Want free songs? Get AMPed

SINGAPORE, our iTunes moment may have arrived.

TNP PICTURE: MOHD ISHAK

We finally have SingTel's AMPed service.

It joins other music-on-your-mobile services like Nokia's Comes With Music and Sony Ericsson's PlayNow Plus.

But it is arguably the most promising replacement for a full-featured iTunes store that seems unlikely to reach our shores anytime soon.

Like PlayNow Plus and Comes With Music, AMPed has the very attractive proposition of letting users download songs for free.

But it holds only 500,000 songs, compared to Comes With Music (4 million) and PlayNow Plus (3.5 million).

You can access AMPed on your phone or on the web, as long as you are on one of SingTel's three 3G Flexi plans, or you've signed up for their $9.90 BroadBand on Mobile service on top of your existing plan.

You can download as many songs as you want. But SingTel allows you to permanently keep only 15 songs each month. The rest will automatically be made inactive. If you don't use all 15 credits, they will be rolled over to the next month.

A point to note here: The music is not in MP3 format, but in copy-protected Windows Media Audio format. It means you can play these songs only on a Windows media player.

Interactive space

Getting started with AMPed is a slight hassle.

Since it's meant as an interactive space for music fans, it's essential that you login from a computer and create your profile.

Once you've done that, you're all ready to browse music on your AMPed-ready phone.

The AMPed application, which takes just a few seconds to load, brings you a homepage with highlights of the day's top downloads and featured artists.

Downloading is a breeze and, at SingTel's 3G speeds, not too much of a hassle. Songs can be browsed by recommendations, artist, albums, genres and shared playlists. When you've made your selection, the song downloads in the background, while you continue to browse the store.

As part of its interactivity, SingTel allows users to keep and update profile pages, Facebook-style, with your current mood.

But at this stage, the interactive functions are mostly confined to the web portal. You can't create, edit and share playlists on your phone.

Another gripe is that, unlike iTunes, you can't download a whole album in one click. Songs must be downloaded individually, which can be frustrating.

But clearly, AMPed is not just a music download service. It integrates interactivity with music news and, as 2,000 lucky fans experienced last month with pop sensation Lady Gaga, opportunities to meet up with their favourite artistes.

I was particularly impressed with how the service responded to Michael Jackson's death.

They created a tribute playlist with old favourites like Ben, I Want You Back and I'll Be There - all ready to be downloaded into phones.

But this is also where AMPed showed its limitations.

Where was Thriller? Billie Jean? Or the rest of Jackson's later hits?

SingTel currently has only one music partner, Universal Music Group, which doesn't own the rights to Jackson's later works, which are on Sony's Epic Records.

With AMPed, there are no additional data charges for either browsing the store or downloading songs on the phone, unlike Nokia's and Sony Ericsson's services.

While AMPed is currently available to 11 handsets from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, the telco is working to get the service as an application to more brands and models.

Enjoying Nokia's Comes With Music plan essentially means upgrading to a Nokia phone every year. Even then, only certain models come packed with the service. PlayNow Plus comes only with the W705 phone.

Once SingTel gets its music partnerships in place and the service is extended to more phones, who needs iTunes?

All You Want is Music

Phone for the e-mail junkie

Nokia's E75 is a functional tool for road warrior who wants to stay connected

BUSINESS phones are no longer just for the busy executive.

With an overcrowded handphone market offering all sorts of mobile devices catering to every personality type, choosing a phone really boils down to what tickles the fancy of individual consumers.

So, getting a piece of the market has become intense competition.

Feeling the heat, Nokia upped the ante with the latest addition to its E-series - the new E75 offers both a numeric keypad and a Qwerty keyboard.

That is arguably the phone's main attraction.

You can choose to type with the numeric keypad for a short SMS or slide out the Qwerty keyboard if you need to type a longer e-mail or edit a document on the go.

The novelty of having the best of both worlds is great - until you find it can be a tad difficult working on the Qwerty because the keys are flat to keep the phone compact.

It takes some getting used to, especially if you aren't already used to a Qwerty.

The numeric keypad is also flat and the keys on the bottom row are smaller than the rest, making it a little more difficult to hit them.

Even so, I found it much easier to use the numeric keypad.

Chic

In the looks department, the E75 has maintained the chic factor of the other E-series phones.

The stainless steel back cover characteristic of the E-series remains, and the glossy plastic front gives it a stylish yet less serious look compared to the E71.

At 139g and measuring 11cm by 5cm and 1.4cm thick, the E75 feels sturdy in the hand, which is great for someone clumsy like myself.

The phone's home screen interface can be customised and allows users to have different settings.

For example, you can personalise a 'business mode' and place your favourite work-related icons, such as e-mail and calendar, on the home screen for easy access, complete with a professional wallpaper picture.

After hours, just press on the 'switch mode' icon and it changes the home screen to 'personal mode' settings.

When switching between modes, though, and when opening up applications, there is a noticeable lag.

Best feature

Nevertheless, one of the best features of the E75 is the e-mail function. It's fast and easy to set up and access is just one button away.

It gives the busy executive who just can't keep away from e-mails an easy fix. You can access multiple e-mails accounts from the phone - Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo. Even most corporate e-mail accounts can be easily set up for access on the go.

It took me all of one minute (or less) to set up my Gmail account on the phone. All that is required is your user ID and password.

Other features like the 3.2-megapixel camera is standard and the 2.4-inch display screen isn't as large as other smart phones, but I found it acceptable.

All in, the E75 doesn't come cheap at $768, but it is nonetheless a nifty functional phone to have.

Phone for E-mail Junkie