AT&T Fuze Cell Phone Review - Multimedia

The Fuze has the software to occupy you to ensure it's not all work and no play 24/7 and it will perform well enough as a digital media player without requiring you to carry a separate device, though media hounds will probably want to skip that piece of advice.

Accessing Music Software (5.56)
Getting a song to play on the Fuze is easy, taking an average of 3.6 seconds in our timing test. We used the TouchFLO interface's music tab for this test since it resulted in faster access compared to going through Windows Media Player and accessing the music library. Music lovers should enjoy this level of ease in getting to their tunes. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Dedicated Music Controls (2.0)
The Fuze is not a multimedia-oriented phone and lacks controls specifically dedicated to controlling media playback. The only buttons that control music playback when the Fuze is closed and at the home screen are the volume buttons. Among our comparison phones, the Nokia N96 packed the biggest punch in this area with 4 buttons in addition to the volume buttons to control media playback under these conditions.

Music Software Functionality and Organization (7.40)
There are 2 ways to view your music on the Fuze, where one is full of eye candy and the other is not and each offers slightly different features and capabilities that could cause confusion – frankly, we'd prefer a single player that can do everything, thank you very much. The first is through the TouchFLO interface where Music is the 6th tab away from the home screen, and this is the prettiest way to view everything with the TouchFLO eye candy. Here, the album art for the most recently played album is shown with an on-screen play button. The virtual Menu button offers options to turn repeat and shuffle on or off, see the current song's properties, and more. The left virtual soft menu key brings you to the TouchFLO library view where the tabs at the bottom of the screen can get you to your music sorted by artist, album, playlist, genre, composer, or show you all songs or just purchased songs.

The music tab in the TouchFLO interface

The other way to get to your music is to open the Windows Media application that offers more robust navigation and organization features than the TouchFLO interface's does, though the ability to create and edit playlists here seems to have disappeared and can only be done in the TouchFLO music view. In the main My Music library view, you can choose to view your music by artist, album, genre, or see all your music at once. Playing music in Windows Media Player shows you the album art with on-screen playback controls, including a progress bar, below. In this view, you can rate songs by tapping on up to 5 stars in the top right corner, though there's no way to automatically use these ratings to create playlists or otherwise organize them.

The music library in Windows Media Player

Both players had no problem reading the ID tags on our test MP3, AAC, and WMA music files. There is an Audio Booster feature that offers multiple equalizer presets and allows you to create your own presets as well.

Online Song Downloading (0.0)
AT&T has partnered with Napster Music and you can shop for music through a handy link provided in the All Programs list that opens up the web browser to a page where you can start to browse available music. When we went to purchase a track, we were asked to enter our email address to receive the track on our PC and we weren't able to skip this part and still buy a song.

The music shopping web page by AT&T

While it's relatively easy to get to AT&T's online music store, it does not allow you to download purchased music directly to the phone's memory and earns the Fuze no points in this area.

Streaming (2.0)
Here, we consider a phone's ability to stream audio through its browser by going to a test web site that offers streaming audio in Real, Windows Media, and MP3 formats. The Fuze was able to stream audio in the Windows Media format (surprise, surprise), but could do nothing with the other 2 file types.

Podcast Support (0.0)
The Fuze does not have any podcast subscription, organization, or download software on it or in the box. The only way you can get podcasts on to it is to sync them via Windows Media Player on your PC or USB drag-and-drop on a Mac. The iPhone 3G and the Nokia N96 are the only devices among our comparison phones that earned points in this area. The N96 comes with an application installed that will handle your subscriptions and automatically download new episodes, while the iPhone 3G has iTunes to manage subscriptions and download new episodes on your computer and sync them over. With the 2.X firmware, you can also download podcasts directly to your iPhone's internal memory as well, though it won't do so automatically like on the N96.

Music Sync with PC (7.0)
The Fuze can sync media via Windows Media Player on a PC. Mac users will be restricted to dragging-and-dropping media via a USB connection unless a 3rd-party synchronization option is found.

Music Formats and DRM (0.0)
The Fuze's specs state it can play back AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, and WAV files. As previously noted, we found that it had no problems playing back our test DRM-free WMA, MP3, and AAC files.

DRM protection of any type is not supported by the Fuze. AT&T partners with Napster Mobile and eMusic to sell music, and neither service sells music with DRM protection.

Music Interruption (10.0)
When music is playing and you receive an incoming call, music playback stops automatically to allow the ringtone to be heard. After the call, music playback resumes automatically.

Video Software Access (1.56)
We like to see devices with video software that's easy to access, and the Fuze isn't one of those devices, unfortunately. Getting to the Windows Media Player application takes a bit of time with no easy shortcuts set to it by default, and it took an average of 12.81 seconds to complete this test on the Fuze. This isn't a long time in reality, but it surely felt like forever and a day for some reason. Bring your patience when you go to play a video you've saved to the Fuze. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Video Controls (9.0)
The Fuze's in-playback controls are good. During video playback, on-screen controls allow you to pause, play, skip forward and backward, fast forward, rewind, switch to full-screen mode, and adjust volume up and down. There's also a scrub bar you can use to move through the video more quickly, and 5 blank stars in the top right that can be used to rate the video. Though this works in other applications, we found that changing the phone's orientation from portrait to landscape doesn't change the video's orientation. If you want to switch to landscape video viewing, you'll either need to open the slider to reveal the keyboard or use the on-screen full screen button.

Video playing in portrait orientation

Video Software & Organization (6.0)
Video organization and navigation on the Fuze is about as unintuitive as we've seen on other Windows Mobile devices, though it's still quite function. Your video library is organized by Windows Media Player in pretty much the same way music is in a file structure view. Videos are listed alphabetically by name with no other sorting options available. The only preset organization option is to view them by genre, which only works if the files are tagged with this information to begin with.

The video library

You can also access video through the TouchFLO interface's Pictures & Videos tab, though you can't sort the library view there to show only videos. Playing a video here shows it in landscape mode only with fewer on-screen controls than available in Windows Media Player.

Video Sync with PC (7.0)
As with music, Windows Media Player can be used to sync videos between the Fuze and the PC, while Mac users will have to resort to a 3rd-party solution or live with dragging-and-dropping in USB mode.

Video Formats (6.0)
The Fuze's user guide states that it can play back WMV, MPEG4, H.263 (3GPP), H.264 (MP4 and 3GPP), and AVI files. We also load test video videos on to each device to check video format compatibility and the Fuze could play back all of our 3GPP, WMV, MP4, and H.264 files, though it could not play our test Flash, Shockwave, Quicktime, or Real Media files.

Video DRM (0.0)
The Fuze cannot play back any video files with DRM protection.

Video Playback Smoothness (0.0)
To test video playback smoothness, we load test video files with varying bitrates and see how the phone handles them. We were disappointed to see that the Fuze had difficulty with the highest bitrate test file, pausing and skipping in just portrait orientation mode. This is slightly better performance than the Touch Diamond, but Nokia N96 and iPhone 3G knocked this test out of the park.

Online Video Downloading (0.0)
In this area, we consider a phone's ability to download videos directly to its internal storage and the Fuze is not capable of this without a service from AT&T to provide such content.

Video Streaming unscored
We don't score video streaming since the standards are disparate but we do check to see if a phone is capable of it by checking out YouTube Mobile and other similar sites. The Fuze had no trouble playing video streamed from these sites, though it did not do so directly in the web browser, opening Windows Media or the Streaming Media application to play videos. The Fuze also comes pre-loaded with the MobiTV application through which you can access up to 40 channels of live TV, though this service will cost you an additional $9.99 per month.

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