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On EVERY mp3-player review I have seen in my life where there is a shot of the player in question playing a song, there is ALWAYS a comment commenting on the choice of music. Therefore, I will ignore this particular comment because it's a lot like "first post".

Actually, from up close, it does not look ugly, it looks really good in my eyes. It's one of the best looking devices in my house and I can assure you, I have a few to compare.

I was referring more to the interface that the styling, I've used a similar phone before (the aforementioned 5510 which is on much the same lines) and it was really nice. Looks a bit odd when you talk on it though.

Then again, I've never been a fan of Nokia's interfaces, so far I've found SonyEricsson to be the nicest, but that may change when I get my next phone.

I have to agree with this, the proprietary Nokia headphone jack was indeed unesessary. But Nokia needed to make some [more] money, so... ;-)

Actually, phones have much better battery life than PDAs and laptops, so this comment is a bit unfair. Phone battery life itself might not be great, but compared to other gadgets, it's better.

I have the new SE K750i, and it's an even better phone than the K700i. It has a memorystick duo slot (came with a 64MB stick installed) and 2Megapixel camera (very good quality, does 1632x1224 as well as the regular 640x480 and 320x240 modes. Java can access bluetooth, so a lot of aps that don't work on the K700i work on the K750i (or at least will work with slight revision.) It also has some kind of Java 3D stuff included, though I've never felt the need to try it out.

Phone is completely themable - mine has a Mac theme at the moment.

The browser is pretty good (can do HTML well enough to view OSNews articles and comments - even looked at other pages so I know it's not just that OSNews is serving phone specific pages.)

All important - it's candy bar shaped, so you can actually pocket it.

I've found that using bluetooth to get the files on knocks out far more battery life than playing music. Plus I put it on the charger when I get home every day, so it's never been an issue.

As for the custom connector, I completely agree, but I think I could create an adaptor from a spare handsfree kit. Might do it one day.

Yes, it's been done. There is a how-to on the web with pictures on how to make a normal headphone jack to fit on a nokia jack. It's a bit hands-on thingie, but apparently it can be done if you are good with that stuff.

Here is a method that can be used for Nokia's case too:
http://www.tekguru.co.uk/phpBB2/kb.php?mode=article&k=11
Make sure to cut the cables above the speaker (the white part in the middle with the button on it) and not below it.

Yes.. my thourghts exactly - what is news worthy here ?
Today, like every morning, I listened to MP3s, stored on a 1Gb Flash plugged into my Treo.
It too has a proprietry headphone jack which I agree is annoying and 1 Gb isn't as great as a hold all your music 40Gb player.. but it does at least keep me going for a week at a time.

Who said that it's "the first"? I didn't, so don't put words in my mouth I never said. Instead, I wrote that it is ONE of the first, and it really is one of the first. This phone was first released in 2003 and it was one of the first phones to be fully MARKETED as a MUSIC PHONE though and through.

So what if it was released 2 years ago (not 3). It is still fully operational and pretty current too in terms of functionality. And it's at a good price too.

Its called an mp3 player bacause thats all it plays.
If it were called an "audio player" it would be too vague. ogg nazi go home.

I believe it plays AAC. It is bundled with RealPlayer and is designed to work with the Real store. check the Nokia site for details.

So now it is not just an mp3 player.

There is no Real player in that phone. There is AAC support though.

Look, 4 GB, now we're talking! My 5 GB mp3 Creative Zen has too little space if you ask me. I really couldn't live with 512 MB...only 5.5 hours of music! That means changing music every 2-3 days.

Battery life needn't suffer btw. The 20 GB mp3 player from Creative has a whopping 20 (18) hour battery life!

>...why is it that almost no company in existance has >OGG Vorbis support in their media players? Is that >too much to ask? Is it too hard to implement? Or is >M$ behind all this, trying to squash OGG Vorbis(wouldn't surprise me one bit)... :-(

Well, this one is easy Too little demand...

> I'm getting tired of having to encode everything in > either AAC or mp3 just to listen to my music. >Something has to be done to make manufacturers aware >that there's more than one or two choices out there.

Well, they know, but these 2 are the most popular ones. Market is driven by needs, not availability of solutions per se....

Well, this one is easy Too little demand...

Actually I think this is a case of chicken-egg.

I wanted a player that could handle ogg, but the players I liked quality/price AND capacity wise didn't. So I didn't buy one that could handle ogg, and that's why I keep coding my cds into mp3 instead of ogg. And people doing market-surveys probably think: well, those ogg players didn't sell, there probably isn't demand. There is demand, but people have to suppress that demand to get decent players.

I hate to appear like I'm pimping iRiver, but they offer devices which range from 64 MB to 40 GB, which are generally available at a price just below the market average for comparable devices. What combination of features and price was it that you were looking for which iRiver couldn't satisfy?

As someone else mentioned, basic market forces, not some nefarious conspiracy, is at fault here. That said, market niches rarely remain underserved for long, as they represent a market opportunity. The key is to educate yourself and spend your money wisely.

Personally, I can't fathom why in the world anyone would willingly choose to buy an ipod. They are overpriced and underfeatured when compared to rest of the market, but, alas, most people don't buy mere "tools", or even "products," rather they buy into a market tested "life-style" by associating themselves with a recognized icon of shared identity. I, on the other hand, absolutely detest the marriage of commercial brand with shared identity and, not being some rat in a maze, refuse to enthusiastically hand over my cash when the appropriate bell is rung. Actually, this explains why I will never buy a Mac is spite of the fact that I believe they are pretty nice from a purely technical perspective. I just can't bring myself to be associated in any way with the "computers for the rest of us" crowd, who appear to me as a bunch fawning sycophants, eagerly greasing their bums while chanting "Give it to me again Stevie boy!".

Oh, yes, media players... sorry got carried away with my rant. Buy an iRiver: cheap, wide support for codecs (including Ogg), boatloads of features, and they don't force any assinine DRM schemes down your throat.

There is another reason very few companies support OGG. Decoding OGG files is more CPU intensive than decoding mp3s, so special hardware considerations must be made. As the format gets more popular, I wouldn't be surprised to see more hardware manufacturers supporting it.

I thought it was something new (hadn't seen it...), then I've checked on PL/EU Nokia site and...3300 was here for a long time, though without qwerty (here it has quite typical key layout)
Oh well, and here I was hoping for worthy succesor of 5510 that's available where I live... :/