RINGTONES

Gone are the days when every mobile phone's ringer sounded the same. Today, through the internet, you can choose from literally thousands of ringtones to customize and tailor your phone. Many phones even offer you the opportunity to select a different ringer for each number in your phonebook, so you can know who's calling you just from the ringer.

However, not all ringtones are the same. Some definitions you should know include:

•  Monophonic ringtones - synthesized versions of a song, played one note at a time. This was the earliest version of ringtones.

•  Polyphonic ringtones - synthesized versions of a song, played more than one note at a time.

•  Real ringtones - actual recordings of songs or sound clips, like what you hear on a cd

Download services don't stop with just ringers. Many services offer additional features for your mobile phone, such as graphics, screensavers, wallpaper, games, and the latest trend - video ringers that not only play a song but also show a mini-video when your phone rings.

There are many factors to consider when purchasing a Hoodia supplement; some of these factors include:

•  Ease of Use.  Does the site make it easy to find what you're looking for?

•  Variety.  Does the site offer a large selection of ringtones for you to choose from?

•  Cost.  How expensive is the site, compared with others that offer similar features?

•  Mobile Phone Compatibility.  A site may have great selection and low cost, , but if it doesn't work with your mobile phone it's useless.

With personalized ringtones, your mobile phone's ringer can be a distinctive extension of you and your personality. We hope you find this information valuable in choosing the right Ringtones service for you!

Cost: Bonus:

$9.95 / month 10 free ringtones

 

Mobi Dada has a huge and unique selection of monophonic, polyphonic, realtones, and Loony tunes. They offer over 40 categories of ringtones, including such variety as 80's, Dance, Hip Hop, and Harry Potter. In addition to these standard groups, they also offer several unique categories such as TV and Film, College fight songs, and a personalized "Nametone" category which has your name being musically asked to answer the phone. Conveniently, they provide you with an option to preview any ringtone before you download it, so you can make sure the ringtone is what you want. In all, Mobi Dada offers thousands of individual ringtones, making it the largest provider of content in our review.

The company also provides an extensive selection of mobile content including the latest ringtone chart hits, games, wallpapers, and SMS chat. Customers receive monthly newsletters with new offers via text message.

The subscription cost for most plans is $9.99, which includes 40 download tokens per month. This is one of the largest download levels we've seen and represents an outstanding value in ringtone services. Tokens may be used to download ringtones and other products such as wallpapers and games. Some plans even include unlimited chat messages when you register your profile.

Customer support can be accessed through email or through a toll free number. Users can easily unsubscribe through a text message sent to the company. Customer testimonials are extremely positive for this company. Mobi Dada supports practically all mobile phone providers including Cingular, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, Alltel, Dobson, CellularOne, Nextel, and Boost.

Mobi Dada is truly a one-stop shop for quality mobile content. The website is professional and easy to navigate, and they offer a huge variety of means to customize your mobile phone. Because of the enormous selection, top quality content, and number of downloads offered per month, Mobi Dada earns our top rating.

 

Cost: Bonus:

$4.99 / month 15 free ringtones

 

Flycell provides ringtones, voice tones, and message tones, as well as wallpapers, screensavers, mobile games, and text services. This makes this website one of the most diverse ringtone download service on the web.

You can choose from polyphonic, real/tru tones, sound effects, and voice tones. Like some other sites, the realtones were not recorded by the actual artists, but were instead very close renditions performed by professional artists. You can easily search by title or artist to find any ringtone in their selection.

Flycell has some unique features, including a free official magazine that is sent to the customer's phone. This magazine provides updates on selection and services. You can also subscribe to SMS channels, which send daily text messages to the user with the latest celebrity news or jokes.

Signing up for the service is very easy. Once registered, you may then immediately begin downloading. The service provides cell phone picture identification that makes it easy to determine if your cell phone is compatible. A membership costs $4.99 a month for 5 ringtones or can be purchased individually at $1.99 a piece. Flycell provides a long list of solutions to common problems in their FAQ section and can be contacted with additional questions via email. This service supports AT&T, T-Mobile, Nextel, Cingular, Verizon, Sprint, Alltel, Boost, Dobson and Cellular One.

Flycell's website has a professional design and layout and is extremely easy to navigate. Customer testimonials are positive and frequently praise the quality and variety of the available downloads. Flycell is a reputable ringtone download site and will satisfy a wide range of customer needs.

