In recent years, the consumer electronics industry has seen a steady trend toward convergence. In the past, users carried several separate devices--from cell phones to portable music players, PDAs, video players and cameras--in order to meet all their communications and media needs. Today, a single product can perform all these functions, reducing the amount of money spent by consumers and the amount of space taken up by the products needed to perform the tasks.

Advances in technology have made this possible. Media storage hardware has increased in capacity but not in size, enabling more content to be saved in the same amount of space. Power management solutions have extended battery life. Connectivity methods are robust and reliable. User interfaces are now so intuitive that anyone can operate any device.

There are, of course, some drawbacks associated with a single communications and media solution, the most prevalent of which is amply expressed by asking, "What do I do if something happens to my phone?" Not only is the ability to receive calls lost, but all contacts and calendars, e-mails, music,and videos are no longer at your fingertips.

Fortunately, because all information stored on a device like this can be backed up on a computer, it is a simple matter of getting a replacement device and syncing with it.

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So, what happens if you get a new phone (either because the last one is no longer usable or because it was simply time to get a new one)? I wanted to test how long it would take to transfer simple, common media examples to various popular multimedia phones. The use case included one CD's worth of music, an episode of a television show, and a feature-length movie. Because I started this testing around Halloween, I went with a theme:

CD: "Once More With Feeling" by the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (49.7 Mbytes, composed of 22 songs ranging in length from 00:00:20 to 00:06:56)

TV show: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 3, Episode 1" (275.9 Mbytes, with a duration of 00:44:52)

Movie: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (552.5 Mbytes, with a duration of 01:25:24)

This sample seemed to represent my media habits. While waiting for the bus, I'd listen to a few songs. Once on the bus, I'd watch a TV episode. When flying, I'd watch a movie. The media I selected also represent the various sizes of content that users typically transfer.

The four phones tested were the Apple 4-Gbyte iPhone, the RIM BlackBerry 8120, the Sony Ericsson W910i Walkman, and the Motorola Razr V2 (I also wanted to duplicate the experience of most consumers). I used the provided sync software when able and tested direct file transfer as well. Each test was conducted at least twice. The computer used was a 2-GHz Intel Core 2 Sony Vaio laptop with 2 Gbytes of RAM and USB v2.0, operating Windows XP, Service Pack 2.

This test is not designed to take the phone features into account other than to mention some prominent and relevant ones. I intended to create a fairly academic report of file transfer times.

Here's a rundown of the phones' basic features and market positioning. The table at right shows my results.

Apple 4-Gbyte iPhone
The Apple iPhone (see: Inside the Apple iPhone) is a very popular phone right now. According to Apple, more than 1 million have already been shipped. Semiconductor Insights looked at the components that made up the iPhone when it was first released. The user interface, not the components, has been the driving force behind the success of the iPhone. The 3.5-inch widescreen display, access to iTunes, and Wi-Fi and Edge connectivity position the iPhone as a multimedia device. It operates on the GSM network and offers Bluetooth.

The iPhone I used was updated to v1.02, and I used iTunes v7.4.3.1 for the transfer. Because the iPhone did not appear as a drive on my computer, I was not able to test direct file transfer.

BlackBerry 8120
The BlackBerry products have long been favorites of business-oriented consumers. The ability to check and send e-mail anywhere anytime--which can prove addictive--has earned these phones the moniker "CrackBerry." The 8120 was released in Europe, operating on the GSM network. It also has connectivity through Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The BlackBerry 8120 is available in Europe but is not yet available in North America, although the planned North American release of the BlackBerry 8130 is imminent. When transferring to the BlackBerry 8120, I used both the provided media manager software and direct file transfer.

Sony Ericsson W910i Walkman
According to Sony, the Walkman player turns phones into powerful portable music devices. The phone only comes with 35 Mbytes of memory, which is also used for the phone's software, and supports a 4-Gbyte Sony Memory Stick Micro (M2).

I had some difficulty transferring the files to the Sony Ericsson W910i. The provided software didn't seem to make matters easier, so for my first test I used direct file transfer. In the charts depicting the test results, this method is not represented, in order to keep some sort of relative scale of test results. The phone came with a memory card reader, so the second test was performed by transferring content through that external source. Fortunately, this second method of downloading content was much faster, although it requires users to have a card reader on hand.

Motorola Razr 2
The Motorola Razr 2 is the next generation of the popular Razr phone. Its sleek design has influenced the look and feel of a number of other phones currently on the market. The external display features a touchscreen for easy interactivity. The phone has 512 Mbytes of internal memory and supports Micro SD cards.

Because no file transfer software was included with the Motorola Razr 2 phone to which I had access, I transferred my files via direct file transfer.

Please remember that the values for the Sony Ericsson W910i reflect the performance of the external memory card reader and that direct file transfer rates were omitted to maintain relative scale with the other phones. Surprisingly, the BlackBerry 8120 transferred files faster than any other phone tested, despite its low name recognition in the multimedia-device market in comparison with other phones that overtly sell themselves as multimedia phones.

Why did the BlackBerry perform so well? The answer lies inside . . .

The device behind the BlackBerry's fast transfer rates is the Cypress CYWB0124AB west bridge peripheral controller. West bridge products directly connect peripherals, creating fast transfer tunnels without loading the main processor. Instead of routing files from the computer through the phone processor to the storage device, the west bridge sets up a tunnel running from the computer directly to the storage device.

This practice carries with it a number of advantages, including significant increases in transfer speeds. That can be a blessing when uploading a significant amount of content onto a phone (such as when it is first purchased or has been formatted).

This speed bonus is also a plus for those who like changing their phone's content regularly. Mobile systems today have sufficient memory to store a movie or two, some CDs, and typical phone data like contact information and pictures; but having the same movies on the phone all of the time can get wearisome, especially for frequent travelers. Being able to replace phone content quickly is therefore a big selling point.

Transferring information without activating the central processor conserves battery power. Granted, the device is plugged into a USB socket and is therefore recharging anyway. But during content transfer, the amount of time that it takes to charge the battery is lessened.

The point of this exercise was to make readers aware of transfer speeds. Think of the time saved when transferring 4 Gbytes of data to a phone. According to the average transfer rates shown earlier, the iPhone would take 23 minutes, the BlackBerry six minutes using its media manager and five minutes when using direct file transfer, the Sony 210 minutes using direct file transfer and 15 minutes via the external memory card reader, and the Razr 19 minutes.

The difference in times required by the various phones may well be the difference between drinking a cup of coffee before heading out of the house and planning out, well before leaving, the content you want available on your phone.

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