Sprint Nextel

Operating since October, Sprint’s new PowerVision EV-DO footprint reaches more than 150 million people across the continental United States. Sprint offers the most extensive array of multimedia features and applications, but the organization and presentation leaves much to be desired.

WEB
In a multimedia environment, the term “on demand” usually connotes video. Sprint’s On Demand service is a  user-configurable, text-based information service that requires much less menu digging and scrolling than the standard WAP browser. The service features five free On Demand applications: news, sports, weather, money, and movie listings. Four premium services, a phone directory, maps, TV Guide, and The Oxford American Dictionary, are available for a small fee. Unfortunately, configuring these applications is not always as intuitive as we’d like. For instance, something as basic as changing the Zip Code for local movie listings took way more clicks and scrolls than should be necessary.
Grade: A-

PHOTOS
Like Sprint’s PCS Vision phones, e-mailed photo recipients get a thumbnail and a link to download images. The EV-DO advantage is the faster upload speed, which sends more than one shot at a time. From these e-mails, you can order prints. Unfortunately, we were unable to send or receive MMS messages from cell phones from other carriers, despite Sprint’s claims to the contrary. We would like in the future to see a progress bar that provides a comforting visual update of your picture uploads.
Grade: B

VIDEO/TV
Easily the best live TV option available on a cell phone, which was an easy call since the 36 Sprint Live TV channels were the only live 3G TV channels available at press time. Other highlights include a plethora of video on demand content, including NFL Mobile, a selection of Looney Tunes cartoons, and Altitude, a quasi-MTV service on your phone with music videos and artist news. Remember that all of these channels are grouped in the main menu under Media Player instead of something more intuitive like TV. The video delivery is smooth, but there is no pause or other navigation controls.
Grade: A-

MUSIC
Sprint deserves kudos for opening the first cell-based downloadable music store. The selections are copious and Sprint cleverly downloads the selection to both your phone and a PC, but the pricing ($2.50 per track) is obscene. With most online music stores (including Amp’d Mobile) selling tracks at 99 cents or less, you’re essentially paying $1.50 for the convenience of shopping and downloading tracks right to your phone, rather than dumping PC-ripped MP3s onto a MiniSD card. There’s no parallel to the ROKR’s iTunes software to keep your tracks properly organized, but they’re tossed into an all-purpose folder for you to sort at your leisure.

Sprint offers Sirius Music, which includes several streams from the satellite radio service, and three subscription-based services: MusicChoice ($5.95 per month), genre music channels from the folks who bring you your cable TV music channels; MSpot ($5.95 per month), which offers music category-based channels; and Rhapsody ($5.99 per month), programmed by IMNTV (Independent Music Network TV), which specializes in DIY music and music videos. Playback is surprisingly smooth as long as you’re within EV-DO coverage, but you get pinged every 15 minutes so the phone and system know that you still want to stream and listen.
Grade: B

GAMES
Sprint’s Game Lobby offers 150-plus downloadable games. You can earn Status Points for a variety of activities, from setting your Zip Code to posting your scores to the Game Lobby Web site, which will be redeemable for content at some as yet unannounced date. You can even track Status Point leaders online. Games themselves took between five seconds and the blink of an eye to download. At press time, however, there were only two 3D games, including the endlessly entertaining Pac-Mania.
Grade: A-

OVERALL
Power Vision leads the way with the most varied video content and the most intuitive and convenient Web browsing experience you can get on a cell phone. All Sprint needs to do is lower the price on its groundbreaking Music Store and ensure that its picture sharing service is more reliable.
Grade: B+

Read Reviews on Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Cingular>>