Sprint Upstage (Samsung SPH-m620) Review - Multimedia
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Alfredo Padilla Published on April 10, 2007 Comment on this |
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Accessing Music Software (3.06)
To test how easy it is to access the music software we time how long it takes to go from the home screen to a song playing. The Upstage took an average of 6.54 seconds to get a song playing. This is significantly faster than the Razr V3m's extremely slow 12.1 seconds, however it is slower than the LG Chocolate's 4.73 seconds. The Sanyo M1, another newer phone using the Sprint software, took a similar 6.3 seconds to get a song playing. This leads us to believe that the major issue that slows down this test is the Sprint Music software itself, which takes an inordinate amount of time to launch. The Upstage's music software is only accessible from the back, so that was our starting point for this test. If you are starting from the front of the device you should add another second or so to the time in order to account for the flip.
Dedicated Music Controls (3.0)
Despite the fact that the directional pad on the back of the Sprint Upstage doubles as music controls when in the music application, these controls revert to their normal function when you are playing music in the background, as such we did not award points for them. The volume keys on the Upstage do control music volume when playing in the background. We were also happy to see a dedicated lock/unlock switch on the Upstage. Similar to the one found on iPods this switch allows you to lock the keys on the device so you can place the phone in your pocket without worrying about accidently activating functions.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (5.0)
The music software on the Sprint Upstage is the same music software found on all Sprint phones. You can create and edit playlists from within the software, and it also recognized the .pls test file we used. You can sort your music by title, artist or genre, but there is no search feature available. Album art is supported for music downloaded from the Sprint music store, however our test file's album art was not displayed. We were happy to see background play, allowing you to access some, but not all, of the phone's functions while music is playing in the background. Our test Idv3 tags were recognized, as were the tags from our iTunes encoded aac file. There is no equalizer function available. Overall we found the music software to be adequate, but nothing special.
Online Song Downloading (8.0)
The Sprint Upstage supports Sprint's music store, which allows you to download tracks directly to the phone via the EVDO network. When you purchase a song you also recieve a higher quality version that can be downloaded to your PC. At the same time that Sprint announced the Upstage, they also announced that they would be dropping prices for music purchased from the store to 99 cents per song, which puts them in line with online services like Rhapsody and iTunes.
Streaming (0.0)
The Sprint Upstage does not support streaming audio from any of our test websites.
Podcast Support (3.0)
We were pleased to see that the Sprint Upstage included a podcasting application. This application is java based and allows you to stream podcasts from an extensive catolog. It does not allow you to download podcasts directly to your device. Despite this limitation, this is a step above phones like the Sanyo M1 and LG Chocolate, which did not include any podcasting support.
Music Sync with PC (7.0)
The Sprint Upstage ships with synchronization software from Sprint. Unfortunately we were unable to get this software to work as it requested activation of the phone even though it was already activated. We were able to easily synchronize the Upstage with Windows Media Player using the mass storage device function on the Phone. It's nice to see that handset manufacturers are beginning to include support for such synchronization with the phones, for example the Razr V3m and LG Chocolate lack this feature out of the box.
Update: We were able to get Sprint's synchronization software working with our PC, the problem was with our internet connection, which is required to authenticate the software. Sprint's music synchronization software provides one central place from which you can manage, purchase and transfer music to your device. To use the software connect the included USB cable to your PC and choose the music sync function from the home screen on the back of the Upstage. The software will recognize your phone and you will see an indicator in the top left that shows how much storage is available on your device.
The software has 3 main sections, which are accessible by tabs near the top of the software. The transfer tab is used to move music from your library to the device. The get tab connects you to Sprints Digital Lounge, their online store, where you can purchase new music. The manage tab allows you to manage music on your PC.
