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A pertinent question is do you need a license for all this? I asked TV Licensing and a spokesperson told me the following.

“You need to be covered by a valid television licence to use any device (including mobile phones, PCTV and PDAs) to watch or record television programme services as they are being broadcast or distributed in the UK. A TV licence is not required to access pre-recorded television programme services, such as downloadable clips.

“If there is a valid licence at the address where you normally live, then you will be covered to use any device powered solely by its own internal batteries (e.g. a mobile phone) away from that address. Once any TV receiving equipment (for example a mobile phone) is plugged into the mains to watch or record TV programme services, however, the place where that equipment is plugged in must be licensed.

“In fact, according to the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB), 98% of households currently own TVs and therefore already require valid TV licences to watch TV programmes. So, for the vast majority of people, there are no issues about the need for separate TV licences for mobile phones or other devices powered by their own internal batteries, as they would already be covered by any valid TV licence they may have. However, if someone is not currently covered by a valid licence, they will need to obtain one to watch live programmes on their mobile devices.

“Anyone caught watching TV without a valid licence risks prosecution and a fine of up to £1,000, plus court costs – and they still have to pay for a TV licence if they need one. A colour TV licence currently costs £131.50.”

Now that’s what I call a comprehensive answer.

You might by this stage be wondering about quality. Well, during testing I found both devices to be ‘acceptable’ but there were some irritations. On neither device was watching out of doors much cop as the usual problem of sunlight making screens difficult to view kicked in. The small screen sizes weren’t too much of an irritation though – even the tiny viewing window on the Lobster 700TV wasn’t too bad.

Signal quality was variable. Sitting in the office things were fine, though there was sometime a bit of antenna jiggling required to get the best reception on both devices. I never had an opportunity to try either device on a high speed train, which might have shown up something of a problem in terms of reception.

Technically, then, there are definite ups and downs to the TV on your mobile thing. But what about the premise that you even want to watch TV on the move in the first place?

With HDTV around the corner and much TV shot with large, wide screens in mind you loose a lot when images are forced into a small space and not every broadcast is going to work nearly as well as it should when dropped into a handheld screen. Also with the number of channels available on cable or satellite, and even just with Freeview, the number of channels on both these devices feels very restricted.

And there is a more fundamental point to be made.

What we need is less TV in our lives, not more. I can fully understand that there might be times when people want to feel in touch with the world – perhaps there is an important news story or an event they want to keep up to date with. But most TV is - and here I may be opening myself up for a bit of a flaming on the forums, though I hope not – pap.

Or, put another way, padding between advertisements.

Or put another way, something to do when you can’t think of anything better.

Go on, think of something better.

I bet you can if you really try.

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