TV on a mobile phone has been the dream from many, to be able to watch TV anywhere, anytime right from the device that is always in your pocket, a mobile phone. There are many ways to watch TV with a Nokia handset, but so far,  none has been as convenient as Spb TV.  This app is amazing, and is compatible with Nokia touch screen devices like the N97 and 5800, and non-touchscreen devices like the N85 and N86.

On Nokia 5800

Spb TV is an application that enables you to watch over 100 channels right from your Nokia mobile phone, amazing!  It even doubles functionality as a TV guide and has a good looking interface that most users will find a joy to use. But is Spb TV that good? Afterall it is not a free software, the full version of Spb TV is $14.95us, even though there is a free version with only 8 channels. So what do we think about it? Here is the review!

I installed Spb TV very easily to both my Nokia 5800 and N85, a good thing about Spb TV is that is compatible with S60 5th Ed devices as well as 3rd Ed devices. In both versions the interface is exactly the same, with lots of functionality and interesting features.

When I first opened Spb TV it looked really well, there is a carousel of channels on the low part and on top there is the preview of that channel you selected on the carousel. There are over 100 channels in the full version and only 8 in the trial version, I find there are some interesting channels, 5 different FOX’es, one CNN, a couple of weather channels, comedy channels, science channels like Nasa TV and other European channels like the German DW-TV and Italian SportItalia. All I have to say about the channels is that although there were not many known channels to me, there is a variety of them and it is easy to find something interesting in a big selection of 100 channels, you even can find channels for kids and video games.

On N85

The TV guide also is a nice addition, you can browse the guide for one week of every channel, and you can schedule reminders so your phone lets you know when that program you like is about to start. That together with the really nice looking interface make Spb TV a premium app, but it does not stop there! While you are watching TV, you can browse the selection of channels and have the preview inside the program that you are already watching. You can also set contrast and volume just like in a regular TV.

And what about the image quality? Well, here is where things start to look no so bright. In Spb TV the image channel is just standard, just like YouTube looks in the browser, a nice image but not crisp or clear as in a computer or a video loaded in the memory card. However, I find that is enough, as long as the audio is clear, I can deal with the image, afterall is TV on a mobile phone.

Spb TV works of course over the internet, you are going to need a fast connection, at least 3G because EDGE is not enough. Spb TV works well, but you need to have patience as in most of other apps, if you start to give too many commands while watching TV, things will get a bit slow.  The playback of  the TV is standard, it runs sooth for a while but will stop playing sometimes to buffer, again, if you don’t press many buttons at the same time and there is a strong stable connection to the internet, there should not be any problems. Also remember to close all other apps on your phone and have plenty of space in the phone’s memory, I found this helped the playback of TV.

Spb TV is a really nice and complete pice of software, it definitively makes your phone more interesting and useful. It has a good looking interface, plenty of channels and some fancy functions like TV Guide and alarms for schedualed shows. You can take a look at Spb TV for Symbian here: Spb TV Symbian Homepage

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