[miffed]

http://www.msmobilenews.com/page/1313/

Forget paying your network for TV - You have already paid for it once with your TV licence ! / Sky subs etc

Grab yourself one of these little beauties and snatch the TV signals right out of the ar - for nowt ! (assuming you are in a strong Freeview area , of course

http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/viewProduct.do?productId=3A2C7338-74FB-44A9-96B0-B008677B0E42

Got to love HTC :o

[maxspank]

I was looking at this the other day. Looks like a good little phone, great for TV, and also picks up DAB radio.

[getti]

its crap!.

Problem is the UK only has streaming at 40k-60k which means you get a low framerate and slight pauses.

To be honest a 3G TV connection is better. I have used the Virgin phone and used Sky TV or ITV on 3 and the 3G TV is far better although worse for battery

[miffed]

Ah , my mistake - I thought it was a self sufficent TV tuner built into the phone - not another garbage "Add on" streaming service :confused:

[Ben]

...but it *is* a tuner built into the phone, isn't it?

...and isn't it broadcast, not streaming?

Have you seen one in action, getti?

[miffed]

Further investigation reveals that the channels are broadcast over DAB frequencies - not sure what sort of bandwidth this permits - but I am sure I have heard 128-192kbps quoted ( have no Idea whether or not this is accurate by any means )
Nice to see someone sticking their neck out with something different though :

[miffed]

some video demos here -

http://www.coolsmartphone.com/article696.html

.... well I'm impressed if no-one else is !

[miffed]

Just bought one of these !

If you go here and get a code

http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/lifestyleLanding.do


...Then go to the shop , buy one of these (already pretty bargainous at £99 )

Then the code will give you £20 off ( well , 20% off)

So ... for your £80 , you'll get a windows mobile smartphone with a 1.3mp camera - DAB radio (c/w stereo headset ) - TV free for 4 months( ITV1 / BBC1 /ITN NEWS /E4 / CHANNEL FOUR CLIPS ) PLUS £35 free credit !!

Pretty good if you ask me !

Note - Although I knew about the above deal , I actually bought mine as an implulse buy while in the Virgin megastore this morning ( £99 including £25 credit ) :( ..... oops !

[Hands0n]

That is extraordinary value :cool: even if you don't want the TV! That means that the handset is actually costing the punter £45. Obviously they're not selling it too well then!

So what is the risk? Is this akin to 3 selling off their lame-duck PAYGs a couple of years back? Or is it truly of any value as a mobile phone with bells, whistles and a little bit of TV to get you by :) My own personal jury is out, but gosh I'm tempted, really tempted ............. This could be my first irrelevant (i.e. I don't need it, but what has need got to do with anything) "toy" of 2007 :D

I quite like the "Free until October 2007 BBC TV" - that alone would be enough to interest me, providing I don't have to pay £5 per month for the overall TV package.

Twitch, twitch ......... resistance is futile! :p

[miffed]

Yes , at the end of the day - even £80 for a Windows smartphone alone is good value - OK so it's looks are a bit quirky , but as far as a smartphone is concerned it is at least an equal to the other HTC smartphones

The sound quality of the DAB radio is excellent too - So lets just say £80 for an ugly WM5 smartphone with a built in DAB radio !

[Hands0n]

Feck! Couldn't resist :D I just went and ordered one online. It will be here on Saturday between 9am and 5pm.

Virgin's website is being right flaking at the moment. I persisted and after a few goes managed to go through the entire online order process. Its quite painless really. And I'm now £82.98 lighter (having applied the promotional order code for the £20 off).

I quite like DAB radio and was going to buy one for a similar amount. Soooooooo, stretching things a bit, this solves that particular point at a stroke and gives me a handheld pooter to play with plus a bit of TV.

Ugly you say? You never saw my second girlfriend!

