Review: Nokia Surge
The Surge is not a multimedia phone, but the native S60 music application gets the job done well enough.
A shortcut for the music player is already in the dock when you first get the phone. Opening it up brings you to the music player's main menu. This menu lists the artists, playlists, songs, albums, etc. Using the options menu (left soft key), you can access some options from here, which include some organizational tasks such as creating playlists or moving music around.
When music is playing, the options menu lets you access the shuffle or repeat functions, as well as the EQ. There are five pre-set EQs, but the Surge also allows you to add what appears to be an unlimited number of your own presets with a five-band EQ. This is more functionality than many dedicated music phones have. I was able to dial in the exact type of sound I wanted, and let the new Devil Driver album crush my ears for a while as I wrote this review.
The rest of the controls work as expected, and the D-pad is your main controller for playing, pausing, rewinding or advancing your music. If you exit out of the music player, the Surge adds a shortcut to the phone's home screen so you can quickly pause a track if need be. You can also set tracks stored on the phone as your ringtones if so desired.
Incoming calls pause music, which resumes after the call is complete.
The one bummer is, the Surge has a 2.5mm jack for headsets. So if you want to use your own stereo music headphones other than what's provided in the box, you're going to need to buy an adapter. But then, the Surge doesn't really purport to be a music device.