8. Multimedia Screen Features Compared

With screens this size, these phones are designed for watching videos (and browsing the Web). Depending on what carrier picks it up, the TG01 might come with as many as three video players: Windows Media Player, CorePlayer, and Video Player. Video Player is the first icon in the Applications "stripe," but it stuttered and juddered on some videos and couldn’t find all of the clips on the phone. Windows Media Player is relegated to the Programs folder, and while it saw H264 clips, it couldn’t actually play them, although the files it did play were smooth and clear. CorePlayer has by far the most features, including options to change the aspect ratio and add sound effects, but the interface is also extremely confusing and not at all suitable to use without the stylus as the buttons are tiny.

Once you get past the problems with the interface, the TG01 is an impressive video player with excellent sound (although the speaker can be a little quiet, which your fellow-travelers will probably appreciate). We watched full-length DiVX and AVI files without any stuttering and found them clear and vivid. The problem is that if you allow for the screen's brightness to be adjusted automatically, video looks dark, but when set too high, you may see artifacts on faces and bright backgrounds. Turn off the variable backlight and you seem to lose the dynamic gamma correction with it.

CorePlayer includes a very basic YouTube client, but even on WiFi we had problems streaming videos. Internet Explorer Mobile 6 can open the full YouTube site, but you get an annoying banner that says your browser is going to be phased out soon. When accessing the mobile version of YouTube, the videos tend to be blocky and pixelated.

The HTC YouTube client is one of the most sophisticated around. You can browse for clips by channel or find the featured, most-viewed, top-rated, or favorite clips for today, this week, this month, or all time. You can search for clips, bookmark your favorites, and browse the history of videos you've watched before. Streaming speed depends on the network, but most clips start within a few seconds and play without interruption, while the video quality is excellent.

The built-in Windows Media Player supports unprotected AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA, MPEG-4, H264, WMV and some AVI files; it didn’t play the DiVX videos we watched on the TG01 but it didn’t have the same gradient and artifact problems either; full-screen video playback is smooth and enjoyable and the sound is clear (and rather louder than the TG01, thanks to the excellent rear speaker).