IF YOU'RE a television junkie who's constantly on the move, Samsung's P960 mobile TV phone is a great mate.
With it, you can watch shows on the six-channel mobile TV service by MediaCorp and its partners SingTel, MobileOne and StarHub. The service is into its second month of trial.
The slider, sporting a metallic casing and a 2.6-inch screen, shows no pixellated images previously seen on TV broadcasts across 3G networks.
In a daily CNBC news broadcast, for instance, I could easily identify the text on the scrolling news ticker. In soccer matches, the football was easily seen.
This could be because the content is transmitted in a higher bit rate but the phone's colourful 262k screen and clear audio also helped.
To access Mobile TV, just pull out the antenna and press a button. Once the signal is located, a menu pops up on the horizontal (the default mode for viewing mobile TV) screen, allowing users to navigate easily with the four-way control.
Despite the phone's slight heft, there is a balanced grip to it, be it with the slider open or close.
The only annoyance is the antenna, which needs to be extended to twice its length to receive the TV signals. Otherwise, it would take a longer time to get a reception and while the device still works with the antenna halfway out, transmission stops the moment you retract it.
With the service using only one phone in its trial, it's hard to tell if any signal drop was because of the transmission or the phone itself.
For all channels, there is an occasional image pause. This happens randomly but it's especially bad on Channel 5 where the audio and video are rarely in sync.
There is also a hidden seventh channel, which is technically not TV as it plays only 987FM. Apparently, this option was added to allow advertisers to stream offers and discounts on screen to radio listeners.
My bugbear is the headphones - they use a proprietary connector, which means you cannot use your favourite ear gear.
Ambient noise has always been a problem when it comes to listening to dialogue on normal headphones and I wish Samsung had given users a choice to switch to their own.
As it is, I can barely hear the shows even with the headphone volume turned up to the maximum.
Final say
The hardware is definitely primed to deliver. Now all it takes is for broadcasters to deliver good content to make the effort worthwhile.
Trial set on loan from MobileOne; product availability depends on mobile TV service
This article was first published in Digital Life, The Straits Times on Sep 24, 2008.
