Dialed In: Cingular Plays a New Tune

How well does Cingular's new music service work with a sleek new handset from Samsung?

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Introduction
Cingular is no stranger to music phones: Last year the carrier released an iTunes phone, the Rokr E1 from Motorola. That was followed by the handsomely slim Slvr L7 (also from Motorola and with iTunes), and then by two Sony Ericsson Walkman phones, the W810i (a PC World favorite) and the W300i.
In view of the carrier's growing collection of music phones, it's hardly surprising that Cingular has launched its own music service. Cingular Music, a suite of audio and entertainment services, is compatible with select handsets, including the 3125 from HTC, the two Walkman phones, and the Samsung Sync A707 (pictured at left). I took the new service for a test drive using the Sync phone.
Cingular isn't the first carrier to integrate music services on phones; both Sprint and Verizon Wireless have been doing it for a while. Though its basic format is similar to theirs, Cingular's service offers a unique angle: syncing music through the Napster online music store. You'll need a Napster To Go account, which gives you unlimited music downloads to your PC for $15 a month. The account allows you to transfer downloaded songs to your mobile device--in this case, your Cingular phone. If your subscription to the service lapses, you won't no be able to access the songs any longer. Cingular also lets you download songs to own, for 99 cents each.
In addition to using Napster, you can transfer music from Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go, which costs $15 a month (or $12 a month if you sign up for a one-year subscription). If you use a compatible Sony Ericsson Walkman phone, you can't transfer music from Napster or Yahoo; your only option is the indie-focused eMusic service, where monthly subscription fees range from $10 to $20, depending on the number of songs you download per month.
Cingular's other music features are standard fare: You rip your CDs or buy new tracks at an online music store; sync tunes between the phone and your PC using a USB cable and Windows Media Player 10 or higher; watch music videos; stream radio through MobiRadio or XM Radio Mobile for $9 a month each; and fetch entertainment news or local concert information using Billboard Mobile for $4 a month.


Napster To Go
To store music on the A707, you must purchase a MicroSD memory card ($50 for a 512MB card or $80 for a 1GB card). You must also purchase Cingular's $40 music connectivity kit, which includes a USB cable, earbuds, and software.
If you've ever operated a music player, you'll find that using the service is a no-brainer. The Cingular Music software comes preinstalleded on the carrier's music phones. The process of transferring tunes from a PC to the Sync phone is simple: Rip your music CDs or set up an account with an online music store, install the app, and sync. While setting up Napster on my system, I ran into an issue with my firewall, but a few tweaks fixed it. Everything else went smoothly. I connected the A707 to my PC via the USB cable; then, in the Napster app, I right-clicked a song or an album and selected the transfer track to portable device option.
Cingular Music doesn't offer over-the-air downloads to the handset, but you can get them by a circuitous route. You can buy a song over the phone from Napster Mobile (for 99 cents) and have it sent to your PC. Afterward, you can transfer the song to the phone.


Nice Phone and Music Player--But UI and Network Constraints
Overall, I was pleased with the quality of the A707's music playback. The speakers delivered fairly balanced (albeit slightly tinny) sound with on-board music. Call quality on the handset and speakerphone were fine, though I would have appreciated two more levels of volume.
For audio and video streams, playback quality and my network connection in San Francisco were inconsistent. At times, in certain neighborhoods, audio streams skipped and video streams were choppy. In a few cases, I couldn't connect at all; an error message would pop up, notifying me that "network startup failed." This subpar performance surprised me, considering that the phone supports Cingular's 3G UMTS/HSDPA networks. Cingular spokesperson Ritch Blasi says that some neighborhoods in San Francisco have low coverage due to the lack of a cell site. The company has been trying for a long time without success to get a cell site in that area, he reports. As a result, my test phone switched back and forth between 3G and EDGE (a slower network), yielding the poor performance and connection that I experienced.
The 4-ounce clamshell-style Sync A707 comes with controls for the media player on the outside and a dedicated music key inside, above the send call button. Pressing this key takes you to the Cingular Music menu.
The phone's user interface is fairly intuitive, but navigating the music services sometimes frustrated me. I had no trouble accessing my music collection or playing songs, but using some of the other services (such as the music ID service) went less smoothly. The music recognition service is designed to identify a song playing on another music source; you hold your phone up to your radio speakers, for example, and the service tries to determine the song and the artist who is performing it.
The ID mechanism worked okay with popular artists like Prince and U2, but it couldn't ID a piece by Mozart or a relatively new track from Beck. Each ID request costs 99 cents, or you can pay $4 a month for unlimited IDs. After the system identifies the track and the artist, you have several follow-up options: buy the ringtone (if available), buy the track, get a recommendation for another song by the same artist, or send the song information to someone. Unfortunately, after being presented with this selection of options, I couldn't return to previous screens. Instead the service gave me the choice of ID-ing another song or exiting the program; this is inconvenient because, if you pick the wrong item, you have to go through the full set ofsteps again. And if the song piping through the radio has ended by then, you're out of luck.
New Cingular subscribers who don't mind committing to a two-year contract can buy the Sync A707 (music accessories not included) for $150. With a one-year contract, it costs $225; and without a contract, $300. If you plan to use the music player, add at least $90 to the price for the required accessories. Is it worth it? Well, it isn't a steal--considering that you can buy a 2GB iPod for $149 and get a freebie phone to handle voice calls--but it's your call.
Comments or questions? Drop Grace Aquino a line.



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