Samsung Suede

Samsung Suede

The Samsung Suede ($79.99-199.99), the first phone with Muve Music, is the beginning of a very good thing. Muve Music brings the idea of unlimited, downloadable music to the lowest price ever. It's buggy and frustrating, and the Suede isn't a great cell phone. But if Cricket brings this service to more handsets, it could have a real winner here. Rhapsody and Zune have been doing the "unlimited mobile music" thing for a while, but Cricket is targeting a new market with users who can't afford super-expensive smartphone service plans. At $55 per month for unlimited talk, text, Web, and music with no contract, Muve should appeal to budget-conscious mobile music lovers. The idea is brilliant, and Cricket's ability to deliver at this price should be celebrated. But this is a barely a Version 1.0 product; Muve right now is a buggy mess, full of errors and only available on one mediocre phone. It needs some serious work. The Samsung Suede is part of that irritating species of feature phone which has a touch screen, but lacks the processor and apps to make the most of it. Phone makers: Either install a fast processor, or just build a nice flip or a QWERTY texter.