Samsung UpStage Reviewed

The Samsung UpStage has all the makings of a good low-cost iPhone alternative. At first glance it looks and feels like a nano (at least on one side), and it comes with everything you need to rock right out of the box: excellent music-management software for transferring songs from your PC, a 3.5mm headphone adapter, and a 64MB memory card. Samsung even throws in a carrying case with a built-in battery for upping the listening time from 7 to 16 hours. Unfortunately, we found this dual-sided candy bar more schizophrenic than sweet.
 
It's certainly the sleekest music phone yet. (See our photo gallery). Measuring only 0.4 inches thin and weighing a mere 2.6 ounces, the black-and-silver UpStage could easily be mistaken for a state-of-the-art flash MP3 player. The media-centric side of the device houses a large but low-res 2.1-inch screen and a touch-sensitive control pad with a center Play/Pause button that you can also use to make menu selections. The more phone-centric side of the UpStage--designed for making calls, sending text messages, and managing contacts--sports a tiny 1.4-inch color LCD and a flat but very usable tactile dialpad and directional pad.

 

 

Ideally, the UpStage would be intelligent enough to know how the device is being held and would switch modes accordingly. Instead, you're forced to press a Flip button on the right side (depending on which mode you're in) to go from listening to the latest Snow Patrol track to making a call. We eventually became accustomed to this switcheroo, but keep in mind that there are several other scenarios that call for a quick flip, such as entering an artist's name when searching the Sprint Music Store or typing out a search term on Yahoo Mobile.
 
Moving around the menus with the touch-sensitive controls was easy enough, as you can either tap your finger on one of the navigation keys or scroll horizontally or vertically with a swipe. The upper left and right corners of the navigation pad are used as soft keys. Swiping downward and then holding your finger down is supposed to help you speed through your music collection, but it took an eternity to scroll through our 1GB of songs stored on a 2GB microSD Card. (Of course, it doesn't help that Sprint's software lists all of the songs underneath a given artist instead of just the artists themselves.) Stopping on the right song also proved a challenge, and we found ourselves backing out of menu selections we didn't intend to make.
 
Sprint and Samsung attempt to make all of this fumbling as painless as possible. For one, the UpStage notifies you when the phone needs to be fliped. Second, you can choose from five sensitivity settings for the navigation keys. We also like the Hold switch on the UpStage, so you don't accidentally skip a song or exit playback while the phone is in your pocket. Finally, Sprint and Samsung include a tutorial to help users get the hang of the UpStage's quirky controls--complete with a depressing reminder to iPod fans that they can't scroll using a circular motion. All of these things help, but if you need a tutorial to use a phone there's a problem.
   

 

 

There are two ways to get music on the UpStage. You can download tunes over the air for a new low price of $.99 each (down from $2.50). Downloads take about 40 seconds and include album art. Sprint also bundles one of the best-designed programs we've seen for side-loading songs you already own. Sprint Music Manager, codeveloped with Smith Micro, automatically imported our unprotected AAC, MP3, and WMA files, and all it takes to start synching--once you put the UpStage in sync mode, that is--is an easy drag and drop. Just be prepared to wait; even though the UpStage uses a USB 2.0 connection, and it took us a little less an hour to transfer our 1GB of music.
 
Things are even slower on the phone itself. It took about three seconds to access the UpStage's music player, another four seconds for the phone to load our 257 songs, and five seconds to fast-forward from one track to the next. That's not exactly the instant gratification one expects from a device that looks the part of an MP3 player. On the plus side, the included 3.5mm adapter with built-in microphone enables users to plug in their own earphones and use those for listening to tunes and taking calls. However, the better your buds, the more you'll notice how compressed the Sprint Store tracks are compared with your own MP3s.
 
The UpStage trumps other Sprint music phones in the multitasking department. While rocking out, you can back out of the player by pressing the Hide soft key and surf the Web, send a text message (if you don't mind flipping the phone to type), play games, and more. Too bad you can't adjust the volume while multitasking. Actually, you can, but only if you have the UpStage paired with a set of stereo Bluetooth headphones with its own of volume controls. Another benefit of going the Bluetooth route is that the UpStage can identify incoming callers by speaking their names. That way you can decide whether it's worth interrupting your listening pleasure to pick up.

 

Battery Booster

 

Given its svelte design, it's no surprise that the UpStage doesn't last very long on a charge. It's rated for a short 2.5 hours of talk time, and on our tests we barely got through a day of periodic use before having to hunt for an outlet. The good news is that Samsung includes a battery wallet, which both protects the phone and increases talk time to 6.3 hours. It sort of defeats the purpose of the UpStage's nano-like profile, but it's nice to have this accessory in your bag as a backup when the phone runs out of juice.
 
In most other respects the UpStage satisfies. The 1.3-megapixel camera took sharp photos when we had a good amount of light, and Sprint TV looked decent on the 2.1-inch display, although with the usual artifacts. Other pluses include compatibility with Sprint's streaming music services (MTV, Sirius, and VH1) and fast Web browsing courtesy of the EV-DO data connection. Our test calls generally sounded crisp on our end, with only occasional complaints from other callers who said we sounded a bit faint.
 
The UpStage is far from perfect, but it offers more bang for the buck than any other Sprint music phone. The controls could be easier to use and the software faster, but the phone’s slick design, cheap downloads, and plethora of included accessories make it a decent bargain.

 

Check out our UpStage image gallery.

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