism, which Sony Ericsson has introduced in some its Walkman series phones like the W995, is called shake control. This allows you to control the music simply by moving the phone: for example shaking it forward to move ahead one track, shaking it backward to move back and tilting it to control volume.

Format support

Music files come in a variety of formats: MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC etc. Obviously the more formats the phone supports the better. If a particular format isn't supported it's usually possible to convert the files on your PC through a free utility.

Though this is a basic feature often available on even very cheap phones, please double check if it is important to you since some high-end phones like the iPhone don't come with FM.

Some phones like the Nokia N86 come with an FM transmitter which allows you to play your phone's music on a nearby radio, say in your car.

Another useful feature, available on phones like the Samsung Ultratouch, is FM recording.

Audio quality

Ultimately audio quality is what matters the most but it's difficult to evaluate based on a feature list.  It's best to try out a real model and see what it sounds like; fortunately this is increasingly easy to do at large electronic stores like Croma or at Nokia Priority Dealers.

Another alternative is to check out review sites like GSM Arena which often analyze the sound quality of different phones.