Verizon Wireless

Once the cell phone speed and multimedia leader, V Cast has fallen behind Sprint’s Power Vision, lacking both live TV and the depth of video clips served up by Sprint. To its credit, V Cast content is more intuitively organized and has a far more aesthetically pleasing interface. The recent launch of its music store should make V Cast even more attractive.

WEB
Verizon’s Open Wave Mobile Web 2.0 is fast and easy to navigate and includes all of the content you’d expect. Pages fill almost instantly, but text is microscopic and there is no way to bump up the font size.
Grade: B+

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 speeds, 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: A-

VIDEO/TV
V Cast offers 13 video clip channels, which include the usual news, sports, financial, and weather offerings, as well as frequently updated clips from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Video can be viewed in Small- or Full-Screen modes and easily paused, fast forwarded, and rewound directly from the phone’s menu navigation array. The streams look smooth until you move into a non-EV-DO area, which makes delivery non-existent. At least with Sprint you can watch at a lower frame rate if you can’t get an EV-DO signal.

As you read this, Verizon Wireless has or is about to launch the Lost Video Diaries, an extension of the ABC series Lost. Designed especially for mobile phones, Diaries consists of 22 two-minute original live-action episodes. Meanwhile, CBS is now offering clips from CBS News and Entertainment Tonight, preview clips from popular CBS shows like CSI, and The Late Show with David Letterman’s Top 10 list.

Later this year, Verizon Wireless will launch live mobile TV services from MediaFLO in half of Verizon’s EV-DO markets, with a gradual rollout to the rest. Unlike Sprint TV and MobiTV, MediaFLO uses a separate 700-MHz band that complements rather than relies upon Verizon Wireless’ EV-DO. However, Verizon Wireless has not indicated what kind of programming would be available with MediaFLO.
Grade: B

MUSIC
Verizon Wireless launched its V CAST Music store on January 16th, but we were unable to test it before press time. The service will have 500,000 songs at launch and one million within a few weeks from all four major labels. Songs will be downloaded in the WMA format, and you can either download two copies of a song directly from your phone (one to the phone, one to your PC) for $1.99 each, or download it from the V Cast Music store Web site for 99 cents and then transfer it to your phone using a USB cable or flash memory card. As for ringtones, it’s easier to buy one of the hundreds of V Cast real music ringtone clips from the Web site rather than the phone. Your callers can be entertained with Verizon’s Ringback Tones, which replaces the ringing your caller hears with a musical selection from the ringtone store.
Grade: Incomplete

GAMES
Out of the hundreds of games offered by Verizon Wireless, you’ll find dozens of 3D titles and nearly a dozen multiplayer diversions, including Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater: 3D Mobile Edition and Ghost Storm: Jungle Recon Multiplayer. Again, it’s much easier to browse and shop online than on a phone, especially since each game listing includes a brief synopsis and a user rating. Among the highest ranked games: Running of the Bulls and Rubik’s Pipelines.
Grade: A+

OVERALL
At least until we’ve had a chance to check out the music store, V Cast is the best choice for people who want to watch video clips on the go and play 3D and multiplayer games.
Grade: B

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