Review: 3 X-Series Gold package mobile phone service

It’s a live stream, but we were a little disappointed by the service. The picture was a little blocky, although still watchable, but even with the headphones turned up to maximum the sound was barely audible – certainly near impossible to hear when sitting on a train or bus.

The Slingbox was a different story. We were already fans of the Slingbox (see review), so it was no surprise that the service on a mobile phone was also excellent. You get a decent picture watching normal programmes, although fast action – such as football – is harder to follow, as it doesn’t refresh quickly enough to give you a clear picture.

Changing channels is easy, although controlling your TV, such as pausing or fast forwarding, is a little fiddly. You can also access Freeview stations via the Slingbox. We did struggle, however, to use the record function, unless we took the long route of accessing Sky’s electronic programme guide.

Unlike with the internet TV service, you cannot elect to watch the Slingbox stream in landscape on your phone’s screen. But you get 80 hours of combined Slingbox and Orb usage a month, which is OK but not great.

For all of these services to work you must be in a 3G area and should you move out, then your signal will drop. While this wasn’t such an issue with Skype and Windows Live, as it is much as you expect now when going through a tunnel, it was frustrating when watching the TV and highlighted just how many areas are not yet 3G enabled.

At the time of writing, the packages are available on Nokia’s N73 mobile phone, which is a good product, but we did find that watching TV quickly drained the battery. A full charge gave us around two hours 40 minutes of TV before the battery was dead.

Despite this, 3’s X-Series is a good service, particularly when you think that we are still in the infancy of mobile TV. Currently, the Gold package costs £27.50 a month for the first eight months, rising to £45 thereafter. The Silver service costs £22 a month, rising to £40 after eight months, and for both the full prices will put many people off. But you do get a lot of extras for your money, so it will appeal to heavy mobile phone users.

Also consider:
Virgin Mobile Lobster 700TV phone
It will undoubtedly get better as time goes on, but the limited crop of channels, poor quality and reception issues make it difficult to recommend at present

Vodafone Mobile TV
A great way to watch TV on your mobile, but don't expect amazing quality or certain hit shows