Sprint's Power Vision offers streaming movies, downloadable music and live TV. Will it make your phone a 3G powerhouse?
Review summary of the Sprint Power Vision:
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 Overall, we like where Sprint is going with its 3G entertainment network. As the first carrier to provide streaming movies, Sprint is taking a step in the right direction, and we hope that as technology improves, the quality will be more consistent across the board. The movie store has nearly doubled in size since its inception a few months ago, with some truly compelling and high quality titles mixed in with some fun and shlocky B-pictures. The music download store provides a vast catalogue as well, with plenty of hidden gems. Television is the weak link in this chain, however. With only a selection of short clip mobisodes and previews, the TV experience feels like you're paying to watch commercials for real TV. Price: $15.
Pros: Lot's of content across the board, including a range of streaming music, downloadable music, and interesting movie options. Generally good quality streams, depending on which phone you're using.
Cons: Music player is too simple. A la carte pricing is confusing, and can really add up. Most TV channels offer little more than short clips and previews.
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Full Sprint Power Vision Review:
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Movies - Very Good
The Sprint movie store rents access to streaming movies. Though the movies are divided into chapters, the player moves seamlessly from one to the next, and on especially adept phones, such as the Samsung SPH-M610, you probably won't notice the gap between scenes. On every phone we used, however, the video took up only a small portion of the overall screen. Even on the Sanyo M1, which can display TV offerings in full screen portrait or landscape mode, the movie was presented in portrait only and did not take up the screen. The store stocked 71 titles as of press time, ranging from true classics, such as "Jaws" and "Scarface", to goofball comedies, like "The Jerk" and "Mallrats". Some titles clearly weren't meant for the tiny screen; the eye-popping, planet-sized visuals of "The Hitchhiker's Guide" suffer, as do the eerie submerged bass kicks of "U-571". Luckily, you don't really need a large screen to enjoy "Akeelah and the Bee", or the glut of Adam Sandler choices. Films range in price from $4 to $6, and rental times range from a single day to a week. Quality depends mostly on your phone. Though the M610 looked great, it lacked the Bluetooth stereo option of the Sanyo M1, which suffered from a low frame-rate and constant buffering between scenes. The movie store also offers trailers of upcoming releases. Unfortunately, films were presented as a single list, without categories, though you can search for an individual title from the main screen.
Our favorites: Some cool movies we don't yet own, like "12 Monkeys" and "Ghostbusters", and the selection of kung fu classics.
Our request: Sprint should focus on movies that work on such a small screen. "Larry the Cable Guy" works, but the massive sandstorms of "The Mummy" lose something.
Television - Good
Sprint offers both original programming, and some familiar video clips for its TV offering, though we found the organization of clips perplexing. The Sprint Power Vision application streams original entertainment, sports, and music clips, usually under five minutes long. From the Media Player app, you can access Sprint TV. Major production houses, such as Fox and Sony, show clips from television shows, as well as "mobisodes": original, short-form supplements to shows such as "Vanished" and "Bones". Though the selection was vast, with about 99 channels in 7 categories from which to chose, the available content was woefully short, with some cartoon clips clocking in at less than a full minute of programming. The player itself was a dismal affar; with only a "Play" button, it is incapable of fast-forwarding, rewinding, or even pausing a stream. The best content comes from Sprint's TV Live television channels, which feature an ongoing stream of music, sports, and entertainment (plus commercials, unfortunately) from networks like Fox, ABC, and websites, such as IGN and CNET.
Our favorites: For video game fans, IGN's video reviews are usually only available with a paid subscription to their site, making the Sprint TV Live channel a real find.
Our request: More full-length television shows. Even if we have to pay (as we do on the iTunes TV show store), we'd be willing to cough up for shows we missed, rather than just a two-minute clip.
