When out and about, sometimes you got a few minutes to kill. SPBTV for Android phones can help you use up a few of those minutes with a little mindless entertainment or a news update from overseas.
SPB TV is an application that streams live TV from the Internet directly to your phone. It has a nice interface and some of the streams even have a on screen guide to what is coming up next.
To start the stream, you just tap the play button on image that looks like a TV. The stream will start in a few short moments. The stream always plays in a landscape fashion so if you are in vertical mode, just turn the phone to it’s horizontal mode once the stream starts.
Performance of SPB TV is generally good when on 3G or Wifi connections. I would not even try to use the app if you are currently on a Edge connection. With that said, some channels work better than others and I think that has more to do with how many people are using the stream that SPB TV uses then it does with the application itself. My favorite stream I used in the test was NASA TV and it came in very good and had no dropouts as long as I was on a fast network. I would say 3G is enough, but performance is much better when you are on a wifi connection.
You won’t be using SBP TV to watch The Office as the stations that are in the application that so show network TV only show local news on their continuous stream.
One good thing that SPB TV is good for is watching TV you normally can’t get at your location. There are streams from Al Jazeera and other stations overseas.
So you may not be able to watch the latest edition of CSI, but you can watch TV that isn’t normally available in your area. That is pretty cool.
SPB TV is also available for Windows Mobile as well as Symbian and Blackberry. Sorry iPhone users this app is not for you.
Of all of the mobile platforms, getting SPB TV is the easiest on Android. Just search for SPB TV on the Android Marketplace or if you have the Bar Code reader installed, just scan this QR Code and it will take you directly to the page in the marketplace.
SPB TV is only $9.95 on the Android Marketplace and well worth the cost for some time wasting TV while you are waiting in line or at the doctors office.
I received a complementary copy of SPB TV for the review.
What I liked: Good quality streams from many different stations around the world.
What needs improvement: I would like to see some primetime TV on SPB TV but this likely will not happen anytime soon thanks to the content providers. I’ll live with it for now.
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