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Best none Apple mobile phone for music?

post #1 of 11
10/22/09 at 11:31am
Thread Starter 
What do reckon is the best none Apple mobile phone for music? (iPhones been a little pricey). Preferrably with a decent camera and a decent calendar, 3.5mm jack, external music/radio controls. Cheaper the better.

I had the W995 and I didn't think the camera was great, the calendar isn't as good as the E71 for example, and the button placement was a pain on the side. I kept pressing the side buttons by accident. My old W810 had better button placement. I'm thinking 5800 (bad camera), N86, or back to the W995. Maybe theres some older phones which might be better?
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post #2 of 11
10/22/09 at 12:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparky191 View Post
What do reckon is the best none Apple mobile phone for music? (iPhones been a little pricey). Preferrably with a decent camera and a decent calendar, 3.5mm jack, external music/radio controls. Cheaper the better.

I had the W995 and I didn't think the camera was great, the calendar isn't as good as the E71 for example, and the button placement was a pain on the side. I kept pressing the side buttons by accident. My old W810 had better button placement. I'm thinking 5800 (bad camera), N86, or back to the W995. Maybe theres some older phones which might be better?
I have a 64GB Touch now for most of my music listening but I still use my SE W960 8GB smartphone as a phone/PDA and some music playing.

Still sounds excellent with low to mid earphones but high end ones like my Shure SE530's highlight its weaknesses (mostly because they reveal an electronic low level pulsing signal during quiet phases).

Recently bought a W980i for my son and my old W960i still sounds better. I sync my iTunes library to it with Salling Media & get all my Playlists/Album art over perfectly. Some don't like the phone user inteface but I'm fine with it. Touch screen UIQ3 device.

Compared to my Touch it is muddier, loosing some clarity but the bass is great.

The P1i is similar but music software not as good without hacking the firmware to get the W960i Walkman Player on it.
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post #3 of 11
10/22/09 at 1:23pm
Thread Starter 
I had an experiera 1 and while it didn't sound terrible, I didn't sound fantastic either. The lack of external buttons, didn't work for me though. my experiera seemed very slow compared to a friends one even with the lastest firmware. Perhaps I should try another one.

The W960 is not that common, I'd have hard time sourcing one of those.
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post #4 of 11
10/22/09 at 4:07pm
SE W910i! Small, great screen, great sound! You gotta have 16 ohm plugs to have decent volume and be OK with the SE headphone adapter! It has a great EQ and SQ as well (the EQ has 15 different settings for 5 individual frequencies while a Walkman has 7 for 6. It sounds superior to any iPods I heard, but not up to the a dedicated walkman mp3 player. It has album art (a bit slow though) and an accelerometer, sense me, volume button which can be used for FFWD or REW. It also has shake control. And none the less, the phone itself is great as a phone, a slider. The design and the materials used are very pleasing to the touch and for the eyes as well. It plays games (3d) or java, has EDGE and HSPDA (3G). I used this over the iPod Touch before I bought me S639 as a walkman. Actually this phone made me to choose a SONY walkman as it convinced me about the great sound quality I can expect.
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post #5 of 11
10/22/09 at 4:50pm
i recommend you the good old N91 if you can manage to find one. i auditioned the 5800 recently with the IE8 with my own file and god its not even half as good as my N91 8gb. yes i have done back to back listening with the N91, same file, same earphones and all but no way i could convince myself getting the 5800. i'm yet to listen to a dap that sounds as enjoyable as the N91. but surprisingly my friend's cheap 5310 sounds as good as the clip.
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post #6 of 11
10/22/09 at 7:25pm
Thread Starter 
Neither of those has a decent camera and the w910 doesn't have a 3.5 jack either. Lots of reports of poor build quality too. I think the w595 is basically a better w910. I dunnon how it sounds though.
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post #7 of 11
10/22/09 at 8:05pm
Personally I find the 5800 to be a very good sounding device (the secret to getting the best out of it is to use line-out mode), certainly better than my old 1st gen ipod touch, and the various SE phones i've had over the years.
I don't know how it sounds against the N91, but i can tell you it sounds better than the N95.
There's a cheaper version of the 5800 though called the 5530, i think it has the same audio chip. It's not out in Ireland yet though.
Another thing about the 5800 is the sheer amount of things it can do that my old SE couldn't, only bad thing about it is the lack of kinetic scrolling and the terrible (not just bad) camera.
Meteor and Vodafone have the 5800 for the same price, but you can definitely get it cheaper across the pond, in case you're interested.
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post #8 of 11
10/22/09 at 10:19pm
5800 line out mode !! what earphone are you using ? 5800 line out mode is ridiculously loud pairing with UM3X you will hear everything and too much of everything.
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post #9 of 11
10/23/09 at 2:47am
i dunno whats wrong with the 5800 unit that i auditioned but i found the line-out mode to be no more loud than the headphone-out but only a bit more bass (muddier) through the IE8. but seeing so much contradictory reviews about the 5800 line-out and headphone-out in head-fi i feel it safe to believe that the quality varies between different units of 5800.
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post #10 of 11
10/23/09 at 4:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparky191 View Post
Neither of those has a decent camera and the w910 doesn't have a 3.5 jack either. Lots of reports of poor build quality too. I think the w595 is basically a better w910. I dunnon how it sounds though.
The SE W910 is no way bad build quality! There are no reports like that or if there are, they don't know what they are talking about and never seen or touched that phone up close. It is a 900 series phone from SE meaning it is top of the line build quality... I have it, trust me, it feels nothing like your average phone in your hand. And it has a perfect screen too (320x240), small and only 85 grams. Great battery life too (with 2g). It does not have a 3.5 jack, but SE has adapters and that's not a problem as the phone comes with one. When you pause a tune it makes a lead out! Not even my S639 does that! It is a very nice compromise between a phone and an mp3 player (and it takes memory cards!). The thing has two cameras and four dedicated gaming button... as I said, top of the line, may be that was the reason it won the BEST MOBIL HANDSET award in 2008.
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post #11 of 11
10/23/09 at 10:01am
The two cell phones that stand out in my mind for sound quality are the iPhone 3GS and the Motorola ROKR E8. Since neither fit your requirements, the Nokia XM series is probably worth looking at, though the N series gets you the camera you want for quite a bit more money (and sound quality's no better).
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