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Modeo smartphone unboxed
It's amazing how short a distance we've travelled since we first spotted Modeo's DVB-H smartphone in April. Sure, now we know that it's just an HTC Foreseer under those orange accents, but after months of promises, the phone is only just now making it into our hands in boxed form. There's live DVB-H service lighting up NYC, but only six channels to watch, and no sign of a commercial launch in sight, as we mentioned yesterday. Luckily, the phone feels good in the hand, and while it might be bit large for an EDGE device in this day and age, it still looks and feels proportional in hand. The screen is quite sharp and general performance is snappy, especially video, thanks to the NVIDIA GoForce 5500 GPU under the hood. TV performance is great, at least as far as we've tested it in Manhattan and Brooklyn -- we'll revisit this in a week or so and let you know how we're doing -- but CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Sports, Discovery Channel and E! get old fast, and the eight audio channels are about as basic as it gets. We'll give you our full impressions once we've had some more time to soak it all in, but for now you can peep the unboxing gallery below, along with our hands-on pics from last night's event.%Gallery-1848%
Modeo launches mobile TV beta service in NYC
After a delay and a promise, Modeo has finally come through with the planned beta launch of its DVB-H mobile TV service in New York City, with the company also showing off the technology to those in attendance at CES. As we knew before, the NYC trial will be limited to just a few hundred users during its beta stage, each of who will get to test out the service with a shiny new HTC Foreseer handset. In addition performing the usual smartphoning duties, it'll let the lucky beta testers pick up mobile TV from the likes of Fox News and the Discovery Channel, as well as streaming audio courtesy of Music Choice. What's not so clear are any firm details on Modeo's plans beyond the NYC trial, with the company only saying that the beta will continue throughout the first quarter of 2007 and that they plan to use feedback from it to "evaluate network distribution options with wireless carriers." In other words, convince 'em to sign up before they go somewhere else.
