philly

Sprint Power Vision Video

On my trip back home on the train [SEPTA to NJT], I passed some time watching some video on my Samsung A920 on Sprint's Power Vision network that I have free access to for the next few months. Accessing the video feeds is a several step process. You access the Media Player via the menu and then you have to wait for the phone to make a solid connection to the network which usually takes upwards of a minute and is very annoying. Then there are nine sections to choose from: Sprint TV, Radio, Music Video, Sports, Cartoons, News & Weather, Stylez, Movies & Shorts and Entertainment.

Once a section is picked, there are several available channels. You have to buy a monthly subscription to watch the videos, it is not a pay-per-view thing as far as I've seen so far, maybe there is such an option for certain channels. Once you pick a channel to subscribe to, you buy it and are promted that the fees will appear on subsequent bills. The prices range from $4.95 to $9.95 from the ones I've subscribed to so far. Then, instead of being taken directly to the shows within that channel, you're taken back to the main listing with all fo the sections. Stupid.

After getting back into the channel you just subscribed to and most likely wanted to watch immediately, you select a show. Within that show, there are usually a few episodes to choose from. Once selected, the video buffers for a few seconds and then starts to play. You cannot pause, rewind nor fast forward. You can only stop and play. Not too much of a hassle since most episodes are only one to two minutes, but I did watch one segment of The Colbert Report that was over four minutes.

The phone/battery does get quite hot while watching a few videos in a row. I think i watched about eight minutes of video while continuously connected to the Power Vision network and the battery was pretty hot to the touch. It takes awhile to cool down afterwards. It eats up batterylife as well. It went down one bar [to two bars] after playing the video. I had fully charged the battery overnight.

The video quality is decent. About as good as you're gonna get on a tiny screen. The sound is good. It would be cool if one could save the video to the phone/memory card and be able to pause and such after downloaded to the phone/memory card. I did lose the signal a couple times and the video stopped a couple times. One time it stopped and restarted at the same point. Another time, it stopped altogether and I had to fully reconnect to the network and go through the whole process again.

More Sprint PCS Vision Thoughts

Spotty service. I can't recall the last time that I lost a call due to a lost signal with my Samsung i700 with Verizon Wireless. I lost one call yesterday as I walked downstairs in the apartment. I lost a call a few days ago while making plans for the night over the weekend. And earlier yesterday, as I was walking out of the Lombard-South SEPTA station, the phone was roaming for several minutes. I don't recall ever roaming while using Verizon Wireless within Philly. Signal strength in general seems worse than Verizon Wireless.

And I noted earlier that I wanted an online catalog of all the songs/ringers that were available for download so that I could look things up online and then punch in a simple code to download that exact file. Well, I found out that about half of that was set up already. Sprint has a fully searchable catalog of their ringtones, games, screen savers and applications. I tried to use it to download a song to no avail.

When I 'bought' a song, I was sent a txt message. The txt said to click on a link to download the song. Well, you can't exactly click something in a fucking txt message, you idiots! So I punched it into the browser after logging onto the browser on my phone. Nadda. Well done Sprint.

And the reason I was using this method to try to download a song? I was once again locked out of doing so directly from the phone via the Music Store.

I wonder how many people who are regular Spring PCS Vision / Power Vision users are experiencing this problem. Constantly having to log into their accounts online to re-do their passwords to re-authorize their phones for the premium service of downloading media. Piss poor... Shoddy... Annoying... are words I'd use to describe the functionality of the service about 25% of the time which is pretty shitty. One quarter of the time I'm trying to use the premium stuff it doesn't work?

But I will add that the battery life is quite good.

Downloading Media via Power Vision

Downloading media onto this Samsung A920 has been a breeze when it's working and stupidly clunky when it's not. I can download [on average] four minute songs in about forty-five seconds. Songs downloaded so far:

• Song Cry - Jay Z
• Gold Digger - Kanye West
• Big Pimpin - Jay Z
• I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2
• Longview - Greenday
• Still D.R.E. - Dr. Dre
• Fire - Busta Rhymes
• All I Need - Method Man
• One More Chance - Biggie
• C.R.E.A.M. - Wu Tang
• Shook Ones pt. II - Mobb Deep

It's quite an extensive library they have via Groove Mobile. And the songs come out pretty nicely on the handset itself, on the tinny side, but what the hell do you expect from these tiny speakers? It's actually better than I had expected it to sound. It has two speakers dedicated to media playback. They're on the right and left sides of the phone on the outside of the hinge. I haven't tried to use the supplied headphones just yet.

I'm headed to the gym tonight and I'm gonna try out the headphones and see how they do on the treadmill. A nice feature on this handset is that once the music is playing, you can close the clamshell phone and control the music via a 4-way + center button rocker switch on the outside of the phone. Play/Pause, Next, Back, Shuffle and List are the functions.

