Samsung UpStage

I was lucky to get my hands on the Samsung UpStage this evening and saw a mobile music phone with enough of a draw to warrant even, maybe, potentially, downloading from a mobile music store. Clearly the real draw here is the idea that you can literally turn the phone into a dedicated music player instead of relying on a half-assed piece of music playing software.

In the flesh, the phone is quite cute. What’s not cute, however, is the 64MB card that Sprint has included with the diminutive phone. It’s $149 with a two-year agreement, comes with a battery wallet — both batteries show up on the phone face, so you can keep track of both the on-board battery and in the wallet — and lasts for about 16 hours of music playback and 6 hours of talk-time.

Product Page