To all MP3 player inquirers: The 6600 is not an MP3 player!

[Sunstate]

As a fairly recent owner of a Nokia 6600, at first I marvelled at the capabilities of a smartphone.....(and before you read on I do generally really like the handset).

Camera, video, large screen for emails, and many apps...and also a potential MP3 player!

I could buy myself a larger MMC card, transfer my MP3's onto it via a card reader on my PC, buy the Nokia HDD-1 headphones, and sit back in smugness that I had an all-in-one unit.

WRONG! To all that are considering the same thing, read on...

I am not going to go into other aspects about the phone (i.e horrendous video capability, etc), you can see that elsewhere in the forum.

I bought/downloaded the latest MP3 Player by Viking - it works.
I plugged in the Nokia HDD-1 headphones - it works.
I played a decent quality MP3 (128bit, 44Hz, stereo) file - it's crap!

The sound is NOT produced in stereo and cannot be done (yet) even though it says stereo in the MP3 player window and you have two ear plugs, the volume is low, the sound quality is like listening to music on an AM-based radio station.

And when you turn up the volume, it crackles because the headphones can't handle even a hint of bass and the software can't emulate a decent sound - you have to use the equaliser to turn down the bass so you can play the tinny music loudly. Reduce the bitrate, you say? So you'd reduce the compression quality for use on an already bad quality player?....IT CANNOT MAKE IT SOUND BETTER, the maths does not add up!

OK, so if you are the type who is not bothered by sound quality, then it is fine. BUT if you are looking for the (even near) quality of a dedicated MP3 player on your phone, don't bother spending your nuggets on MP3 player software (don't use warez - bad form), headphones, etc. Just buy a dedicated MP3 player!

(If anyone else can prove me wrong, I would love to know as I still harbour a belief that I may one day have it all!)

You should have bought a 6230

[GhostDog]

The sound is NOT produced in stereo and cannot be done (yet) even though it says stereo in the MP3 player window and you have two ear plugs, the volume is low, the sound quality is like listening to music on an AM-based radio station.

No one said that the 6600 has stereo output or that it will be a good mp3 player.

Originally Posted by Sunstate

BUT if you are looking for the (even near) quality of a dedicated MP3 player on your phone, don't bother spending your nuggets on MP3 player software (don't use warez - bad form), headphones, etc. Just buy a dedicated MP3 player!)

Siemens SX1 = great MP3 StereoSmartPhone!

The MP3 player comes embedded on the phone, and inside the package you will find a stereo headset.

If you should be in a country where O2 already launched the Music Pack you can get a black SX1 with 128MB MMC for 149 Euros - with a new contract. It also handles AAC files (because of the O2 DRM that is used with the music d/l service).

Cheers, OzBert

[Kajjy]

I was thinking the exact same thing as you - finding a phone that has it all. The thing is that the 6600 is has mono audio - there's no ways you're going to get stereo output no matter what the software say. I found, however, that although mp3 sounds really crap on the 6600 - tinny sound and all that - ogg files seem to be OK, or at least noticably louder and have a bit more upmh than mp3 files. Moreover, the player, OggPlay, is available for free at

http://symbianoggplay.sourceforge.net/

Just download the one for the 6600.

To convert from mp3, or wma to ogg, use dbPowerAMP - another free tool:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

Just be sure to download the necessary codecs as well.

I'm using 64kbps quality, mono sound and 16000 Hz sampling rate (though I think the quality set at 45kbps is also all right) - with this, an mp3 file that was 3MB in size was coded to an ogg file of 600+ and 800+ kb for the 45kbps and 64kbps sampling rate respectively. Of course the size will vary depending on the instruments and voices (ie the frequency present) in the song.

Try Ogg out - that's what I'm using now and it's decent enough

[Vicky]

why don't u try Ultra Mp3
u can get the demo from handago.com

try it it sound not crap
but it gives less output.

[GhostDog]

try it it sound not crap

Doubtful.

[J2theIZZO]

Originally Posted by GhostDog

Doubtful.

There are plenty of Symbian OS phones that do support MP3, but to my knowledge non of the Nokia phone support sterero sound (Not sure about the 7610).

P900 has a good MP3 player and also a pretty good battery life, but i've found the 6600 much more fun that the P900 and the fact that I don't have an MP3 player isn't bothering me that much. But again there are limits in the P900 in that you have a max 128mb Capacity.

SendoX has SD/MMC support and stereo output I think, should start shipping anytime now.

[GhostDog]

The 7610 is mono.Stereo S60 phones from Nokia are:N-Gage Classic,6260 and maybe the 3G 6630.

[story]

it is true !

[Vamp]

Sunstate,
U should do better research b4 u buy a phone.... it is quite common knowledge (especially from this forum and reviews) that 6600 does not produce stereo sound.

If stereo sound is important to you, you should have purchased a Siemens SX-1 or Nokia 6620.

I also own a 6600 and have downloaded Ultra Mp3 which is a very good looking Mp3 player with media library and a variety of skins. Upgraded to a 512mb mmc card and can store about 22 albums of high quality music. Although the sound may be mono its still sounds fine enough to me considering its comin from a phone and not a high quality player.
Considering the phone itself is EXTREMELY adaptable as it runs on symbian os which is easily changed/reprogrammed to suit anyone who is really into thier phones and has everything you need, even the capability of playing N-Gage games perfectly, having sterio sound seems kind of trivial to me.
And where the video recorder is concerned newer video recorder software is available which encodes to mpeg4 rather than 3gp which is much higher quality.
all these extra software tweaks are available for free if you look hard enough.

Originally Posted by Kajjy

I was thinking the exact same thing as you - finding a phone that has it all. The thing is that the 6600 is has mono audio - there's no ways you're going to get stereo output no matter what the software say. I found, however, that although mp3 sounds really crap on the 6600 - tinny sound and all that - ogg files seem to be OK, or at least noticably louder and have a bit more upmh than mp3 files. Moreover, the player, OggPlay, is available for free at

http://symbianoggplay.sourceforge.net/

Just download the one for the 6600.

To convert from mp3, or wma to ogg, use dbPowerAMP - another free tool:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

Just be sure to download the necessary codecs as well.

I'm using 64kbps quality, mono sound and 16000 Hz sampling rate (though I think the quality set at 45kbps is also all right) - with this, an mp3 file that was 3MB in size was coded to an ogg file of 600+ and 800+ kb for the 45kbps and 64kbps sampling rate respectively. Of course the size will vary depending on the instruments and voices (ie the frequency present) in the song.

Try Ogg out - that's what I'm using now and it's decent enough

is there more ogg players? coz i tried to install this player for my fone, an its just dont wanna install it!!
plz... help

[bertq60]

What is your phone model? AFAIK, OggPlay works well on all Series60 phones?!

Maybe the 6600's are mono, but the new 6620's are most definately stereo and sound great. I just ordered my Transcend 1GB MMC!!