Die... You Crazy Frog !!! (free-ringtones-free-logos.com)

Member Name: SRowlands

Product:	free-ringtones-free-logos.com
Date:	10/01/06 (3966 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High quality ringtones and logos . . . completely FREE ! ! !

Disadvantages: There is an "Adult Section" with no warning or age restrictions !

Oh, how those flippin' "Crazy Frog" advertisements annoy me - I really hope that he ends up as a delicacy in some French restaurant. I also hope that "Nessie The Dragon" runs into a dragon-slayer in the not too distant future. And as for "Sweetie" the Chick ? Well, let's just say that it looks just about the right size for a McNugget !

Now, don't get me wrong - I have nothing against the computer generated characters themselves, (well, except for Crazy Frog !), nor the people that wish to personalise their mobile phones. My big gripe with these is the companies behind them, that saturate television airwaves with advertisements aimed at getting as much money as possible off children and teenagers... and some adults that should know better !
It is estimated that this year (2005), mobile phone users will spend over £740million downloading ringtones, music, pictures and other content to their mobiles. The ring tone market is the largest sector in this group, and that alone will earn companies around £245million. The "Crazy Frog" phenonomen is already estimated to have raked in over £15million in ring tone sales !
Apart from the cost alone, (up to £4.50 per ring tone), there is another problem with receiving messages after you have purchased a ring tone. Many of these companies will bombard you with text messages - with some even charging you for every message that they send you.

When I wanted to add a couple of ringtones to my mobile phone, I searched the internet for a reputable site that would supply a ring tone with no (or very little) cost, and yet not send you loads of junk mail and messages in return.
Typing "Free Ring tone" into a search engine such as Google or MSN Search brings up thousands of positive results. Unfortunately most of these link you to sites where - you've guessed it - you have to pay a small fortune or sign up to a regular service.
Despite my initial disappointment, I continued upon my quest to find a free ring tone supplier, and eventually I stumbled upon a site with a very promising name...

"FREE-RINGTONES-FREE-LOGOS.COM"

free-ringtones-free-logos.com is run by a company called CardboardFish, or CBF for short ! Their aim is to provide ringtones and logos for your mobile phone, along with a range of other services at no, or very little cost to the user. CBF make their money from advertising on the site - which is fairly unobtrusive and does not fill your screen with loads of pop-ups, unlike other sites.

When you first go to www.free-ringtones-free-logos.com, you are presented with the home page.
The home page looks fairly cluttered and basic, with the only graphics being banner advertisements at the top, bottom, left and right of the page. This actually has its intended effect, though. Rather than looking at the text in the middle of the screen, you really do notice the advertisements - and this should encourage companies to continue to support the site in the future.
The central section of this page contains a basic search engine to locate ringtones and logos on the site, a text poll and the opportunity to subscribe to CBF's newsletter. By subscribing, you get occasional emails from the site notifying you of updates to the website, and some exclusive offers - but they guarantee not to send unsolicited emails or sell your information to anyone else. You also have the option to unsubscribe at any time.

At the top of the page is the navigation links - clicking on these take you to different parts of the website, which are as follows...


Logos:

There are literally thousands of free logos available on this website. They are carefully split up into forty three categories, ranging from Alcohol and Animals to Movies, Football and Cartoons. Each category may also be divided into sub-categories.
The logos are generally of a very high quality, and you can even edit or personalise them before you download it to your phone.
One small critism here, and that is that there is an Adult logo section, with explicit graphics and rude words - and yet there is no warning and nothing to stop younger users going in and downloading these to their phones.

There is also a facility to create your own custom graphic and download it to your mobile.
This is done with a basic set of tools, and a pixilated screen where you can draw or write whatever you want.


Tones:

This section caters for the older mobile phones, that cannot handle the Polyphonic Ringtones (multi-channel).

There are twenty eight categories, with ringtones ranging in quality.

As with the logos, there are tools in this section that enable you to create your own ring tone and share it with your friends.
You can also download tones from a custom category, which have been created by other users on the site.


Polyphonics:

The Polyphonic Ring tone section is the most popular part of the website.
Once again, the tones are divided up into twenty eight categories, as follows...

