Yesterday I got a review copy of Sprint's new music phone, the LG-made Muziq.  The handset is a follow-up to the LG Fusic, one of my favorite mid-range music phones of the past year or so (even if some people didn't like it so much).

I spent an hour or so playing with Muziq last night, and so far I really like it.  It's sleeker, trimmer, and better looking than Fusic, has a revamped UI that's easy on the eyes, and is compatible with all of Sprint's fancy multimedia services, including their industry-leading music store and Sprint TV.  The external touch controls trigger vibrations for haptic feedback, which is pretty cool, and the main display is big and clear.  Plus, it supports 4GB microSD memory cards and is priced at a reasonable $99 with a two-year contract.

On the one hand, it's not a state-of-the-art super high-end handset.  On the other hand, upon first glance Muziq does just about everything you could ask a non-smartphone to do, and it's smaller and lighter than most smartphones.  And it does it all over Sprint's super-fast EV-DO network, which means I went from browsing the music store to listening to a freshly downloaded tune in the span of about 90 seconds (and 99 cents + tax).  It also features a nifty pop-up On Demand window that lets me check the weather forecast from the home screen.  Honestly, that's one of the more useful cell phone innovations I've seen in awhile.

Read - Muziq Press Release: sprint.com/mr/news_dtl.do?id=17220