Hand Jive

The latest MP3 phones put music at your fingertips.

It feels perfectly natural these days to use your cell phone as a watch, an alarm clock, and even a spooky blue flashlight…so why not adopt MP3 functionality as well? Now that memory and downloading features are expanding, these six models will tempt you to walk out the door with one less little rectangle in your pocket, and their petite sound systems are getting so good, actually, that some of them double as baby boom boxes too! Rock the convergence, and keep pulling for someone to invent that Swiss Army Knife phone one day real soon. –Audrey Gray

Motorola > Rokr E2 > CINGULAR

Price TBA.

Available this summer.

Second time’s a charm! Motorola’s original Rokr got a lot of flack for its 100-song limit and rather chunky design, but the iTunes compatibility factor kept hope alive for this bloodline, and sure enough, the RokrE2 has evolved. Now Bluetooth enabled and equipped with an SD card slot which can handle up to 2 GB (approximately 500 tracks), this Cingular model is a handy vehicle for your favorite iTunes downloads as well as Motorola’s iRadio programming (for an extra ten bucks a month). 1.3 megapixel camera and MPEG4 video on board. Looks good too, all black and round like it’s uber-cool cousin, the Pebl.

LG > CU320 > CINGULAR

$100 after $50 mail-in rebate

If you’re ready to move on to the next level with your cell, varsity instead of JV, the LG CU320 is like a multimedia training camp. Cingular Wireless has launched a UMTS/HSDPA 3G (all those letters to simply say “it’s broadband fast!”) network, allowing you to view the Internet, stream audio/video, send picture messages, and listen to your MP3 player all at the same time. Phone call coming in? Your song will automatically pause and wait for your return. Sweet little rotating 1.3 megapixel shooter too, with a 10X zoom to boot. This slider is the perfect music phone for multitaskers.

UT Starcom > CDM8945 > VERIZON

$130 (with new contract and $50 rebate)

This flip-top ain’t fancy, but it’s a terrific first dip into the pool of direct-to-phone downloads. Launched at the Consumer Electronics Show last January just as Verizon was announcing its new V-Cast service, the CDM8945 has an easy user interface which connects you to a search program for your favorite albums and artists. Speakerphone, 330K pixel camera/camcorder, and decent screens both internally and externally. A microSD card slot lets you expand the set’s memory up to 256 MB, not earthshattering capacity, but it’s not trying to be an iPod, it’s trying to get you into the hot music club without too high of a cover.

SAMSUNG > SCH-a920 > SPRINT

$359 (or $149 with new contract)

Let’s talk speakers. Samsung has outfitted its latest generation of music phones with wee sound systems, two round stereo speakers right at the hinge of the flip-top, and the audio quality is so good, you’re going to wish everyone on the train liked rocking to The White Stripes as much as you do. Alas, if you have to keep your music to yourself, you’ll be happy to know you can do so wirelessly. The SCH-a920 has integrated Bluetooth technology as well as a direct-to-phone download service via the Sprint Music Store. A 32 MB microSC card and USB cable are part of the package, a decent perk from Sprint.

Sony Ericsson > W810i Walkman Phone

$499 Available in May (All GSM Services)

Sony Ericsson remembers that the very first portable music device to hit paydirt in America, long before the little white phenom, was the Walkman, and it’s unafraid to play that retro branding card these days, releasing seven Walkman phones in less than a year. The W810i may very well be the finest overall music phone on the market this summer. “Satin black” with orange trim, the stylish handset has a beautiful 2.2-inch display, a generous 2 megapixel camera, and up to 2 GB of storage space (when you upgrade the Memory Stick PRO Duo), allowing you to store well over 500 songs. Fine-quality HPM-70 stereo headphones tune in FM radio as well. Watch for carrier rebates to lower that price a bit, but this candybar seems worth the investment.

Sony Ericsson > W300i Walkman Phone

$249 Available in Summer (All GSM Services)

A Walkman Phone for the rest of us, the brand new W300i looks like your average 2006 Motorolaesque clamshell, but look closer and you’ll find music controls set up on the side of this slim set. Decent memory in there too, a 256 MB Memory Stick Micro card (a new Sony product, similar to the fingernail-sized microSD’s) upgradeable to 1GB. Stereo headsets, FM radio reception, Bluetooth support, and a USB cable to get your tunes from your PC to your pocket, all part of this compact package. Once carriers commit, this cell should be available for $150 or less with rebates.

Dialing Direct for Downloads?

Call me a surly adopter, but I am simply too annoyed by the restrictions on direct-to-my-cell phone music download services to happily hook up with ‘em just yet. That’s not to say I’m adverse to mobile phones whispering MP3′s in my ears. I’m completely enamored by the possibilities of one sleek little messenger delivering grooves along with my regular assortment of text messages, weather reports, video downloads, and- ah, “the sweet ‘hello’ that’s meant for only me!” actual phone calls.

Thanks to the public’s embrace of Motorola’s design innovations, a group of slim phones too sexy for their E’s (the Pebl, Razr, and Slvr), the latest music phones are indeed less bulky than the first fat form factors we saw last year. Marketing phrases like “surround sound” signal the intention at least of an evolutionary crawl forward in cell phone speaker technology. We’ve already given up enough quality to compress our favorite songs into downloadable formats, so any attention to auditory delight, even if it’s just earbuds that actually stay put, is welcome.

So, while the devices are getting better all the time, content providers are all fighting over who gets to party in your pimped out pocket. If your musical tastes are eccentric (myself, I’m in a Calypso phase at the moment, that party music with a social conscience suitable for a Gen Xer toying with the concept of “midlife”), you might have trouble finding your artists-of-choice on the young download services which are catering directly to phones, V-Cast from Verizon, the Sprint Music Store, and iTunes (compatible with Motorola’s 2nd generation ROKR E2 and the SLVR). Still, thousands of songs are available from all the major music labels as direct-to-phone downloads…for a price. Verizon and Sprint will charge you a monthly fee to access their media services at all ($15-$25). Once you’re a subscriber, you’ll pay either $1.99 (V-cast) or $2.50 (Sprint Music Store) per song. The costs are a little less (99 cents at V-Cast) if you download your chosen song to your computer first and then USB your way over to the phone’s hard drive.

But if you’re going to that much trouble anyway, why not just embrace the PC as your music hub? Some of the new music phones (the LG VX8100, for instance) don’t come with a USB cable included, but that’s changing fast. Manufacturers are also realizing people want phones with removable memory cards, enabling them to store many more songs and update the cards easily on their PCs.

It’s the miser in me (but also the music lover who believes I should be able to indefinitely load songs I paid for on any swank device I damn well also paid for) who must advise you to keep buying CDs. Get ‘em cheap and rip ‘em to your PCand then to your music phone. Should you drop that phone in the toilet or have to part with a crashing hard drive, you’ll still have your high fidelity ancient disk, ready to rip again.

But that’s surly-adopter talk. Truth is, there are certainly times when I’ll be far away from my home computer or CD collection and get hit with an inexplicably fierce craving to “Rock the Casbah.” When that gotta-have-it fever strikes next, I’ll be easily tempted to navigate the wee keyboard for a direct shot of funkiness straight to the cell.