Samsung's SCH-A950 brings a jaunty jog-dial navigator to Verizon's V Cast downloadable music service and has plenty of power for a Verizon phone. If you're looking to play Windows Media format songs on your phone, it'll be tough to choose between this model and the LG VX8100, though we still prefer the Motorola E815 as our overall favorite Verizon model.

The SCH-A950 is a slightly bulky 4-ounce flip phone, but as long as you like its tomato-red color, it's still attractive. When it's flipped closed, there's a color screen on the outside that doubles as a camera viewfinder, a large jog wheel with music-control buttons under it, and two oval-shaped stereo speakers on either side at the top. On the sides of the phone, you'll find volume buttons, a TransFlash memory card slot, and a camera button. Flip the phone open to find a bright, medium-sized, 176-by-220 screen and a keypad of very close-set buttons, including a dedicated speakerphone key.

The A950 connects calls as well as the competing LG VX8100 does, though it isn't quite up to the Motorola E815's reception standards. The earpiece and especially the speakerphone (which works with the flip open or closed) are unusually loud and clear. As on most Verizon phones, the Bluetooth functionality is crippled; it works with headsets, but not for dial-up networking or file transfer. Our A950 worked well with both Logitech and Plantronics headsets. It uses VoiceSignal's excellent voice-dialing technology, which requires no training.

One problem you should be aware of: Our first A950 had more audio dropouts than we found acceptable. Verizon sent us a second one which didn't have that problem, so we're not downgrading the phone's rating. If your A950's audio drops out more than you'd like, Verizon lets you exchange the phone, no questions asked, within the first 15 days of usage.

The A950's flagship feature is Verizon's V Cast Music store, where you can either download songs for $1.99 each over the phone or sync your music from a PC with Windows Media Player 10 using a $29.99 add-on kit. The phone doesn't natively support MP3 files—the kit converts all your music to WMA format when it transfers the songs to the phone. The phone's stereo speakers play music at pretty high volume, and you can listen to music through a wired headset, but using a Bluetooth headset. You also can't assign your own music as ringtones, a typical Verizon move.

The on-phone V Cast interface is almost painfully sluggish, but V Cast Music is still the most elegant and complete music-phone solution available today. You can use the buttons on the outside of the phone's flip to play phone-created playlists. Unfortunately, the jog dial is tragically underused; its only functions are to scroll through a set of playlists and to fast-forward or rewind a song while paused. We would have loved to see a jog-dial interface that would have let us manipulate more of the phone's functions with the flip closed.

The SCH-A950's 1.3-megapixel camera takes very sharp, if slightly dim, indoor photos and very sharp, if slightly overexposed, outdoor shots. It's better than the VX8100's camera. The camcorder mode takes the usual videos you see on most phones, at 176-by-144 and 15 frames per second, and you can save photos and videos to the TransFlash card for easy transfer to your PC.

We downloaded Need For Speed Most Wanted, a 3D game, and it played with aplomb, as did TV news clips from the V Cast Video service. For serious gaming, however, you may want to check out the VX8100 because of its better-spaced keys.

The Motorola E815 and Motorola RAZR V3c are still our favorite Verizon phones, largely because of their excellent reception and voice quality. They also play MP3s, although they don't sync with Verizon's music store. If you're looking for a V Cast Music phone, it makes sense to compare the A950 with the very similar LG VX8100. The phones are about the same size, with similar stereo speakers and screens. The VX8100 uses the more convenient miniSD memory-card format and has a better-spaced keypad. Verizon offers a modem plan for the VX8100 that lets you use the phone to connect your laptop to their high-speed EV-DO service. On the other hand, the A950 has better battery life and a better camera than the VX8100.