Mp3 Ringtones

Portable entertainment devices are a relatively new phenomenon - they've been around for less than 10 years - that are finally reaching the maturity stage.

With this maturity comes a blending of various technologies so that individual devices have several functions. The new MP3 players can also play videos and Palm top computers have integrated audio players and cell phones.

No surprise, then, that the new crop of cell phones do much more than just take phone calls. Built-in video cameras, web browsers, data organizers and MP3 players are now part of the typical mobile phone.

The MP3s on a cell phone can be used for listening pleasure (via headphones) or as mp3 ringtones

Customized ring tones have been a feature of cell phones almost since their introduction. People love using tunes or sound effects when their phone rings so that their phone has a customized sound.

Mp3 ringtones can also be used to identify callers - one tone for family, one tone for friends, another for business.

The original ring tones were kind of crappy - monotone (one note sounding at a time) and thin sounding. Polyphonic (many notes playing at the same time) ring tones soon came to the forefront, and then we had True Tones - real audio recordings.

The first True Tone phones could play short audio clips, but as cell phone memory became bigger, it was possible to use whole songs as ring tones. The audio is usually recorded in a compressed format such as MP3, AAC or WMA and can be music, sound effects or voice recordings.

Of course, a whole song for a mp3 ringtone is a bit of an overkill since the phone will only ring for about 30 seconds or so before being diverted to voice mail. If you have limited memory on your cell phone, a bit of MP3 editing is in order.

This is quite easy to do with your computer and free software. Simply cut off the song at about 40 seconds and fade out the last 2 seconds so it doesn't abruptly cut off. Better yet, select a point where the audio can repeat and make a loop - the music will repeat endlessly while taking up relatively little memory space.

Lack of memory is definitely NOT a problem with the latest batch of cell phones. The Motorola SLVR, for example, can store up to 100 full-length songs and comes with integrated software to allow you to buy new music from the Apple iTunes Music Store.

Almost all the major manufacturers now have cell phones that double as MP3 players, and many of them also have video recorders.

These 'all-purpose' phones are just slightly more expensive than the top-of-the-line MP3 players, and about the same as video-ready Portable Entertainment Devices.

Cell-phone users have an easy choice - skip the MP3 player and get an MP3 phone instead.

You can use the MP3 ringtones and listen to music in between calls.