New Phone for Sprint Could be This Year's "It" Phone

Sprint kicked off Samsung Upstage, the first U.S. version of the cell phone with the split personality, the Samsung Ultra Music. In an event designed to, ahem, upstage the competition, Sprint said the Upstage (aka the Samsung SPH-M620) would go on sale for $149 with a two-year contract, scheduled for the first week of April.

The Upstage features a unique and innovative dual-sided design that successfully integrates a cell phone and an MP3 player into one device. CNET is reporting that it has its quirks to be sure but on the whole it's a sleek, satisfying device with admirable performance. Industry insiders are saying the Upstage has the potential to be a cell phone industry trend setter. And though it can't match the Apple iPhone on the hype factor it already has two things the Apple handset lacks: wireless music downloads and support for 3G networks.