But I've had some problems with the Power Vision features in that it'll lock me out every once in awhile. A message will come up saying that I'm not authorized to download such and such feature or that it's not enabled. I'll log into my account on sprintpcs.com and re-enter my Power Vision password and it'll be fixed after it propogates through their servers in like ten to thirty minutes, but it has locked me out a couple times yesterday and today. Dunno if I'm hitting some imposed download limitations I'm not aware of or glitches in the system.

Downloading saps battery life. The battery is generally pretty solid so far. After d/l all of those songs and generally fiddling with it all day today, it went to one bar [out of three]. I still haven't done too much actual talking on the phone yet. Too much fiddling going on. Maybe this weekend I'll have a better chance to try to drain the battery via talking and be able to report talk times.

Searching for Ring Tones

I noted earlier that downloading ring tones is a quick task and that I'd very much like a searchable, indexed online catalog with a serial number I could punch into my phone to download the ring tone easier. I should also add that the built in search feature to the ring tone section is pretty nice. It's quick and spits back exactly what I want, well if they have it available that is.

I've downloaded:

• Age Ain't Nothing But a Number by Aaliyah - she was a fav
• Bombs over Baghdad by Outkast
• Last Nite by The Strokes - who are coming to Philly for a concert very soon
• P.I.M.P. by 50 Cent
• Scenario by Tribe Called Quest - my single favorite hip hop joint and the first one I learned all the words to
• Such Great Heights by The Postal Service - the only song available by them

Many more things to be downloaded and tested in the six months to come.

Oooh, and did I mention that there's Ms. Pac Man on this thing? A 4-way pad is a shitty way to play Pac Man, but hey, it's still kinda cool, sorta. I prefer the table top version at Taco House.

Downloading Ring Tones

The Sprint Power Vision network is pretty speedy. Downloading the ~100kb ringtones takes about three seconds on my Samsung A920. A change from my Samsung i700 - I make my own .wav ringtones for that one. I cut down various .mp3s I like and make them .wav files and then compress and fine tune them a bit for usage as a ringtone.

But on this new phone on Sprint, they have a serious library of ringtones to choose from. They're normally $2.50/tone, but it seems as if I have free reign over them. I wish there was an online catalog of them so that I could simply plug in a 4-digit code for them or something; that would make things much easier than scrolling through alphabetically.

Annoyingly, the ringtones expire in 90 days. I have no idea if this is status quo for buying ringtones as I've never done so before. But it's new to me and a limit on usage is annoying.

Sprint Ambassador Program 01

I got the phone last night and I've been playing with it quite a bit. It's a very nice phone. Fits very comfortably in my hand. The lack of a nub antenna is a godsend. I can't remember ever having a phone that didn't have a nub at the top. The phone itself, the Samsung A920, is pretty intuitively laid out. I got the hang of it after fiddling with it for thirty minutes or so. I can get to where I need to go within a couple of seconds as of now methinks.

I've already downloaded a few things [it's free with the program!]. A few ringtones, if you must know, "My Humps" and "Temperature" by Black Eyed Peas and Sean Paul respectively. And I also downloaded AOL IMer to see how that functioned. It's gonig to be quite a change from my huge Samsung i700 pda-phone which has a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard [stylus enabled] that I can type away on. I forgot what a pain T9 text input and manual alpha/numeric entering of things is. Plugging in 100 entries into my address book was a real pain.

Day 1 with the phone was pretty easygoing. Made a few calls, sent out a txt message out to Chitown [he didn't respond, probably busy studying in the Law library], downloaded a few things and got acquainted.

I'm going to be mainly using this cell phone for the next little while, but I'll still have my old phone with my still current number. For my friends who have that number, please still call it.

The only weird thing is that it's an 816 Kansas City, Missouri area code.

A little background on this endeavor here.

Sprint Vision Ambassador Program

So somehow some way, Sprint [the teleco] has invited me to their Ambassador Program where:

As a qualified participant, we will send you one Sprint Power Vision phone and provide you with six months of all-access service (at no charge). You'll have access to the Sprint Music Store(SM) live TV broadcasts, gaming and more. Yes, you will also have unlimited free calling and data service. It's a pretty good deal and all we ask for in return is your candid feedback (you decide how much and how often).

I've used Sprint in the past. They were my cell carrier from around 1998-1999 2000-2001 and they sucked balls. Major goat balls. I'm a Verizon Wireless [yes, they're evil evil] user since August of 2001. I'm up and down the east coast between NY and DC frequently and they're the best at that. But I sent in my registration to see what their new product is like.

What I really want is to try out the Samsung A900 phone [the Razr knockoff]. I wonder how many freebies of those they're going to give out. Their other phones are the Sanyo 7500 and the Samsung A920. I'd like a Samsung phone if I get chosen to do this thang.

Doubtful that I'd switch from Verizon. But I'd probably write about it on here. My Samsung i700 is not a new phone with all the bells and whistles of some of the new multi-media phone, but it's also a PDA with full pop email capabilities [not push mail though like Blackberry / new Treo] and internet with a large screen.

Let the games prematurely begin.

***UPDATE***3.37p
I've just been informed that I've been approved for the program and that I'll be recieving the Samsung A920 in the next two to four weeks.