(Edited Sunday as I have my own handset)
Video Calling
Video calling is very very cool. I thought it was just a tacky gimmick but it works very well.
Yes flicking the phone jerkedly from left to right madly WILL pixelate it, It lags a wee bit but not much more than a normal phonecall. Coverage is pretty robust and moving does not seem to hassle it. It's good to see the price remaining at normal rate plan prices and not some exorbidant charge though free minutes included would have been nice.
Tones Store
A little hard to browse but good content and downloads fast. Search function does indeed work and the content is "exciting" and recent. The files are protected with DRM sadly though it's the way of all the music stores and is a requirement of the Record labels not Vodafone. I'm attempting to circumvent this.
Video Streaming and downloads.
Well priced and a lot of fun when you are bored waiting for something. Well picked interesting content. Remarkedly clear especially on static images. And flat-rate access to content is a real bonus!!!!
Data usage
(EDIT)
Superb!!! It works really well.. Not super super fast but still quick enough to keep you happy and the pricing is finally resonable.
Phones
(edit I now own a v800)
I got the chance to play with 3 of them, The V800 for a day, and bought one., The Samsung for 10 minutes (which took my liking but I hear the battery is pretty poor) and the nokia 6680 for 20 seconds till I put it down, it does have some advanced features but the keypad like most Nokia phones of late is horribly arranged and far too small.
The v800 has a lovely big screen and works very slickly and fast with some very handy Ericsson features. My only complaint was the keys have this annoying bar-bit betwen the rows causing me to poke into the gullys to reach the buttons. it's nothing near as bad as the Nokia and i'm used to it now. They are well spaced. The only glaring limitation is the 6 pre installed messaging alerts, I really wish I could change these. c'mon Ericsson!
It has a tru POP3 Client for email which is really handy,
The store I went to said these were the biggets seller and I got the lucky last one.
Overall
It's Good. I'm quite impressed. It's much better than "vodafoneLIVE!" when it was first launched which was always just a tacky gimmick. Now it has some well-priced **FUN** factor's thrown in, now with stuff that's WORTH downloading, I'd much happier pay $3.50 for a full music track or a weeks video access than a stupid polyphonic ringtone or colour background.
Only thing starkly missing is the lack of Push - To - Talk!!!!!!! silly really.
Content pricing
8/10 (could be cheaper for some things)
Network
9/10 (robust!! I only got one dropped call)
Phones prices
6/10 (they could be cheaper initially)
WOW!!! Factor
10/10 ( WOW COOOL!!!!!!!)
Voice Quality
10/10 (Excelllent)
Also people complain about the Music downloads being too pricy.....
Song download at $3.50
Count your music legally downloaded at $1,75 and Jetstream fee by the amount of songs.
20 songs at 1.75 = 35 + 69.95 = 104.95 / 20 songs =
$5.24. much more than $3.50
Even illegally it's still $2.30 a mp3.
(think what useful stuff you really need Jetstream over dial-up for?)
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