This sleek looking but fairly unassuming slider phone is the Samsung P960, which in additional to all the usual features you might expect to find also contains a DVB-H digital TV receiver.
The SGH-P960 isn't the only DVB-H device to be launched this week, the Nokia N96 is another one. But most people will never have seen a DVB-H handheld, and with the possible exception of the upcoming N96, it's likely that it will be a while until they actually get their hands on one.
The problem is simple - coverage. Take a look at the DVB Project's service listing and you can see that the only European countries with any significant service are Albania, Finland and Italy. Other countries have ongoing trials, but there is currently very little coverage.
However, by the end of 2008 we should see widespread coverage in Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland plus Moscow in Russia. If you live in the UK, well there's bad news - nationwide DVB-H coverage does not seem to be likely any time soon.
If you ignore the SGH-P960's DVB-H capabilities, then this is a capable but not exceptional 3G device. With a 2.6" 240 x 320 pixel display, FM radio, 3 MP, document viewer, web browser, Bluetooth and support for HSDPA high-speed data, the Samsung P960 is a practical phone for everyday use.
Despite all the features, the Samsung P960 is not the Nokia N96. If you can't receive DVB-H broadcasts in your area then there is very little point in buying it, where the N96 is desirable in its own right.
Samsung say that the SGH-P960 should be available in certain markets from April onwards.
I wrote about the Samsung P960 recently, but it’s always nice to be able to add just a little extra detail - as you might remember, the P960 is a slider, that supports a bunch of DVB-H variants for Europe. There’s also a stackload of memory on-board to allow it to do the “pause live TV” function that we are also familiar with in our PVRs these days….
More on the FC2750 though - this is a complete DVB-H solution, inlcuding a mobile TV tuner IC from Silicon Motion’s FCI product line and a baseband IC from Samsung. This solution offers low-power consumption, a small form factor, and high receive sensitivity that provides the P960 with exceptional mobile TV performance capabilities.
Interestingly, the joint dev with Samsung has also yielded solutions for the T-DMB and S-DMB standards that are popular in the Korean market - so at some point we could potentially see a multi-standard, all-singing and dancing chip, that could be re-pruposed simply by means of low-level software instructions - and suddenly you have economies of scale for embedding… just what Mobile TV needs!