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Top music phone:5 "Nokia 5800 XpressMusic"

Nokia's flagship music phone is also its best yet. For starters it boasts of the best sound quality from Nokia so far and is right up there with the industry best. It has a large touchscreen that shows your album art and the music controls. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack and stereo speakers that are nice and loud. Then there is the usual long list of supported formats along with Bluetooth stereo headphone and FM radio. More importantly the phone comes with an 8 GB memory card bundled with it and can be expanded up to 16 GB in case you need even more storage. Priced at Rs. 19,000 the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a great buy.

Top Music Phone:5 "Motorola ZN5"

Although not a music phone in the strictest sense, the ZN5 has most of the things that make a good music phone. First and foremost it has excellent sound quality, an essential for any music phone. It also comes with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. The music player supports a long list of formats and comes with a 2 GB card as standard (which can be further expanded up to 8 GB), while Bluetooth A2DP and FM radio complete the list. The only thing that you might want are a pair of dedicated music keys, but barring that the Motorola ZN5 is a good music phone that won't disappoint. Priced at Rs. 15,000 it is highly recommended.

Top Music Phone:^ "Sony Ericsson W595"

It was Sony Ericsson that first brought in the music phone concept back in 2005 and made other manufacturers sit up and take notice. Now, even though every manufacturer has their own list of music phones, Sony Ericsson is still at the top with 26 music phones so far.

One of their recent phones, W595, is also a great little device. Its forte is the dual headphone jack with which you can connect two pairs of headphones at the time to the phone. It also comes with stereo loudspeakers built-in. While testing I found that the W595 offered good sound quality, especially through the loudspeakers. It also supports a wide range of formats such as MP3, AAC, eAAC+, WMA and WAV. Then there is also the support for Bluetooth stereo headset and FM radio. Overall at Rs. 14,000 the W595 is a great choice.

Top Music phone:7 "Samsung BEAT 450"

You may remember Aamir Khan endorsing this phone, boasting about the phones 3D Surround sound feature. Although I didn't really find the feature spectacular, what I did like was the sound quality of the phone, which was on par with the usual high standards of Samsung. The phone has stereo loudspeakers tucked under its dual slider design and a unique semicircular touch wheel design for navigating through the music player.

The phone supports a wide range of formats, which can be further expanded by third party applications that the BEAT 450 supports, thanks to the Symbian S60 platform on which it runs. The phone also supports Bluetooth stereo headsets and has a built-in FM radio. Priced at Rs. 11,000 the Samsung BEAT 450 is a really good music phone.

Top music phone:8 "Nokia 5320"

Nokia 5320 earns its place in this list as it offers solid features and performance at an affordable price. For starters it supports a long list of formats natively, which includes MP3, AAC, eAAC+, WMA and WAV. Also, since it is a Symbian S60 handset, you can install third party software that can play additional formats such as OGG, FLAC, etc. It has a 3.5mm headphone jack and dedicated music keys on the handset, so you can control the playback of your music even if you are not in the music player application.

Sound quality offered by the 5320 is excellent with good clarity and bass. The phone comes with a 1 GB card bundled and you can expand it further up to 8 GB by microSDHC cards. As for the battery life the phone is capable of a stunning 24 hours of continuous playback. At Rs. 10,050 I believe the 5320 XpressMusic is an excellent music phone.

Top music phone:9 "Moto ROKR E8"

The younger sibling of the ROKR E8, the EM30 has basically everything in it that the E8 has, except for the 2 GB built-in memory and the Omega wheel. The phone supports MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA, Enhanced AAC+, MIDI, AMR NB, Real Audio, AAC+ formats. The EM30 inherits the excellent sound quality of the E8 and also has a 3.5mm headphone jack for connecting your own headphones, along with Bluetooth A2DP profile for connecting your wireless stereo headset. The EM30 also has an FM radio and a music recognition service.

It comes with a 1 GB card in the bundle and can be expanded up to 8 GB. The battery is rated to last up to 13 hours of continuous music playback, which is great. Priced at Rs. 7800, the EM30 is a solid music phone that won't burn a hole in your wallet.

Top music phone:10 "Sony Ericsson W200i"

It's a common sight to see people walk around with music pumping into their ears. While everybody seems to be enjoying it, the need to carry an additional device just for music may be cumbersome. This is where the music phone comes in and over the years has become immensely popular. A mobile phone is something that you always have on you wherever you go, so what better device than a mobile phone to play all your music!
Older music phones were very rudimentary, supporting only popular formats like MP3 and WMA. They came with basic software for playing music and unimpressive sound quality that came nowhere close to dedicated music players. But times have changed and music phones have gone through several changes to the point where now they threaten the very existence of dedicated music players. However, in all this the layman may get confused when he has to choose a music phone that would best suit him.

So here we try to separate the wheat from the chaff and handpick the best music phones that are available in the market right now. The phones were only judged based on things related to music playback, such as sound quality, playback software, loudspeaker, memory, music keys (if any) with no consideration given to camera, keypad, display, etc. So here are the music phones that you should consider before buying.
Sony Ericsson W200i
The W200i has been on the scene for quite sometime now and has created a good reputation for itself as an affordable music phone. It is part of the Walkman range from Sony Ericsson and has the Walkman player built-in, along with support for formats such as MP3, AAC, eAAC and Sony's Mega Bass sound preset for powerful bass.

It also comes with a pair of good quality headphones, which have a 3.5mm headphone jack, so you can swap them with your own. A 128 MB Memory Stick Micro card is supplied with the phone and you can replace it with another one up to 2 GB to save even more music. The W200i has a very good sound quality and performs well as a music phone. The Sony Ericsson W200i costs Rs. 3,900.