Edit: Unlocking the Lobster 700TV: As usual I looked around to find out details of how to unlock the Lobster 700TV. Ideas are thin on the ground, there are some commercial services selling unlock codes for around £20 - 25. But there are also several people stating that if you top up with £30 airtime that Virgin will supply you with a Unlock code free of charge! I'll be trying that then :D

[miffed]

Hmmm, perhaps we should have covered this before you ordered !

ATM there is only imei-check offering unlock (via software - but it is EASY , I unlocked my SPV using it - sounds daunting but it's simplle ) it costs £20

Or , as you say , Virgin will unlock FOC after you have topped up £30

TBH though - give it a few weeks / months maybe and there'lll be a free solution

But here is the "problem" with using it on another network - Every month ( i think ) the device will contact Virgin for new licences ( the idea being that you can ONLY use it on Virgin for TV - ) But the reality is , all you need to do is put your vitgin sim in for a few minutes, download them , then you can put your other sim back ( this is for all channels EXCEPT BBC1 which is free ) - A dual sim holder would be Ideal !
Again - I am sure someone will sort out a workaround for this before long too , but personally I am going to use it with the Virgin sim - so no problem for me just yet

[Hands0n]

Not a problem, likewise I'm only going to use it on Virgin but like to be unlocked as a matter of principle more than anything else :D I like to have a PAYG in the "phone pool" and a £30 top-up & unlock is not beyond reasonable.

Shame it relies on Activesync - I just hope it complies with the version that I'm using for my iPAQ PDA!

[miffed]

It'll need Activesync 4.1 + I think ( being a WM5 device )

or The Missing Sync fpr us mac users , not that I've tried it yet

[Hands0n]

Hmm, I'm on Activesync 4.2.0 so that should be okay. Might try it out on the Mac with Missing Sync. Really would like to give the all-in-one another try - all the while watching daytime TV :)

[Hands0n]

It arrived this morning - but I was at work all day so only had a chance to play with it this evening. At least it had an entire working day to charge up before I started fiddling with it.

Setting up is a bit of a doddle, all of five minutes. I thought I'd got ripped off, they'd included top up vouchers to the value of £30 (1 x £10 and 1 x £20), but the deal was supposed to be £35! It turns out that the SIM arrives with £5 already allocated to it to "get you started".

DAB radio performance is not too bad, I'm not in a particularly good area for DAB and Freeview - perhaps after they turn off the analogue TV the promised signal boost will resolve that.

TV on the handset is good when it works. But thats the problem, it does not work reliably well where I am. Watching BBC1 alongside the same channel via Sky revealed a significant lag of several minutes. But then, if you're out and about it would hardly matter - just always a bit interesting to observe, in a strickly anorak way :D

I rather like the idea of mobile TV and this takes me back to my old Casio pocket TV that resides gathering dust on my euphemistically named "equipment rack". It is not alone with discarded "nice try" technology. The Lobster may well end up there in due course, but I fancy for not quite a while as it does have other uses, i.e. making phone calls, sending texts, doing some low-speed GPRS surfing and suchlike.

Other stuff;
Keyboard - yuk! how very awful. I've come across some but this really takes the biscuit. What were they thinking? The 3, 6 and 9 keys have a raised ridge at the bottom of each, which makes them strange to handle.
Size of Phone - this has drawn some criticism for its strange shape and size. It reminds me of a Nokia 3310 with a growth on its right-hand side. But its not really too cumbersome or noticeable. It is supposed to resemble a Lobster's claw, but I've never eaten one that shape!

Worth it? I reckon so, where else can you get a Windows Mobile handset for £45 - especially one with DAB Radio (never mind the TV)! Virgin's tariffs are not especially awe inspiring, but they're not too bad providing you're not doing too much x-net stuff (buy T-Mobile's Everyone for that, 12p flat rate).

[3GScottishUser]

What an excellent deal considering the spec of the phone.

I would have ordered one myself to use for DAB but I bagged a Philips DA1000 on Amazon (Walkan DAB/FM Radio) for just £28 last night!