Vodafone's 3G service disappointing

The "revolution" in mobiles is here, with Vodafone's 3G video-calling phones boasting a supposed change in how we're going to communicate.

But at this stage in the game, this isn't a revolution in the violent, world-changing, 18th-century French sense of the word. It's more of a revolution in the bloodless, early-90s, Czechoslovak sense of the word.

Put another way, it's very ho-hum. Vodafone's 3G promises the world, but its delivery is less than inspiring. It is, in fact, fraught with problems.

The Sony Ericsson V800 is the mid-range 3G handset of the five initially launched this week by Vodafone. It's loaded with features, with the most interesting - and hyped - of course being the video calling.

While there's no question of its novelty - who isn't keen to try out technology we've been seeing in science-fiction movies for decades? - the experience is a little underwhelming. Rather than the smooth video transmission we've seen on Star Trek, Vodafone's offering is more reminiscent of the news coverage that came out of the US invasion of Afghanistan: shaky, pixelated and delayed.

It is nicely designed - the rotating 1.3-megapixel camera can be positioned away from the user, as most camera phones do, or it can be swivelled to face you for video calls. Also cool are the vanity lights on either side of the lens, which can be turned on with the touch of a button - useful for when you're in a dark room.

A video call divides the screen into two. In the lower lefthand corner is an inset video of whatever your camera is pointed at - yourself, most likely. The rest of the screen is devoted to whoever you're calling. The phone's directional pad allows for zoom by pressing up or down, or brightness control by pressing sideways.

What's problematic here is that if you move around too much, you'll get picture distortion in the form of pixelation. There's also a rather unacceptable level of lag (or latency as the techies say), which leads to rather jilted conversations as both parties unintentionally interrupt each other.

The end effect is that the calls look somewhat rough and jittery - during one conversation, I half-expected to see scenes of crazed Taleban fighters in the background.

One of the other big 3G features is music downloading. Mobile providers are salivating at the success of online music download stores such as iTunes, and they're obviously salivating for a piece of that pie. As such, Vodafone has launched a 300,000-track music store where users can download full songs onto their phones.

Sounds good so far, right?

Sure, but wow, is the implementation ever poor. First off, the music store is a horrible mess, with no discernible logical organisation to it. There is a handy search function, but you're going to have to essentially guess at what tracks are on offer.

The other problem has to do with digital rights management. When you download a song onto the V800, you also get an invisible text message, which essentially contains a licence to play the track. You can move the track onto your computer, but not the licence, so you can't play it on your PC. That means any songs you download will play only on the phone.

Further exacerbating the issue is that the V800, like the iPod, won't play Windows Media Audio files (see Webwalk for more on this topic), which means the only way to get music onto this phone right now is to either buy it from Vodafone, or download it illegally.

Storage is another issue. The V800 comes with a 32-megabyte memory stick, which is enough to store ... well ... virtually nothing. You can upgrade, but at the price this phone is selling for, a two-gigabyte stick should come standard.

Other hyped 3G features included mobile television and video clips. Despite numerous tries, I couldn't get a single clip to play without serious lag and interruption. This problem was further compounded by inexplicable network lapses - despite testing it in central Auckland, where signal strength should be at its strongest, the phone seemed to pop in and out of 3G coverage.

Another problem: the V800 is a power-sucking beast. My phone was half charged when I started a 10-minute video call, and not only was it hot to the touch afterwards, it was also sucked dry. You'll be lucky to make it through a day of moderate use without recharging.

What's most upsetting about these new phones is the pricing. Never mind that the handsets themselves are costly, it's the services - most of which are free until the end of October - that are atrociously priced. Song downloads are a whopping $3.50 each, whereas existing music stores charge around half that.

Vodafone also expects users to pay for downloading video, including television and movie clips. As if going to see a film wasn't expensive enough, now we're expected to pay an extra dollar to watch an advertisement for it? That's just plain insulting.

Video calls within New Zealand will cost the same as regular calls - 49c a minute under the Motormouth plan, which is fair. But international video calls are $1.99 a minute, which is borderline obscene considering you can do the same thing over the internet for virtually nothing.

Vodafone will argue you're paying for the convenience to do these things while on the move. But really, unless you're made of money, can you really not wait till you get home to download a song?

Granted, it's still early days for Vodafone's new network, and there will be some bugs to iron out - especially in pricing. Perhaps a few months from now, Vodafone's 3G will really deliver the goods, but at this point there's no real reason to rush out and plop a small fortune down on a barely-functioning product.

Sony Ericsson V800

3G video phone Pros: Nicely designed camera.
Cons: Network lag; download store is a nightmare.
Herald Rating: 3/10
Price: $849