Camera phones, move over: The new killer app for mobile handsets is here. The MobiTV service from Idetic delivers decent-quality live TV on select Samsung and Sanyo phones via the Sprint PCS network. At first we were skeptical, but we soon found the service surprisingly effective, appealing, and affordable (just $9.99 a month on top of the regular Sprint PCS fees).

MobiTV is available via the Download | Applications menu on the supported phones. And while you might expect the first phone TVs to be premium-priced units, some cost under $100. The channels MobiTV offers include ABC News Live, California Music Channel, CNBC, College Sports Television, Discovery Channel, Discovery Kids, Independent Music Network, MSNBC, The Learning Channel, and Toon World TV Classics. (Idetic is in negotiations with other channels.) What you get is the same thing you'd see and hear on your television set—not just video clips or selected content, as with other services.

On our tests (using a Samsung SPH-A620 handset), MobiTV took approximately 20 seconds to load, connect, fill the buffer for the default channel (MSNBC), and start playing. When we switched channels, refilling the buffer with the new channel's content took about 6 seconds. The video frame rate hovers at around 1 frame per second—a far cry from wired TV's 30 fps, but still watchable, especially for news and the like. More important, audio quality is very good, with no choppiness or dropouts.