G-Spot

Touch-tone tube

by Phil the Gadget Guy

WILL SHILLING PHOTO

In the gadget world, few things are cooler than watching TV on your cell phone. And in the world of TV on your cell phone, nothing beats SlingPlayer Mobile.

To use SlingPlayer Mobile, you have to have a Slingbox attached to your home TV. Then, install the SlingPlayer Mobile software on your smartphone (a snap to do; software is available at us.slingmedia.com/page/downloads.html for a one-time fee of $29.99) and you're able to watch TV anywhere you have a broadband Internet connection (EVDO, UMTS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.) to your phone.

The service enables you to watch your TV with all of its programming. In fact, almost all the features on your home remote controls—including management of your TV, cable or satellite box, a digital video recorder and DVD player—are accessible by your smartphone.

The software also allows you to preset your favorite channels and offers a picture that can be full screen, displaying at 320 by 240 or 640 by 480 resolution.

The folks at Sling Media have offered SlingPlayer Mobile to smartphones with a Windows Mobile operating system for more than a year. Just last week, they began offering the Palm OS software beta that brings the service to smartphones like my Treo 700p.

The Palm OS beta software is now available for a free test drive. Once the beta trial is complete, the software can be used free for 30 days, after which users must pay the one-time fee.

There are currently no SlingPlayer Mobile players for Blackberries or Symbian OS phones, but Sling Media is currently working on those.

With SlingPlayer Mobile, television viewing on a Treo 700p is absolutely enjoyable. I controlled the signal using the phone's five-way navigational controls and touchscreen. On fast-moving images (such as recent NCAA basketball championship games) I'd sometimes notice a hiccup in the signal, but on the whole it operated flawlessly.

Whether I was sitting still, walking or driving in my car, the TV signal never wavered. And when a software update was available, that update was made directly on my phone in under a minute.

Most importantly, TV on my smartphone using SlingPlayer Mobile operated well enough to impress everyone I showed it to.

My Treo 700p has hundreds of functions. But in the first week of having SlingPlayer Mobile, it's already the most-used feature I have.

Got a gadget question or a high-tech toy to recommend? E-mail gspot@columbusalive.com

April 5th, 2007