We hate to get our hopes up, since so far we haven't seen a lot of desire from US carriers to offer advanced services to their apparently podunk customers -- especially not something crazy as mobile TV -- but the FCC just unveiled what could be
Sprint's big move into TV land. The phone is Samsung's SPH-M250, which looks to be a version of Sammy's
SPH-B250, a DMB phone for Korea (2 megapixel camera, 128MB memory and Bluetooth if you're keeping track). The interesting thing about the phone is that it is only approved for the 1900MHz band, unlike other Sprint phones which are dual-band. So while it's possible that the phone is just for watching EV-DO movies in the comfort of that swivel screen, Phone Scoop thinks it more likely that there were antenna issues with Sprint's 2.5GHz mobile TV tech. They've already been running tests on
TDtv technology, a method that uses 3G spectrum for live DMB-esque TV channels up to QVGA resolution, and this SPH-M250 could be for more testing, or to maybe even launch their TV service. We won't hold our breath.
[Via
Phone Scoop]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Neal Saferstein @ Jun 3rd 2006 4:26PM
Creative products, equal more invoatation.
Neal Saferstein
GeeOhh @ Jun 5th 2006 6:57AM
As a Rep for a Corp. owned Retail Store, its good to FINALLY see new handsets in the works... but like you guys said, I'm not gonna hold my breath on this one. Although, I wouldn't mind seeing tha SLVR L7c in our display case.
flamer's grill @ Jun 5th 2006 11:12PM
Lack of digital 850 troubles me. A phone has gotta be a phone first in order to be successful; watching tv is nice and all, but if you can't reliably make and receive calls, who cares.
Otherwise I like the phone, though. Need to update the styling a bit, fix that keypad and it'd look pretty attractive. I actually do enjoy the Live TV on my A900. I watch a bit in bed before I fall asleep most nights, and every time I gotta take a dump I watch a little FOX News. Seems like the most appropriate place to watch, doncha think?