Foredecker's space

I recently bought a new Verizon Voyager phone.  One of the features that makes this a pretty cool phone is the TV and video on demand feature.   Given how well the TV features work, I'm quite surprised that this isn't marketed as a marquee feature of the phone - especially since this is something the iPhone doesn't do.

Yesterday (Black Friday) we went shopping in downtown Seattle and I had a chance to experiment with the TV feature.  In short, both the broadcast TV and the video on demand works really well.  Of course, its digital so there are none of the staticy artifacts of analog TV broadcasts.

By "worked really well" I mean that the reception was very good, even inside buildings and that the picture quality was good - especially considering this is a phone.  The only time I couldn't get a signal was right in the middle of the first floor.  I watch the phone as we moved about the building and it did an admirable job of getting a signal and displaying video when it could.  It also had good messages and told me when the signal was poor.

I've done a bit of work with Video playback quality and when the signal is good, the frame rate is quite smooth.

Note though - this is a phone its not a TV and the picture quality is still not quite as good as a real TV.    There are a few obvious artifacts sometimes and occasionally there is some color smudging.   In short, the TV does not look like Hiro does in the promotional picture to the right.

The TV image also doesn't go edge to edge on the display - at least in the on demand videos and TV I've watched.

But, the TV image is good especially considering the display only has a resolution of 400x240 pixels. Both my kids and my wife enjoyed the TV and being prime media consumers, thought the picture quality was just fine.  They all really enjoyed watching a little TV when we were waiting around for things.  My wife - who is a huge football fan - watched the 4'th quarter of the LSU vs. Arkansas game and the  picture was plenty good enough to see the action.   This was a great game that went into double over time.

The only problem we had with watching TV is that the speakers are not very loud - if you are in a quite place, then they are just fine, but in a noisy environment like a mall, its too hard to hear with out getting really close to the phone.  This is awkward, even if there is only one person watching the phone.   If there are two, then it becomes impossible to watch and listen at the same time.

Of course, headphones would solve this problem, but amazingly enough, the phone did not come with headphones - despite being heavily marketed as a music and entertainment phone. 

I think the LG folks made a poor design choice here - the little speakers are just tool small to be effective for real TV or music enjoyment.    They just cannot be loud enough.    The Voyager should really come with head phones.

But, I think this is a good thing - imagine a bunch of people wandering around in public listening to TV that is loud enough to hear! 

I snagged a Verizon Voyager phone before it went on sale on Balck Friday.   Its pretty cool - the UI is a bit klunky (its no iPhone) but the TV feature works great and the paired just fine with our Mazad CX9.  

I've had a Verizon LG VX600 for just over four years and I've been happy with it.   But, I've wanted a new phone since seeing all the new phones at CES last year.   Since I have a Verizon family plan, I wanted to stay with them to take advantage of price breaks on talk time and new phones.  I also wanted more of a consumer phone that played music and had a decent camera.   What I didn't want is  "smart phone".  They are too big and I have no desire to be tethered to corporate email 24/7.

We did some shopping at the Alderwood Mall on Wednesday and we stopped at the Verizon store. I had been considering the Verizon Venus but I played with the demo phone for a while, and the small touch screen menu interface was pretty clumsy and the phone wasn't terribly small.  I also had a really hard time getting the phone into "music player" mode - the UI is really poorly deigned. 

I had considered the Verizon Voyager from reviews on the web which had been generally good : some people actually used the phrase "iPhone killer" with a straight face, so I was surprised when the sales person offered to show me a Voyager - they were not suppose to be on sale until Black Friday. 

It was pretty cool, the phone wasn't as slim as the iPhone, but it did flip open to reveal a query keyboard and a screen.  There were a few things that pushed me to to the buy decision

• I could get it - they had 10 in stock at a major mall.   They would all disappear on Friday so If I wanted one before Christmas, then I needed to buy it then.
• It worked with Windows Live Messenger and Live mail (Hotmail) - this is cool since I just set my entire family up with the new Wave 2 Windows Live stuff.
• I got a good discount even though it wasn't Black Friday.
• Most importantly, it came with a 30 day money back satisfaction guarantee.   If I didn't like it, could  return it.

So, I go the phone. I also purchased a car charger, and a 8GB Sandisk micro SD.  The had a strange bundle, a small set of stereo speakers and the 8BG card were $100.   Separately, they were about $170.   I didn't care about the speakers, but that is  good price for an 8GB micro SD card.

The Verizon folks transferred my contact list, activated the phone, and charged it all to my phone bill.   Very nice - I now had a spiffy new phone.

Here are some first impressions

• Its a well built phone - it isn't flimsy at all.  
• It thin enough to fit in my pocket nicely, but not as thin as an iPhone.
• The touch interface works well enough - but not nearly as well as an iPhone.

The TV Feature

This phone supports TV and I mean real freaking TV!   It even has a pull out antenna which is very thin and I suspect easy to shred.   

What is really amazing, is that the TV feature works really, really well.  If you want mobile TV, then this is a great phone to have. There is a program guide, the channels change relatively quickly, and the video quality is surprisingly good.  The phone supports both broadcast TV and video on demand.

The broadcast TV feature supports 8 Channels

Nickleodeon	CBS
FOX	NBC
General News	Comedy Central
ESPN	MTV

There is also a promotional channel and a channel for Video on Demand.

Summary

After less than 48 hours, here my initial impressions

Positives	Negatives
* Nice form factor	* The picture quality is less than I expected (I expected iPhone quality)
* TV and Video on demand features work great!	* The user interface can be very klunky- it really seems rushed to market.
* Battery seems to charge really quickly.  It also charges from USB.	* Didn't come with headphones (this is really dumb - its a music phone....)
* Supports an 8GB SD card	* The USB cable is custom.
* QWERTY KB is pretty easy to type on.

I'll blog about this more in days to come....