Crave

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

You want to take your tunes on the road, but headphones don't always cut it, and even the smallest home speakers and receivers/amplifiers aren't portable. Technology has come to the rescue with a new breed of portable speakers that sound a lot better than the tinny models you might remember from the Walkman days. These useful devices are the hot ticket for travelers, dorm rooms, the beach, or the office; they plug into iPods, MP3 players, and laptops' headphone jacks, with sound that can easily fill a small to medium-size room.

It's also true that you can get much better sound with a decent set of headphones, which are even more portable and have deeper bass, superior treble detail, and better stereo imaging. But headphones are best appreciated alone. Portable speakers are ideal for social settings where you want to share your tunes with a few others or when you're milling around your hotel room getting ready for a night out on the town. Below you'll find the Top 10 contenders that have been reviewed by CNET. Some are perfect for frequent travelers, while others are best suited for the office or trips to the beach, and all of them have the option of being powered from built-in or replaceable batteries.

Top 10 portable speakers--photos

(Credit: Radius)

If you own a cell phone with a music player built in, the best way to take advantage of both capabilities is with a stereo headset. That is, a pair of headphones with an integrated mic and call-answer button.

Plenty of music phones offer stereo Bluetooth capability, which lets you take calls and listen to music through a headset without pesky wires getting in the way. But at this stage in the game, the sound quality is generally not going to be as good as what you can get through a decent wired set.

Better yet, wired headsets are often cheaper than the Bluetooth competition. We've rounded up options for every price range.

Check out headphones for music phones.

(Credit: Shure)

Purists might not like it, but mobile phones and MP3 players are converging at a record pace. Even reputable professional audio companies are starting to take notice, as evidenced by Shure's latest personal earphone offering, the SE102 MPA.

The $99 sound-isolating set comes bundled with an extension cable with an inline mic and call button, so it's designed to play nice with your iPhone or other music phone. The SE102s aren't the best Shure earbuds we've laid ears on--the type and number of ear fittings is limited and audio is a bit brittle at times--but they're still a big improvement over the sets that come with most music mobiles.

Read the full Shure SE102 MPA review.

(Credit: CompUSA)

In the perfect world that exists only inside my head, all cell phones and MP3 players incorporate A2DP, also known as stereo Bluetooth. Consequently, they're all compatible with stereo Bluetooth headsets like the Jabra BT8010, which CNET rated 8/10, and which CompUSA and TigerDirect (different outfits, same owner) currently have on sale for $37.99. That's a pretty big savings over the original $149 list price.

During business hours, the BT8010 functions as a fairly standard headset, albeit one with a cool OLED display and jog dial. When you want to get your groove on, you just connect the second earpiece and presto: stereo earbuds. Once you've experienced the joy of walking around with your phone in your pocket and music piping wirelessly into your head, you'll never go back to corded headphones.

Just make sure your phone supports A2DP. Many models do, but for some reason it's not available on all handsets (cough iPhone cough). And it's pretty much AWOL on MP3 players, which mystifies me because, as I may have mentioned, wireless earbuds are suh-weet.

I've got a BT8010, and I'd rate it 7 out of 10. The headset is a overly susceptible to ambient noise and a little uncomfortable over long stretches. But for $37.99 (plus a reasonable $6.99 for shipping), it's a hard deal to beat.

(Credit: Philips)

As the mobile phone industry churns out new handsets every day, the opportunities to distance a product from the massive pack can seem infinitesimal. For that reason Philips deserves some credit for trying some new tricks on the Chinese market.

Its latest offering, the M600, attempts to capitalize on the continuing evolution toward music devices with a design that looks almost more like a media player than a phone. Not only does it have a giant play button just above the keypad, according to SlashPhone, but it also features MP3 hotkeys, 40 hours of playback, and the same "SRS WOW" equalizer technology that's featured in Bang & Olufsen's high-end "Serenata" music phone.

Other features of the GSM candy bar handset include a 2-inch display, 1.3-megapixel camera, microSD card slot, Bluetooth, and Java game support. The phone is available only in China at the moment but hints that it may be headed for other lands because it accepts text in English, French, Russian, and Turkish.

