Hands-on with Samsung's Mobile TV-Ready U620

I'm still waiting for Verizon Wireless to turn on its new V Cast Mobile TV service in New York, but the folks at Samsung let me borrow their TV-ready SCH-u620 during my brief stay in Orlando, one of the few cities where Verizon's TV service is humming away. What follows isn't a full review—that will have to wait until I can sit down and spend some quality time with the phone—but here are some (OK, many) off-the-cuff observations.

The phone: When it was announced in January during CES, the u620 slider was overshadowed by the sexier LG VX9400, which boasts an eye-catching swiveling display. Indeed, the u620 is the ugly duckling of the two; a garden-variety slider that's a bit on the bulky side, with a medium-sized, two-inch QVGA screen. But while the display is certainly small for watching video for long periods of time, I thought the picture looked pretty sharp, with reasonably bright and vivid colors. I had a quick chance to compare the u620's picture to the VX9400 (I was standing in a cab line behind a woman who had the LG phone) and while the VX9400's 2.2-inch screen was a shade larger, the pictures looked pretty close in terms of quality (although my new friend swore that the u620's picture had richer color).

Video quality: Anyone who's watched video clips over EV-DO or even HSDPA connections know that most 3G video quality is touch-and-go; at 15-20 frames per second, movement looks jerky and the picture itself can get distractingly blocky. After a day of on-and-off viewing, I can tell you that streaming over the MediaFlo-powered V Cast Mobile TV is much improved, although far from broadcast quality (even standard definition). I still noticed some blockiness in the picture, along with occasional jitters and jutters. That said, sitting through an episode of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," the video quality was good enough that I managed to get sucked into the show, and forgot I was watching on a two-inch screen. Also, changing channels was relatively speedy; just a second or two, versus waiting a full 30 seconds for an EV-DO V Cast video clip to buffer.

Programming: Let's get one thing straight: just because NBC is listed as one of the V Cast Mobile TV networks doesn't mean you'll be getting a simulcast of the broadcast NBC. Instead, you get kind of a "best-of" selection of shows, including a smattering of prime-time shows (including "Survivor: Fiji," "24," "Friday Night Lights," and "CSI"), plus late-night comedy (such as "Late Night with David Letterman" and "The Tonight Show"), and news and sports segments (many CNBC shows, sports roundups from ESPN and Fox Sports, and even a nightly dose of Katie Couric). Also, many of these shows are repeated over and over (and over) during any given day. For example, on the V Cast version of CBS, Letterman was on four times in a day, while "The Tonight Show" got five airings on the mobile CBS. Soap opera fans are in luck; "The Young and the Restless" and "Guiding Light" were shown three times each. Now, were I planning to sell my TV and watch all my shows on a V Cast Mobile TV phone, I'd be pretty bummed by this development; the more likely scenario, however, is that you'll get your mobile TV in little snippets, in which case showing hours and hours of "The Colbert Report" or ESPN's made-for-mobile "ScoreCenter" means you stand a better chance of catching something you''ll want to watch (provided Stephen Colbert is your cup of tea). The ultimate solution, of course, is more channels; I counted just eight channels on my u620 (CBS, Fox, NBC, NBC News, Comedy Central, ESPN, MTV, and Nickelodeon). Verizon promises that more channels are on the horizon.

Sound: I didn't get a pair of wired earbuds in my u620 box, so I had to listen to shows over the phone's predictably tinny speaker. That's fine if you're in a quiet hotel room, but in a crowded airport lounge? Forget it. (And yes, I tried my Bluetooth headset—no TV sound.) Even if I had the bundled earbuds, taking them out on a crowded bus or while waiting in line could more trouble than it's worth. My proposed solution? Subtitles. Now, before you laugh, let me point out that even on the u620's screen, I could easily make out the diminutive CNBC ticker, so believe it or not, subtitles just might work.