Review of the Lobster 70oTV Mobile Phone with TV

Design

Take a normal rectangular shaped mobile, stick a chunk of plastic on the upper right side, and hey presto, you’ve got the Virgin Lobster. Why they’ve done this we don’t know, but they have and we don’t like it. In fact, the reason is quite obvious because there is a big button with a bright red ‘TV’ printed on it – but why couldn’t they have left us to choose the option from the menu, we don’t know. The rest of the front is grey and a bit geriatric looking, so no prizes for design here. There is a Lobster logo at the top of the screen, and just underneath are two buttons to select on-screen menu options. The rest of the phone is dominated by the large keypad and central selector button. On the reverse is the camera lens and an inscription of the word TV. The main dimensions are 111.2 x 52-58 x 23.8 mm, with a 240 x 320 mm screen. It weighs 140g.

Not many manufacturers can supply a phone, TV, camera, camcorder, DAB radio all -in-one, so we give Lobster a big pat on the back for bringing the 700TV to us like music to our ears. They’ve filled it to the brim with cool features too, including listening MP3 music tracks, sharing files via Bluetooth, and surf the net using Internet Explorer Mobile and inbuilt modem. Once you get on the web you can send and receive emails using EmailClient software, making the 700TV rather handy as a back-up business communication tool. So, lets get on to the juicy stuff, like the TV for example. Cleverly getting TV-over-DAB, Lobster brings you BBC1 (up until October 2007), ITV1, E4 as they happen, and as an added extra, you get Channel 4 short cuts too. You’ll enjoy using the electronic programme guide to see what’s on and set programme reminders. To watch the TV channels PayAsYouGo users will have to pay £5 per month, but contract users get the service for free. Other media excitements to get your eardrums going are a 50-station DAB radio, which is listened to through the aerial incorporating earphones, and an effective little music player. The 30MB internal memory is extendable thank s to the inbuilt memory card slot. For enjoying advanced feature-rich data services such as colour internet browsing , email on the move and powerful visual communications, the Lobster features GPRS and a 65,000 colour offering. Keeping you safe, when driving around you can use the loudspeaker option on calls, and you can see who is calling easily by adding pictures to your phonebook entries. For those funny moments so quick they pass before you’ve had chance to find your camera, the 700TV has an in-built 1.3-megapixel camera to ensure you don’t miss a thing. It doesn’t have a flash though, so if it’s dark – you’re doomed. If you want to win £250, you can get some footage to send to Mr. Beadle using the video capture feature with playback options and 4x digital zoom. The phone itself already has plenty of images, wallpapers, 16 ringtones, including silent vibrate options. You can even compose your own ringtones, or the less creative people amongst us may choose to download their favourites instead. Gamers will be pleased to know the Lobster 700TV has two games already installed but you can download as many as you have space for. Once you turn the phone on you are welcomed by an attractive icon-based menu screen offering options including TV and radio, Internet Explorer, camera, Windows Media, messaging, calendar, contacts, active sync, and call history. You’ll notice when you choose the messaging option there is an option to use predictive texting, a vital component in every texter’s life.

Lobster has been clever by offering TV-over-DAB, but they’ve not quite got it right it seems. Some have likened the picture quality to youtube.com videos, which we agree with, but at least on youtube.com you can see the whole screen, whereas with the 700TV the borders at the top and bottom of the screen take up approximately forty percent. It also lacks a landscape-orientation option, something we had expected taking into account the bizarre shape. Our favourite feature by far was the DAB radio, we managed to get nearly all 50 channels at different times, and the crystal clear performance completely pleasured our eardrums throughout. We initially charged the battery for 24 hours, and then it took about 3 hours to fully charge thereafter. The battery life was very impressive, giving us 126 hours standby, 269 minutes call time, 171 minutes of radio and MP3, and 114 minutes of TV viewing, which we’re sure you’ll agree is superb.

Apart from the unsightly lacklustre design, and the intruding borders taking up half the screen, the Lobster TV700 is a quirky little device which would come in handy when boredom kicks in. It is the perfect companion for the commuter, and great for the gadgetiers out there.