With the sale of 32 million iPods in 2005, cell phone companies are taking notice of consumer demand for digital music.
Verizon's newly released VX-8500 Chocolate phone, while not the first of its kind, marks the latest music phone to hit shelves.
The phone has an expandable memory equal to the two-gigabyte iPod nano and the ability to download 1.3 million songs wirelessly from Verizon's V Cast mobile store. Chocolate's technology begs the question: Can a phone really replace your iPod?
Public relations junior Allie Wester already owns an iPod Nano, but got the first taste of her Chocolate phone when she received it Monday.
"I thought it would be cool to have both of them together so I wouldn't have to carry around a phone and an iPod," Wester said.
However, after looking further into the music aspect of the phone she decided not to use the much-advertised feature due to Chocolate's incompatibility with Apple's iTunes.
"My entire music collection is on iTunes. I'd invested a lot of money, so it just wasn't worth it," Wester said.
The cell phone uses Windows Media Player 10 when owners download songs to the phone from their personal computer.
Chocolate users can also pay $1.99 per song download from Verizon, and bypass the additional purchase of a $30 Music Essentials Kit required to transfer songs via computer.
There is also a catch. Songs bought from the V Cast mobile store are of reduced audio quality.
Once purchased, the lower-quality track is also made available to download on the customer's computer at no extra charge. But to load a higher-quality version onto the Chocolate from the computer still requires the cable from the Music Essentials Kit.
Electrical engineering sophomore Hans Meyer did not buy his Chocolate phone specifically for the MP3 capability, but rather for the product's "sleek design."
"I thought the feature was cool, but I already had my iPod for music," Meyer said.
He decided to make use of the phone's MP3 player anyway and said he downloaded over 70 songs with ease.
"It only took me five to 10 minutes to set it up because I'm really familiar with all that stuff," he said. "The sound quality was as good as an iPod."
One issue that users of other music-capable phones have encountered is a decrease in battery life.
A short battery life is a problem for history freshman Erin Allsop when she listens to music on her Samsung phone.
"I personally don't care for the MP3 player," Allsop said. "It's cool and all, but it just wastes the battery big time."
The Verizon representative at Arizona Mills said the Chocolate could face similar battery issues as other music phones, and compared its life to that of the Motorola RAZR model.
Meyer had not tested the limit of his phone, but Wester was not optimistic about the Chocolate's battery life.
"I think if I use the phone as a MP3 player ... it will definitely drain the battery faster," Wester said. "And I don't want to be stranded without a phone."
Meyer said he was happy with his Chocolate purchase.
Despite disappointment with Chocolate's iTunes incompatibility, Wester is also satisfied with her phone.
"It's kind of hard to get used to at first, but it's a spiffy phone and I'm glad I got it," said Wester.
Meyer said phones could be the future of on-the-go music.
"I could definitely see iPods being ruled out as phones get smaller and memory bigger," said Meyer. "Everything an iPod can do I can see a phone doing in the future."
Reach the reporter at Michael.Chichester@asu.edu.