 

Cost: Bonus:

$9.95/ month 1 free ringtone

 

Not only does Jamster provide a wide range of ringtone options, it also enables the customer to fully customize their handset to become a mobile office, game console, portable music player or a media center. Jamster is one of the first ringtone services to offer video ringtones. When your phone rings, you'll not only hear the ringtone, but also see an accompanying video clip. The company offers polyphonic, real/tru tones, and sound effects styles. While browsing Jamster the customer can preview each ringtone and see the artist's name, song title and picture of the album. This service has a unique feature that allows parents or guardians to block usage of the sites' services to any cell phone under their name. This allows parents to monitor their children's cell phone accessory charges.

Jamster has a quick reference tool that makes it easy to browse a complete list of the ringtones performed by a particular artist. The user can also use the search box to help to quickly and efficiently track down a certain song by keyword. This service offers 17 different membership plans that are generally the same price. The main service plan runs $9.99 per month, which includes two ringtone, downloads, three wallpapers, and one game a month. Other plans substitute ringtones for wallpapers, ringtones for downloads and so on. Jamster prefers that you contact them with any questions by email, but they do offer customer phone support and a helpful FAQ section.

Jamster has one of the largest databases of ringtones and downloads and is extremely easy to use. However, if your cell phone is through AT&T, Verizon, Nextel, Virgin or Quest you'll have to find a different service. Otherwise the multitude of ways this service can customize your phone is very impressive.

 

Cost Bonus:

$9.95 / month None

 

Playphone offers downloadable ringtones as well as wallpapers, games and more. The basic subscription plan is $9.99/month, which entitles the customer to 20 download credits. Users will receive 20 download credits for the first month of service (10 credits + 10 BONUS credits). For every month thereafter, users will receive 14 download credits (10 credits + 4 BONUS credits). Ringtones and wallpapers start from 1 download credit, and games start from 3 download credits. Content availability may vary depending on phone model. Like most plans, a phone with wireless web enabled and SMS enabled (short message service) account is required. Available credits will rollover to the next month making this a standout bonus.

Playphone offers a fairly large selection of polyphonic tones, realtones, and video tones are available to download. Video Tones are small videos clips that can play on your phone, use as screensaver or set as a ringer for a favorite person. An easy to use search engine makes it possible to quickly find wanted content.

Overall Playphone is an above average ringtone service. As far as selection, it cannot compete with some of the larger companies. However, it does make an impact due to monthly bonus credits and the ability to carry over unused credits. Playphone is recommended to the mainstream consumer not looking for a lot of bells and whistles but who is looking for a nice variety of downloadable ringtones.

 

Cost: Bonus:

$4.99 / month (3 month subscription) None

 

Funtonia offers two subscription plans. The customer can choose from a one-year program for $1.99/month or a three-month program for $4.99/month. Regardless of which program you choose, you pay the full amount up front as a one-time charge to your credit card. In other words, for the one-year program your credit card is charged $23.88 (=12 x $1.99) and for the 3-month program your credit card is charged $14.97 (=3 x $4.99). After you pay this one-time charge, you can download unlimited numbers of ringtones and wallpapers that you can use on up to 3 phones. This is by far appears to be the best deal on ringtones and wallpapers available as most ringtone and wallpaper services charge $9.99 per month and give you a fixed number of credits to use for downloads. With other services when your credits are used up, you must pay additional fees for additional ringtones or wallpapers.

The website offers an enormous selection of quality polyphonic tones, realtones, and wallpapers. Supported Carriers include AT&T, Cellular One, Cingular Edge, MetroPCS, Nextel, Rogers, Sprint, Suncom, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Verizon, Bell, Telus, Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Orange O2, and Virgin Mobile.

Once you've placed an order and picked a ringtone download, Funtonia sends a text message with a link to your phone. The customer must then use their phone options to go to this address and take the download. However, several customers report difficulty with the downloading process, and go so far as to describe Funtonia as a scam. The company disputes these reports by explaining that customers are downloading ringtones incorrectly.

At first glance Funtonia appears to be one of the best ringtone download services available due to a one-time charge covering unlimited polyphonic and realtone downloads. However, several customers report difficulty downloading, poor service and double billing. Although the company disputes these reports Funtonia receives an average rating due to conflicting testimonials.

 

Cost: Bonus:

$9.99 / month 1 free ringtone

 

Funmobile provides basic downloadable mobile entertainment content services including ringtones, games, graphics, news with deployment of SMS, MMS, WAP, or via the internet. The basic $9.99/month subscription plans entitles the customer 6 credits which can be used for 6 realtone downloads per month. This price/value combination puts Funmobile squarely in the middle of the pack. After entering into a subscription plan, Funmobile will transfer download credits to your account regularly on a particular subscription period basis. Unused credits may not be rolled over to the next month. Subscriptions can easily be cancelled via text message or a toll free number.

