Cell phones & music: a rocky honeymoon.(up front: News / Trends / Advice)(Product/service evaluation)

The marriage of cell phones and music players got off to a shaky start awhile back, with mediocre sound quality and high-priced tunes. But manufacturers and service providers are continuing to make new models.

We looked at four of the latest: the LG Chocolate, LG Fusic, Sony Ericsson W300i, and Sony Ericsson W810i. All provide the basic functions we've come to expect from portable MP3 players. They can store, play, and organize music, but with varying degrees of convenience. The LG phones have a circular control wheel, which resembles those on Apple's iPods, on the outside of the case. The Fusic's was easy to use; the Chocolate's wasn't. The Sonys' controls are smaller but serviceable.

All the phones store music on removable memory cards. You can use a PC or Mac to transfer MP3 songs to the cards for all but the Chocolate, which requires a PC running Windows Media Player.

The Chocolate can access Verizon's V Cast, a $15-a-month service that charges an additional $2 to $3 per song. The Fusic can download music from the Sprint Music Store on the Power Vision service, which starts at $15 a month, plus about $2.50 per song.

When we listened to music using the headsets provided for each phone, audio quality was fair to good, but not as good as for the same MP3 songs on a portable CD player. For all except the Chocolate, you can easily substitute better headphones. On the other hand, the Chocolate lets you listen to music and take calls through a wireless stereo Bluetooth headset. The rest of the phones ...