The software can play back music and allows you to create and edit playlists, so you can use it as your main music software for your PC, although it does not have the functionality of more fully featured software like iTunes. You can import music easily and the software can search different locations and for different file types. We were surprised that wma was an included file type as the Upstage does not support this format, however the synchronization software converts these files into m4a aac files on the fly when you transfer them to the Upstage.
Overall we found the software to be fairly basic and a not very intuitive, although we applaud sprint for including a "show me how" button that is always available in the bottom left. Considering that you can also synchronize your music with Windows Media Player on your desktop, Sprint's software is only really useful if you make a lot of purchases from their store.
Music Formats and DRM (2.5)
The Sprint Upstage is able to play back unprotected aac and mp3 files. The only DRM it supports is that used by Sprint's music store. This is a shame as it means you cannot use the Upstage with a Rhapsody or Napster account, or other similar online music store. However, with Sprint reducing their prices to 99 cents per song, this is not as large an issue as when they were charging $2.50 per song.
Music Interruption (10.0)
The Sprint Upstage does a solid job of handing incoming calls when music is playing. The Music is automatically paused and the interface is flipped to the front side for the phone call. When the call ends the music resumes from where it left off and the interface is again automatically flipped.
Video
Video Software Access (1.83)
To test how easy it is to access video playback software we time how long it takes to go from the standby screen to get a video playing. The Upstage took an average of 10.92 seconds to complete this process. This is much slower than the Sanyo M1 at 3.7 seconds and even slower than the Razr V3m's 6.3 seconds. The Upstage is hurt in this test by the fact that the album software used to play back video is buried in the menus and the touch controls used to access it are not very responsive.
Video Controls (2.0)
The video player on the Sprint Upstage is extremely basic. The center selet key acts as play/pause, while the left soft key is also mapped to this function. The right soft key is mapped to stop. The volume keys control video volume. There are no other hardware keys that can be used to control video playback. This is a poor selection of controls for phone, the Sanyo M1 for example allowed you to move to the next or previous videos using hardware keys, and there is no reason why you could not do this with the Upstage as well.
Video Software & Organization (1.0)
The video player on the Sprint Upstage is extremely basic. It is built into the album software and is generally meant to be used to watch the 3GP encoded videos that you take with the phone. There is no support for library management, full screen viewing or landscape viewing of videos. It must be noted that the Upstage also comes with a separate application that allows you to view Sprint TV, Sprint's streaming video service. However this software will not allow you to watch your own videos that you place on the phone. There is no support on the Sprint Upstage for video playlists, library updating, search or background play.
Video Sync with PC (0.0)
The Sprint Upstage does not allow you to synchronize videos with your PC.
Video Formats (4.0)
Incredibly the Sprint Upstage did not recognize any of the test videos we placed on the device. This is a serious problem for anyone who wants to watch their own videos on the Upstage. We understand that this functionality is not necessarily supported, however even phones like the Razr V3m allowed us to watch our 3GP encoded videos using the album software.
UPDATE: We tested this further, and found that the Upstage can play back 3GP videos if they are encoded at low bitrates. However, 3GP videos at higher bitrates refused to play back.
Video DRM (0.0)
The Sprint Upstage does not support any video DRM standards.
Video Playback Smoothness (1.0)
Because the Sprint Upstage did not recognize any of our videos we were unable to run our normal playback smoothness test. Typically this test involves viewing a series of videos encoded at different bitrates to see if the handset can play them back smoothly.
UPDATE: We tested this further, and have found that low bitrate 3GP videos can be played back. However, the higher bitrate videos in our test either could not be played back, or were so jerky as to be unwatchable. We have adjusted the scoring for this section accordingly.
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Sprint Upstage does not support any online video download services, although there is streaming video available via Sprint TV.
Video Streaming (unscored)
Because of the disparate codecs and standards used for streaming video we do not score this section. As we mentioned the Upstage does support Sprint's streaming video service. We were pleased to see support for streaming 3GP video from www.zoovision.com. It did not support streaming video in WMV format from windowsmedia.com.
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