Help me pick a phone to watch videos on

[s29feb]

Looking for a mobile for the wife that has mp3/mp4 capabilities so she can watch vids on her way home from work.

Whats the best out there - she likes the Razer 3vi.

I'm really clueless when it comes to phones

[chrestomanci]

NB: I work for Nokia.

I would avoid the Motorola V3 series phones. I know a couple of people with them, who say that while they are OK for making calls & texts, they are not much use for anything else. Seeing as that phone was designed to be as small and thin as possible, it is hardly surprising that it is compromised in other areas.

To watch video, you really need a smart phone, with a fairly powerfull processor, and a good screen.

Nokia have recently Launched the N92, which can receve live Digital TV, and has a built in hard drive for media files. On the downside, it is huge, expensive, and you can't receve live broadcasts in many places.

You might also consider a more middle of the road smartphone such as the Nokia N70, or 6680. These have enough grunt to play video, but you would need a player application, and you would need to transcode your media files to a suitable format, which would not be easy. You would also need a large flash card to put them on. If you are happy with just live broadcasts, then both Videophone and Orange have some live TV stations on their 3G network, and the charges for watching them are not very high if you are on contract.

The Sony-Eriscon P-Series smartphones can also play video, and have better capabilities than the smaller Niki's, (N70 & 6680) but they are larger and more expensive.

You can probably also watch media on the windows smartphones and phone integrated Pads, but I don't know.

I hope this helps.

[s29feb]

I have a PDA - XDA II and I'm upgrading to the Mini However the wife wants something more "phone like" so I'll look at the Nokia's

Is there any other mobiles that have media player in them?

[chrestomanci]

Watching video at reasonable quality is a hard problem for phones. Until very recently phones have only been designed for showing video messages, which are generally low resolution, low frame rate, and very highly compressed. Such quality might be OK for a 20 second funny clip, or a goal report, but it is nowhere close to TV quality.

The only phone I know of that is designed to play media at TV quality is the Nokia N92. I don’t know the exact specifications of the player, but I expect it will be much better than all the others. You will have to visit the Nokia website to find out the details, or visit a Nokia store. I do not have access to any more information on this than the public.

All the other phones I mentioned are ‘normal’ smart phones that that are not specifically designed for watching TV or movies, but have a general purpose operating system, that can run any program including Media players. There is a range of media players available for Symbian phones (all the ones I mentioned). You need to do some homework and find out which players work on your phone, and what type of media they can play. In most cases you will then have to transcode your existing media to the format your phone can play.

Alternatively, you might consider that phones are not mature enough to watch TV and a non phone device would be a better choice. The Sony PSP has a very good screen, and there are plenty of guides out there on how convert last night’s episode of your favourite TV show and play it on a PSP.

[UltraMagnus]

for an out of the box solution i would go for a treo 650 or a treo 700w, depending on your prefrance of OS

for a non out of the box solution, you could get a nice PDA with a full VGA screen like the dell axim x51v, and use a compact flash phone module

[schmunk]

Buy her a book.

[Aaron]

for an out of the box solution i would go for a treo 650 or a treo 700w

The Treo 700w is CDMA only and won't work in this country.

The only phone I know of that is designed to play media at TV quality is the Nokia N92. I don’t know the exact specifications of the player, but I expect it will be much better than all the others. You will have to visit the Nokia website to find out the details, or visit a Nokia store. I do not have access to any more information on this than the public.

The N92 has a fantastic large and vibrant screen but it has two downsides - it's not out yet and it may not be released in the UK. It's based on the DVB-H digital TV standard, which won't be switched on in the UK for at least 6 years. Without DVB-H in the UK, it probably doesn't make sense for Nokia to release the phone over here.

Like chrestomanci, I'm a bit biased but I'd go for the N80. It's got a fast CPU, it has access to cheap expandable memory through it's miniSD slot and the screen is drop-dead gorgeous (352x416 pixels, 262k colours). WiFi and 3G are just bonuses.