Just in time for the holiday season, Verizon Wireless has introduced a new device geared towards budget conscious music lovers, the Samsung SCH-U470, also known as the Juke. The Juke is basically a music player that just happens to also be a phone. Does the music centric Samsung Juke have what it takes to make it into little Johnny's stocking this holiday season? Verizon's Samsung U470 Juke is a hip and trendy MP3 styled device specifically designed with the younger crowd in mind. Its small and compact design, along with a spinning d-pad, makes this device this seasons must have. The Juke is slightly bigger than a pack of Wrigley's stick gum and is offered in a glossy hue of teal, red, or navy. For this review, we were provided with a mild manner navy blue version. The front face of the Juke is mirrored and surrounds the brightly colored 1.45" 262k (128x220 pixel) external display. For such a small display, the Juke's screen rendered photos and menus nicely. The Juke's main attraction, the metallic scroll wheel d-pad, worked wonderfully and made navigation a joy. When the device is closed, the Juke's music player can be activated with a quick press and hold of the wheel's select/OK key. The music player's menu will pop up in landscape mode, showing the Juke's music library and its list of music files. It should be noted that the Juke supports MP3/WMA/AAC/AAC+ but does not support any files from Apple's iTunes.
On the left side of the Juke is where both the covered headset and charging ports are found, as well as the lock/hold switch for the Juke's music player, which comes in handy when listening to tunes on the go. Jumping over to the right side, things are kept to a minimum with the phone's volume rocker. The rocker not only adjusts the volume but also quickly puts the Juke in vibrate or silence mode. Around back sits the device's speaker and VGA fixed focus camera lens. The speaker, when tested, provided reasonable sound quality during playback.