A closer look at the LG VX9400 with V Cast Mobile TV

Watching ESPN football on the LG VX9400

(Credit: CNET Networks)

As we mentioned earlier here and here, Verizon has indeed partnered with Qualcomm's MediaFlo to bring us live television on Verizon phones. The service is dubbed V Cast Mobile TV, and one of the first phones out of the gate with it is the aforementioned LG VX9400.

At first, we thought the phone looked rather large and unwieldy, but when we took a closer look, we were surprised at how good it looks, especially the screen. The 2.5-inch display really makes a difference when viewing TV shows. There's a dedicated TV button that switches on the Mobile TV service immediately, and we managed to flip through TV channels with the same sort of speed you would surf channels with at home.

The LG VX9400 with the V Cast Mobile TV interface

(Credit: CNET Networks)

There's also a sizable antenna, which can be extended and is supposed to improve TV reception. As far as features go, here's what we know: It will have a 1.3-megapixel camera, a camcorder, text and multimedia messaging, access to V Cast Video and V Cast Music, an MP3 player, support for VZ Navigator, a microSD card slot, and Bluetooth. Of course, we can't give you our official verdict until we can get our hands on it for a full review, but it looks promising so far.

In addition, a Verizon rep told us that since the live television runs on the MediaFlo network and not on the traditional cellular network, you could conceivably receive V Cast Mobile TV reception in places you would not normally receive a cell signal--in elevators and subways, for example. Very promising indeed.