Monotones, polytones, and tru tones are available for download. The tru tones, however, are voices and sound effects and are not imitations of favorite music artists. Realtones are not available. Other services such as themes, wallpapers, and java games can be purchased as well.

The Funmobile website is easy to navigate and provides the user the opportunity to preview ringtones. Funmobile does offer a large variety of polyphonic tones at a decent price, but the overall available features lacks in comparison to the competition.

 

Cost: Bonus:

$9.99 / month None

 

Mstyle offers a large list of original and unique ringtones including human tones (people saying phrases), national anthems, and tv/film themes. The website design is sleek and appealing. Customer reviews, however, are mixed and include several warnings due to payment issues such as being double charged and charged for hidden fees. The company did not respond to these claims.

Mstyle's has limited phone compatibility and may only be used with AT&T, Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The company entices the customer with an offer of 10 complimentary polyphonic ringtones to AT&T, Cingular, and Sprint customers, but the fine print reveals that this offer will automatically enroll the customer in the ringtone and horoscope subscription plan ($9.99 + $5.99 per month). As part of the monthly ringtone club at $9.99/month, you will get credits for up to 10 ringtones or wallpapers. As part of the horoscope plan at $5.99, you will receive a daily horoscope each weekday. Users under 16 years of age require parents' permission. Unlike some of the top rated websites, unused credits will be not rolled over to the next month.

Upon first glance Mstyle appears to be a top quality site for ringtone downloads as well as other mobile content. However, when reading the fine print, subscription terms, and user warnings, it is recommended that consumers steer clear of this company.

 

Cost: Bonus:

$9.99 / month 10 free ringtones

 

Ringtone Channel offers a fairly large selection of polyphonic tones. However, most ringtone download customers are searching for unique tones and realtones, not just polyphonic tones. It appears that Ringtone Channel provides neither. The website content is sparse, and the company seems to be more focused on what they term "premium services". The first service is "Restaurant Row" which claims to be the world's largest and "most comprehensive" dining guide on mobile. Here the user can find restaurants, read reviews, make reservations and even place your order with Restaurant Row. However, this "comprehensive" list only includes restaurants in California and Arizona. The second premium service is "Sigalert" which allows the user to get the latest traffic conditions via text alert. Ringtone Channel provides customers with two text alerts a day - one for the commute to work and one for the commute back home. These are provided at the desired times and for the desired zip codes of your choice which currently apply only to areas in California and Arizona.

The basic $9.99/month subscription plans entitles the customer 10 credits which can be used for 10 downloads per month. After entering into a subscription plan, Ringtone Channel transfers download credits to your account regularly each month. Unused credits may not be rolled over to the next month. Subscriptions can easily be cancelled via text message or a toll free number. This service is only compatible with Boost, Cingular, Sprint, AT&T, Suncom, T- Mobile and Verizon mobile phone services.

Ringtone Channel is not a front runner in the ringtone download market due to the website offering only polyphonic ringtone downloads The company appears to be more focused on their premium services which are only applicable to the California and Arizona marketplace. Ringtone Channel is not recommended as place to find ringtone downloads.

 

Cost: Bonus:

$9.99 - $23.96 / month, depending on carrier None

 

Ringtone Shelf is a smaller download service that offers only polyphonic ringtones. This service is compatible with AT&T, Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint. Cingular, AT&T will be billed monthly at $19.99 and receive credits for 14 Poly Ringtones per month. Sprint will be billed weekly at $5.99 and receive credits for 4 Poly Ringtones per week and a joke delivered daily. T-Mobile users will be billed monthly at $9.99 and receive credits for 5 Poly Ringtones per month. The cost of this service makes this one of the more expensive services with fewer ringtone options than the top sites.

Users under 16 years of age require parents' permission. Unused credits will not be rolled over to next month. The charge will be billed on your wireless phone bill or deducted from your prepaid balance. Canceling the plan is easy and can be done via text message or through a toll free number.

Ringtone Shelf's website is distracting and of poor quality. Customers are not able to see all of the available ringtones without signing up for the service making Ringtone Shelf a difficult company to trust. Testimonials were below average with many people frustrated by the amount of spam sent to their phone each day. It is recommended that customers look to another ringtone download service provider.