(Credit: Crave UK)

At a swanky meeting yesterday, we got to play with Nokia's glossy new Xpress Music handsets, the 5320 and the 5220. Both are set to be affordable, mid-range models available from the third quarter of this year in the U.K. During our swift fondling sessions with the phones, we formed some early opinions.

Firstly, and most importantly as far as music phones are concerned, Nokia told us it has put brand-new audio chips inside these two new models to improve sound quality over previous handsets. This is a sensible decision, as more people are turning to mobiles as their primary music players. For some inane reason, the phones were on display with headphones that can only be described as utter bullshizzle, so we couldn't judge for ourselves whether the new chips were making a real difference.

Another good move was the decision to shift the native 3.5-millimeter headphone socket to the bottom of the handsets, as opposed to the side-mounted design seen on the N95, for example. The 5320 also has dedicated side-mounted gaming keys for use with N-Gage software, which felt very natural to use when we had a swift play. It also supports up to 8GB of microSD memory and HSDPA, but not Wi-Fi.

Both phones were easy to use, with decent keypads, good screens, and ergonomic designs, although we weren't all that keen on the 5220's asymmetrical look. The 5320 had a curious "Say and Play" feature that lets you speak the artist or song you want to listen to, and the handset automatically plays it. To our genuine surprise, it worked when we tried it out. How this will function in real-life situations, however, remains to be seen. Our "friends" yelling "Daphne and Celeste!" at us will get old pretty quickly.

Curiously, there was no confirmation of whether the 5320 or 5220 would support Nokia's Comes With Music service. However, both handsets are certainly a step in the right direction for Nokia, most notably because of their well-positioned headphone sockets and upgraded audio chips.

(Source: Crave UK)

(Credit: Crave UK)

We've had Sony Ericsson's W380i strapped to our heads for a fair while now and, while it's not quite as inveigling as Jaffa Cakes, it's given us numerous happy times. In fact, as clamshells go, it's pretty snazzy. True, it's a music phone that needs an adaptor just to use normal headphones, but it's still more enjoyable to use than, say, something like the Nokia N95, which sports a native 3.5-millimeter adapter.

Aesthetics aside, the W380i is easy to use as an MP3 player--its dedicated Walkman button gives quick access to your music library, and side-loading MP3s to the removable Memory Stick is a piece of cake with either the bundled software or simple drag 'n' drop through Windows. There's no support for DRMed content from the likes of Napster or iTunes of course, but MP3s from 7digital or eMusic work just fine.

Sound quality-wise, we weren't hugely impressed. Although Sony's MP3 Walkman range continually blows us away with stellar quality, the W380i does not. If you really don't have a critical ear, you won't take issue, as it's perfectly acceptable for a phone.

But if you've invested in decent earphones and fancy this model as your sole MP3 player, we'd advise otherwise--music sounds a little flat, with less detail and power than we'd expect from even a dedicated player. There's a tiny element of distortion too, perhaps a result of the proprietary headphone adapter. Also, only MP3 is supported--there's no love for WMA or even gapless playback.

Music aside, the phone's a treat. Large-ish flat buttons are easy to depress, meaning texting can be done in seconds. It's a responsive piece of kit, with no notable lag between button presses and system response--something that would otherwise anger the hell out of you as you try and blast out a quick e-mail on the train.

You've also got a simple Web browser, RSS feed reader, 3D games support (for those of you who are so addicted to The Sims 2 you need to play it on a bus), a low-end 1-megapixel camera, FM radio, and a the usual office-esque apps you'd expect.

Make sure your seat belts are fastened, as our full review will be with you very soon. For those of you already desperate for one, you can snag a W380i on a monthly contract or pay as you go from a number of networks right about now, funk soul brothers (and sisters).

(Source: Crave UK)

(Credit: Crave Asia)

Nokia has announced two new models from its Xpress Music mobile phone lineup for Asia. The 5320 Xpress Music comes with a dedicated audio chip onboard and HSDPA connectivity, while the 5220 Xpress Music features a built-in lanyard. A built-in what, you say? Anyway, we're not sure how this looks since this is probably the first time we've hear of a phone with a lanyard that's not removable, though we suspect it's probably the eyelet Nokia is referring to. Both handsets sport dedicated music keys, 3.5-millimeter audio jacks, deliver up to 24 hours of playback time and are expected to be available in Asia by the end of June or July.