Streaming music - Very Good
Sprint tosses a mix of streaming music options together in the "Music and Radio" section of the Sprint Power Vision player. Streaming music and music videos are provided by Sprint, Music Choice, Sony, and Sirius satellite radio. While the former three options focus more on promotional tracks and interviews, the content provided by Sirius matches the subscription-based plans you'd expect to find on Sirius hardware. Conspicuously absent are some of the more compelling Sirius channels, such as Howard Stern's channels and NBA basketball games, but the service offers a selection of more than 20 channels across seven categories. Music sounds clear, but the quality is obviously compressed for streaming, comparable more to AM radio than the digital quality you'd get with true satellite hardware. The music never stuttered or stopped after the initial buffer, however, and the mix of music was enough to keep any fan busy.
Our favorites: The Sirius Decades category designates a different decade to each channel, for the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Our request: Howard Stern, and a better selection of original Sirius programming, would make this a truly killer app that's even more compelling than the disappointing portable devices Sirius is marketing.
Downloading music - Very Good
Sprint's music store offers an interesting, two-stage purchase model. First, you download a track to your phone. This is a lower-quality track, though it does sound better than the streaming music channels. Once you've purchased a track, you can go to the Digital Lounge section of Sprint's Web site to download a less-compressed version for your PC. The selection is an extensive collection of more than 300,000 tracks; in Hip-Hop alone we counted almost 100 different artists, and the store tries its best to offer music in innovative categories such as "Top 10s" and "Songs You Know," which included an eclectic mix ranging from "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns 'N Roses to "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding to "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly. Songs sell for $2.50 a piece, or you can buy three for $5, which is not an unreasonable price for music on the spot. The Power Vision Plus and Ultimate plans come with one and four downloads per month, respectively.
Our favorites: The wide selection of spoken word and comedy tracks don't pull any punches, including selections from cult favorites Bill Hicks, John Valby, and Mitch Hedberg, as well as safer selections from Bill Cosby and Doctor Demento.
Our request: Three tracks for $5 is a pretty good deal, even compared to $0.99 tracks on iTunes. We'd like to see larger packages, offering 20 tracks or more, or a larger monthly allowance included with your Sprint plan.
Pricing - Good
Sprint offers up five tiers of Power Vision pricing. For $15/mo, users can get the access plan, which includes unlimited web browsing from your phone, a few basic channels of Sprint TV, and Sirius' Hits channel. For $20/mo and $25/mo, you can grab the Plus and Ultimate packs, which include more channels of Sprint TV, unlimited Sprint Picture Mail (which includes video mail), and a music store allowance, though the Ultimate plan only provides four tracks a month, and the Plus a mere single. The Business Pack, for $25/mo, provides unlimited web access on your phone, the Weather Channel app, plus live news and radio (which, for now, is only ABC News and Sirius Hits). Finally, Sprint offers an inclusive Unlimited Data Plan for Phone as Modem, which gives you only a basic set of Power Vision TV options, but allows you to connect your phone to your laptop for tethered modem support on Sprint's EV-DO network.
Odds and ends
Sprint needs to do a much better job aggregating their content. Though we understand that content is coming from myriad providers, streaming music content alone is provided by at least four different services, Sprint is doing their customers a disservice by making it so hard to find what you're looking for. Many channels and features are duplicated between the Sprint Power Vision app and the Media Player app, which made it hard for us to find the same selection twice. Also, the pricing scheme for streaming content should be more clear. Each of those four streaming music providers charged a separate, monthly rate for their content, without much in the way of a preview. And the media player is often pathetic; the streaming music player doesn't even have a "pause" function, it simply stops, forcing you to reload it.
Related phones: Sprint Power Vision phones
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Sanyo M1
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Score: 79% When: December 2006 Worth: $100 - $350 Carrier: Sprint
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Sanyo's new clamshell stresses substance over style with 1GB internal memory and dedicated music buttons. Is the extra heft worth its weight?
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Samsung SPH-M610
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Score: 82% When: November 2006 Worth: $130 - $330 Carrier: Sprint
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This wafer-thin clamshell features stereo Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera and access to Sprint's Music Store and TV services. Does the M610 belong in your pocket?
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Price and availability
Sprint Power Vision is available with a calling plan for $15 to $25 monthly.
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