San Jose Mercury: Sprint video phone fun, but expensive with poor quality

The San Jose Mercury looks at one of Sprint PCS' video phones, the Samsung VM-A680 (see left), and reports the video quality is terrible and the $5 per month fee is too expensive, but concludes it's still lots of fun.

The reporter, Mike Langberg, writes, "On the one hand, the quality of current mobile phone video is terrible. Motion is jerky and blurry, colors are faded and the image is tiny. Sprint PCS also charges too much -- $5 a month -- for the privilege of transmitting the video clips.

On the other hand, making short videos is a hoot, despite the privacy risks. I shot an 11-second masterpiece of my 3-year-old daughter Sara, who's just starting to remember entire songs, finishing up 'Row, Row Your Boat' with the line, 'Life is but a stream.'''

All U.S. operators to offer service

All U.S. cellular operators either offer video mail service now or will by the end of the year, Langberg says. He doesn't mention Nextel, that is expected to offer a camera phone...eventually.

Verizon Wireless and Cingular don't offer phones with video recording capabilities, but are expected to by the this fall. Langberg provides a good, brief summary of the products and prices offered by Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T Wireless.

T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint offerings

Langberg says about the three operators' video offerings:

"In the United States, video messaging got started in March 2003 with T-Mobile....The company now offers two phones capable of shooting 10-second video clips: the Nokia 3660 at $149 and the Nokia 6600 at $299, both prices requiring a one-year contract.

"For $2.99 a month, subscribers can send 20 video messages a month by e-mail or to other T-Mobile customers who have phones capable of playing video. Additional messages are 10 cents each. Subscribers can also send messages for 25 cents each with no upfront monthly fee.

"Sprint PCS...came next in December and now offers three video models: the Sanyo VM4500 at $199, the Toshiba VM4050 at $179 and the Samsung VM-A680 at $149, all prices with a two-year contract.

"To send video clips, which can't exceed 15 seconds, requires subscribing to the Sprint PCS Vision wireless Internet service for $15 a month and paying an additional $5 a month for unlimited video mail.

"AT&T Wireless...which has agreed to be acquired by Cingular Wireless later this year, is quietly offering video recording on one model: the Nokia 6820 at $199 with a two-year contract. Sending video clips, which can be as long as 60 seconds, costs 40 cents a message."

Recommendations

Langberg says anyone wanting video mail service should realize the quality won't be good. Also, he doesn't like Sprint's pricing because it doesn't include a per-video option.

He prefers the per-video pricing approach of T-Mobile and Cingular. My view is if you're only going to use video mail occasionally, a per-message plan is indeed more economical.

But if you are more data- and imaging-centric -- frequently browsing the Internet, taking and sending camera phone photos and videos -- Sprint's pricing will be cheaper in the long run.

Pricing justifications

Langberg says most people probably won't shoot enough video to justify the extra $5 per month on Sprint. He's probably right, especially until video quality improves and the maximum length of videos is increased.

Also, I believe video phones (as well as higher resolution camera phones) should come with memory card slots so users can save the images. Storing videos on memory cards would enable longer videos.

However, most cellular operators hate the idea of memory cards to facilitate transferring videos to computers rather than forcing subscribers to transfer (and pay for) them via the operators' networks.

Comments

[FRANK VESPER]

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Samsung VM-A680
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