Avot mV Installation

Installation is a breeze – simply point your browser to the Avot Mobile Site, and the installation takes place OTA ( over the air ).  Once it downloads, the player installs automatically and launches right away.  The whole process took less than a minute on my Sprint PPC-6700’s EVDO connection. 

Avot mV Player

When you launch the player, you can either search for a video of your choosing, or select one of the channels using the soft buttons on your Windows Mobile device.  There are tons of channels such as music videos, politics, cartoons, TV shows, and entertainment.  The playback was overall pretty good, but at times choppy.  That was a little disappointing considering that I’m using an EVDO connection.   Hopefully it was just a temporary network issue, since EVDO is currently the fastest mobile data network available. 

I’m not sure how well the service works on a GPRS / EDGE connection – I don’t have such a connection to test.  The good news is that the lag / buffering issues go away completely when you are able to hop on a WiFi connection.  These connections aren’t always available, of course, and that’s why I think it’s important to note the EVDO performance.

Avot Media is still in beta – which means there is room for improvement.  If you want to stay on top of development and updates, subscribe to the Avot Blog, where all important updates are posted.  I’m not sure what features they might put in place – the program already seems feature-filled, and only possibly network capacity limited.  However, I’m sure Avot Media has some sort of surprises in mind, and will introduce new features as time goes on.  In the mean time, enjoy your mobile access to thousands of movies that most folks have to sit in front of their computer to see.

The big benefit of buying a GSM phone is that it works just about anywhere in the world – just swap in a local-use SIM card and you’re all set.  Well, that’s a benefit in theory.  In reality, most phone carries “lock” their GSM phones, so that they can only be used on their network.  So you have to buy a phone from the carrier, lock yourself into a long-term contract, and stick with it even if you are unhappy with the service.  The only way to get out is to pay some ridiculous contract termination fees.

Luckily there is a solution – buy an Unlocked Phone from Buy.com.  These phones are unlocked before they’re sent out to you, so they’ll work on the GSM carrier of your choice.  You don’t have to sign a contract, and if you’re unhappy with a carrier’s service, you’re free to switch.  The carriers don’t like this, of course, but they do want your business badly, so they put up with it. 

Buy.com has a huge selection of unlocked GSM phones – including one of my favorites, the Nokia N95.  This one goes for $624.99, which sounds like a lot – but it’s $125 off list price.  Remember – that’s also without a contract too, so you aren’t tied down.  When you keep that in mind, the cost isn’t nearly as high as it sounds.

Unlocked GSM phones have been around for a bit – but usually only available at small online shops.  Now that Buy.com is offering them, you don’t need to have any concerns.  Buy.com is one of the oldest online merchants, so you know that you’ll get what you order ,and your information is safe.  So if you’re a GSM customer, I say head on over and check out their phones.

Mobile Phone Forums is a forum website ( I bet you couldn’t see that coming ) that is relatively new. There are a total of seven different forums that you can post in, including the Lounge area where anything goes. The other forums are : Phones, Networks, Extras, Accessories, News, and of course, Introductions. Currently there aren’t any subforums, which is a good thing considering the size of the site. Creating subforums too early in the development of a forum site is a big mistake – it spreads out posts too much, and makes it look like there’s very little activity going on. Besides, subforums can always be added later as needed.

One of the interesting points about this site is the News forum. I think at some point, they should break out this forum as a blog instead. That way, the posts inside can be organized by category, and navigation would be much easier. Plus, it would allow the site owners to add things like a storefront very easily if they decide to. Chitika has a great offering in this area.

There is a great deal of information to be found on Mobile Phone Forums. I’m a fan of new mobile forums – some of the very old forums tend to get stale. Newer forums like this one tend to be fresher, and with a more active readership. If you haven’t had an opportunity, go check out their site – it’s worth a bookmark.