Cell phones that allow custom ringtunes?

[Kaisha]

Unsure if this should be in Technical or General, but for now it'll remain here.


Anyways, I've been on the hunt lately for a cellphone and provider for awhile, and having just recently returned one to a Rogers provider after seeing how stupidly thought-out the one I chose was.
(I'll just keep quiet on that manner though since it's a lengthy rant)

For some reason, I can find me cellphones that allow you to assign a specific ringtune to anyone on your contact list, but as far as the ringtunes go themselves, you either have to pay out the ass for new ones from your provider specifically, or deal with the horrific sounding built-in midi tunes, or you have to go out of your way and text it to yourself and hope your cell even accepts it from there.

So what I'm asking is, does anyone know of a decent phone with your usual features (cam/video, music/pictures, etc) that supports expandable storage (preferably mini SD) that actually has a brain and can play MP3/OGG files for said ringtunes directly from the media storage?

I'm almost tempted to pay the extra load for a smart phone at this rate since I can't find a phone that suits my criteria of not requiring me to pay more for what I should be able to do for free.


Some recommendations on providers would be nice if anyone has a word to share. Located in Canada here, but I'm assuming the plans are roughly the same across North America. Been looking at some student plans for Telus/Rogers, and both will be running me around $50 a month for basically regular phoning and base features, which I felt was somehow a little on the high side?

[Kurt Cobain]

I used a Motorola V3 Razr for god knows how long and I was able to play mp3s on it, I used some freeware audio editor, edited down my mp3s and sent them to my phone via bluetooth, never had any problem and my phone was $50 with a contract and I got it when they were still big, that shit should be free now. Its a good phone, I used it when I was on a budget, now have an iPhone and fucking hate the limited ringtone ability without jailbreaking it, people find workarounds and an itunes update to fix it comes out, sucks

oops, meant to include that I was able to specify what ringtone played when certain people called, like you wanted

[Kaisha]

Good to hear the Razr v3 does allow it, but when I was looking at the thing in the store, it looks fragile as all bloody hell. I can just picture accidentally dropping it once and watch the flip-phone portion of it break right off.
(and yeah, it was cheap, but only if you went with a 3-year contract)

[Fuja]

Every newer Sony Ericsson plays mp3s. But I don't know how expensive it would be for you. Can just transfer the songs you want from your computer. At least here they come with a USB cable and a cd with the software for transferring.

[Skjie]

My Blackberry Pearl allows MP3s to be played as ringtones, using an online program (http://www.cellsea.com/media/rtindex.htm) , I could upload a full MP3, and cut it to where I wanted the ringtone to be and then access it from my blackberry, to download and use.

Edit: as for plans (in Canada), I have a $75 unlimited data plan with Telus (fave 5, evening/weekends, and a bunch of other stuff), but I'm not sure you can still get the deal that I have.

[Kurt Cobain]

I dropped my Razr down 2 flights of concrete stairs and it still worked up until the day I trashed it for my iPhone (crack in the screen but readable) <_< on top of other numerous incidents that it survived

[Woozie]

One time a microscopic molecule of water came within 100 miles of my Razr and it never worked again due to water damage.

I mean seriously, I know people who have put electronics in the freakin washing machine and they still worked, yet my Razr breaks down so easily.

And motorola and verizon both refused to replace it because my warranty doesn't cover water damage.

[Shuemue]

I have a cheapo Sony Ericsson k800i, my ringtone is an mp3 direct from my 4gb M2 memory card, if my fairly basic model can do it, I'm sure all the newer ones can.

[octopus]

In case anybody wonders, for the iphone, you just take an aac format audio file, and rename it to .m4r, and there's your ringtone.

[izembo]

i use a motorolla w490 and have no issues doing it

[Akucaen]

It's a couple years old, but my Nokia 6255i did it out of the box. Load any size MP3 on the SD Card and it'll play it as a ringtone.

[Cesaria]

I've got a Motorola (can't remember the model number but it's the flip model that came out after the original wider Razrs) and it can do it. It's also pretty indestructible since it survives falling out of pockets quite regularly, kids picking it up and fiddling with it and general abuse that I give to mobile phones.
On the subject of phones and water - a friend dropped hers in the swimming pool where we used to work, fished it out and it worked, then managed to drop it in again while putting the bits back together after the first dry out... the second dunking killed it.

[Sigi]

thirded on the durability of the Razr/W490. All recent Motorola phones are able to use mp3s as ringtones- you might have to do some torrenting for the software, but it's not that hard to find. Also, the W490 can directly link with computers (uses a MiniUSB-B connector for charging/data transfer) and you can just drag n drop via Windows Explorer.

As for durability of the W490- I have dropped it, ran over it with my car, cats have used as a toy, and it's perfectly fine (No lcd cracks, nothing)

[Kaisha]

Given what I've looked at with regards to pricing and plans, it looks like I may have to end up with a Motorola KRZR, which for the most part pretty much covers everything I need (and a couple additional software-specific add-ons from the provider I'm looking at signing up with), and doesn't look like it'd break on the first drop.

Probably going to end up getting a 3-year contract for it to last me the rest of college, then perhaps swap it out for whatever's new then.
(Hopefully smartphones will have overtaken standard cellphones entirely by then)

[EagleCeres]

RAZR V3XX here.
mp3's will work as ringtones as long as they are under 1min:30sec in length, pretty much any bitrate will do (most of mine are around 128kbps) and are not hueg like xbox filesizes.

mine has taken a few hits, dents and dings in the almost 2 years since i got it, no complants about the sound (is still good and loud) tho it's stopped vibrating within the last 2 months ^_^;

[Moridam]

LG VX9100, mine can play custom ringtones, but since it's a Verizon phone, I think it took a bit of work to pull it off.

The phone itself does MP3 playback, but afaik I was never able to get them working as ringtones. I had to use the same trick I did on my previous Verizon phone, which involved editing a ~30sec sample from an MP3 file, saving it as .wav, renaming it as .mid, and then transferring it to my phone.

Tremendous pain in the ass really, haha. The upside was at least this phone allows file transfer via bluetooth. My old phone required sending them as email attachments which sometimes took hours to actually show up on my phone.

This is all from the internal storage, btw. It may allow ringtones for MP3s stored on SD cards, but I don't have one to test it with.

[The Blackrose]

Motorola V3M here. The night I got the phone, I went in and ripped out all the Verizon crap and enabled features of the phone that they forcefully disable. Works like a charm. Have dropped her once or twice with no problems what so ever.

http://www.hacktherazr.com is your best friend.

[Kaisha]

Does no company ever bother writing their fucking software for Mac?

Fourth cell my family has had/owned, and all of them shipped with the propriety software for PC only, with no mention of a Mac version on their site. *sigh*

I got a KRZR now, and in the middle of figuring out how to mount it as a USB device so my damn Mac can read it as so I don't have to keep taking my cover/battery-cover off to take the memory card out to then hook up to my card reader to upload my junk to.
(it complains about being unable to read its format)

This phone also apparently doesn't support custom ringtunes without going out of your way of making it so, so I'm fairly pissed off right now at the situation since I was told otherwise by more than one person.