60's - Classic songs from the Beatles and The Righteous Brothers.
70's - Music from the 70's, including ABBA and the Bee Gees.
80's - What a great era for music !! There are some fantastic tones here from the likes of Blondie, Madness, Duran Duran, UB40 and Spandau Ballet.
90's - Includes music from Take That, Pet Shop Boys and Ocean Colour Scene.
Alert Tones - These are shorter tones which can be used to inform you of text alerts. One of my favorites on here, which I recommend to everyone is the tone from the TV Series, "24", called "24CTU". It sounds just like Keifer Sutherland's phone !!
Anthems - Hmm - not such a good section... just a few national anthems.
Boybands - Blue, Busted, McFly and Westlife feature predominately in this section, so could appeal to some people.
Christmas - A must around the festive season... this section has loads of tones from Christmas's present and past. I think that virtually all the Christmas songs are here - The Fairytale Of New York will be on my phone this Christmas.
Dance - There are loads of tracks in this section from artists such as Basement Jaxx and Fatboy Slim. There are also some lesser known tracks.
Essential - Some great tracks from R Kelly, Paul Van Dyke and Kelis, amongst others, feature in this category.
Films - There are far to many great tones to mention in the film category, but they include themes from Harry Potter, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, James Bond, Kill Bill and Austin Powers.
Football - There is a small selection of music associated with football here - from terrace chants to television themes.
Girlbands - Loads of downloads from the Sugarbabes, Girls Aloud and Atomic Kitten.
Hip Hop - From Big Brovaz and Blazin Squad to Snoop Dogg and So Solid - they are all in here.
Indie - This section is huge, with music new and old from artists such as Ash, Athlete, Franz Ferdinand, REM and Radiohead.
Kids TV - It's got to be done, hasn't it ?!?! Music from Kids television from the 70's, 80's and today. "Can He Fix It ?" Yes, Bob The Builder is there, along with Balamory, The Banana Splits, Rainbow and the Muppets !!
New Tones - When new ringtones are added to the site, they appear in this section for a short time. Obviously this changes on a regular basis, but at the time of writing this, it includes Dr Dre's Xxplosive and Franz Ferdinand's Walk Away. This should be your first port of call on a regular basis.
Nu Metal - Iron Maiden, Linkin Park and Judas Priest all feature in this section, so get those heads banging !!
Oldies - ... but goodies. Songs in this collection include some all time classics from Elvis, Elton other artists present and past.
Pop - A huge section that has outgrown itself, and has had to roll over into the next category...
Pop 1 - ... which includes songs from the 80's up to the present day ! Again, there are far too many to mention, but chances are that you'll find what you're looking for in here.
Punk - With Green Day, Blink 182 and The Offspring, this section has a lot of modern punk covered. Unfortunately it currently lacks original punk music.
R&B - Some top tracks from Nelly, TLC and Craig David, among others.
Rock - Air guitars at the ready !! With tracks from Bon Jovi, Foo Fighters and the Rolling Stones, you'll be strumming away in no time.
Solo Men - Bryan Adams, Elton John, David Sneddon and Enrique are just waiting to satisfy you women...
Solo Women - ... whilst us guys have the likes of Alex Parks, Dido, Britney Spears, J Lo, Kylie and many others !! ( :o) )
Themes - A bit of a mixture here, but it includes themes from computer games, movies and adverts that could not otherwise be classified. (How would you classify the excellent Pearl and Dean cinema theme ?!?)
TV Themes - Another "must download" category. With tones such as "Murder She Wrote", "Only Fools and Horses" and "Jim'll Fix It", you'll spend a lot of time browsing these !


Downloading Tones & Logos:

Downloading both ringtones and logos are done in a very similar way. After you have selected what you want to download, you are given the option to preview it. With the tones, this opens a media player on your computer, and the track will play.
If you are sure that this is the one that you want, you click on a button marked "Continue".
You then need to enter your mobile phone number (and a friends if you wish to send it to them), your network (all major networks are supported), and the format of polyphonic tone you require. Most phones (Nokia, Motorola, Sony etc) use a format called SP Midi, whereas Samsung use a format called SMAF/MMF.
The next page gives you the instructions on how to get it onto your phone, although this is very simple. On your phone, you need to access your WAP services, and enter the URL http://d1m.net. This then takes you to a simple page, where you have to enter a short code that is given to you on the next page.
Once this is done, the ring tone / logo downloads, and you just save it to your phone.
Whilst CBF do not make any charge for this service, you may incur a small charge from your service provider, who often charge to view WAP sites and download information. I have checked with the major providers, and the typical cost will be around 10p per tone - even on pay-as-you-go ! This is a massive saving over the sites that charge up to £4.50 per tone !


Other Services:

As well as the logos and ringtones, CBF also offer two other main services...

SMS: As if the free ringtones and logos were not enough, the site also allows you to send free SMS messages to mobiles ! Rather than paying up to 12p per message, you can access this free service which allows you to send messages to your friends.
According to the conditions, you agree not to use any pop-up blocker on the site, as when sending a text message, an advertisement will appear in a separate window. Your message will also carry the CBF website details, so your actual text message will be limited to a respectable 137 characters.
The text message will normally be sent within a few seconds, and the screen will display a message when the text has been successful.
There is also a facility to receive replies to your text via the website. After sending your message, you will be given a code to allow this to be done - although at the time of writing this, the service was unavailable.

WAP Download: This service is excellent, yet not very well publicized on the site. WAP Download allows you to transfer items from your PC to you phone. Say, for example, you had a photograph of your kids or puppy on your PC that you would like as wallpaper on your phone. You could simply upload that image to CBF and then, using the same retrieval method as the tones and logos, download it to your phone. Size and file type are limited, but I have had no problems at all with this service. Best yet - you've guessed it - it's totally free !! (Except for the usual service provider charge !!).


All that you need to use these services are a PC, (which I guess if you're reading this online shouldn't prove a problem), and a WAP enabled mobile phone.
WAP is a smaller form of the internet that is accessible over the mobile phone network, and most modern phones have access to this. You will need to be able to type in a URL (or website address), which if you do not know how to do this, your phone's reference manual should be able to help.


The only drawback to the site is the presentation - yet it's hard to criticize this when the service and downloads are so good and totally free of charge.
The site is generally very fast, easy to navigate and updated on a regular basis.
Also, considering that this site's main source of income is the advertisements, these are fairly inconspicuous and do not interfere with your use of the site in any way.

Overall, I cannot recommend "www.free-ringtones-free-logos.com" enough. I estimate that I have downloaded around 100 tones and downloads since I have been using this site, which I reckon has saved me between £300 and £500 !!
I would strongly urge any mobile phone user who wants to personalise their phone to check this site out - especially teenagers (or parents of teenagers) who are currently the biggest users of these services !!

Summary: At last - a site with free ringtones... and no catches !