Nostalgia can be a wonderful thing. The days of the brownish, cream-colored kitchen telephone with the tangled, 20-foot cord are distant memories. The times when changing the channel on the television directly corresponded with moving the right side of the antenna approximately 4 inches to the left are nonexistent. The memories of only being able to purchase music from stores located in actual buildings are just that-memories. Times change along with technology, and with Sprint’s new Upstage phone by Samsung, even the most recent of these memories will be pushed further back in our minds.
Sprint’s newest creation does everything one could want a phone to do, and also serves as a television, laptop, digital camera, camcorder and radio. The look of the Upstage is simple-it’s a flip phone without the flip. With its width measuring a whopping .37 inches, it’s skinnier than the popular Motorola RAZR and is shaped like an iPod. With a phone on one side and a miniature entertainment center on the other, the Upstage is the newest, most innovative cell phone on the market.
Laura Rowe, regional communications manager for Sprint Nextel, said that she believes that the Upstage is a “match made in heaven-the best of mobile music and a cell phone.” The phone is able to stream music from Sirius, MTV and VH1, as well as download music that will be added directly to the customer’s phone bill. There’s no need to be selfish with your downloaded music, though-the phone is also able to take those downloaded songs and e-mail them to any computer.
If the music genre isn’t your forte, the Upstage can also double as your own portable television. The streaming Sprint TV will be available on the phone, featuring 40 channels that you can watch on the 176×220 pixel screen found on the back side of the phone. Many popular channels are featured on Sprint TV, such as FOX, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Comedy Central and ESPN.
Don’t worry if you’re more of an Internet buff or a budding filmmaker than a television aficionado, however. The Upstage also features Internet access, including its own application of Google Maps, as well as an accessible digital camera with video capabilities.
Rowe called the Upstage a “groundbreaking union of voice, form and music.” The new-age innovation can be purchased for $99, and Rowe said that Sprint “expect[s] it to receive a strong, positive response.”
Screw nostalgia. All I want out of life is for my phone to do my every bidding. Play music, let me watch television, forever commemorate events through photos and video, explore the world through the internet, make dinner, take my dog for walks, change the oil in my car and chauffeur me from place to place and, for that, I’ll put all of my trust in the Upstage.
