A Look at How Samsung Surpassed Nokia and Motorola With the Launch of UpRoar, the World’s First Phone With an MP3 Player

Phones have evolved into smart devices that can, in many ways, replace other products such as cameras, music players, and digital planners. Those of you who are of a certain age may remember the moment when then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to introduce the iPhone. He said, “An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator … These are not three separate devices. This is one device.”

When Apple’s iPhone was released in 2007, it marked a true revolution and led to the decline of some established industry players, like BlackBerry. However, the iPhone didn’t pioneer many of the features it became known for. In fact, Samsung was the first company to launch a phone with a built-in MP3 player. In 2000, the South Korean company released the Samsung SPH-M100 (also known as the Samsung UpRoar), which featured this new capability.

Samsung SPH-M100, the First Phone With MP3 Player

The iPod didn’t even exist at the time, and the first version didn’t arrive until 2001. Although a few portable MP3 players were available, such as the MPman F10 and the Rio PMP300, people generally listened to MP3 songs on their computers. If you wanted to listen to music on the go, one hugely popular option was Sony’s CD Walkman.

After more than a decade in stores, phones had evolved significantly in the early 2000s. They were no longer big and heavy like the legendary Motorola DynaTAC 8000X or the Nokia 2010. New devices were already smaller, lighter, and sleeker. The next natural step was incorporating more features. Samsung thought it would be a good idea to add MP3 playback functionality. It finally materialized with the SPH-M100, although it had several limitations.

More from Xataka On

Neuralink’s ‘Impossible’ Challenge Isn't a Brain Implant. It's a ‘Pied Piper’ and MP3 Players

The UpRoar phone had 32 MB of internal memory, which allowed it to store around 10 MP3 songs. To maximize the available storage, you could encode the files at a bitrate below 128 Kbps. To transfer music files to the device, you needed to use a cable included in the box, connecting the phone to your PC’s parallel port. Additionally, you couldn’t simply drag and drop the songs. Instead, you had to use Samsung’s MP3 Manager program.

Samsung also provided a headset with a built-in microphone, which owners could use for phone calls and listening to music. The headphones featured four buttons that allowed you to answer or end calls, play or pause music, and skip to the next track or go back to the previous one. If you received a call while listening to music, the playback would automatically pause. However, once the call was over, you would have to resume the music manually. In addition, the device promised up to 10 hours of continuous audio output.

When it was released, the UpRoar phone was certainly an interesting option. However, it catered to a specific audience. It was considered a premium device, priced at $400 (which is over $730 today). The phone is currently available on eBay, with prices ranging from $99 to $299. However, it remains uncertain whether it’ll attract the attention of collectors like other products have.

Image | Samsung

Related | A Developer Has Just Taken the Concept of ‘Retro’ to a New Level by Creating a Physical Winamp Player