Some time ago I recall 3 had a worldwide campaign on their X-Series and as part of their promotion, they also introduced Orb in to some of the mobile phones including the W950. That pretty much got me looking in to Orb - it's basically a media manager which gets your computer to act as a 'server' so other devices, mobile or non-mobile, can hook up to it via the Internet as the role of a 'client', thereby streaming media to your other device from your computer. Very nice idea. But enough about Orb; I'm going to review the use of it on the P1i.

First of all, get an Orb account from their website, get the software, blah blah. You know the rest.

Once the Orb software is installed, go configure it by right clicking on the task bar on your XP/Vista. Add the folders your media files are in, and once everything is set up, take your P1i out.

Head over to http://mycast.orb.com on Opera and you should be presented with a mobile page. From there on, you can take your pick on what you want to stream: audio, video, webcam, TV, etc. I decided to try out my music and see for myself the quality of the sound being streamed over the net.

Yes, I'm running this part over Wi-Fi for now.

Lanching the music is easy and doesn't require software of any sorts. Simply navigate to the song you want to stream and click on the link. Right then it should prompt you to download a Real Player file (RAM) and then it'll launch in your built in media player. Since I'm using a 6M dedicated broadband line at home, I wasn't surprised when the music came streaming through in a crisp, clear manner, virtually the same as the sound quality of the original file. There were no hitches during the entire song - I'm sure even an audiophile would be impressed by the quality of the streaming music.

Next up was testing a video file. Well, to be honest, I tested many files. Each file was encoded differently (Xvid, AVI, RMVB, you get my point) and with the exception of the RMVB file all of those files played smoothly, perfectly in sync with the motion. Not only that, but the quality was superb - perfectly rendered to fit the 2.6" screen. The only problem I had with the RMVB file was that there was a message in the stream informing me that I didn't have the proper codecs installed, upon then where I realised I didn't install Real Player yet. So basically, as long as your computer can play the files, you can view it on your P1i. Pretty good so far...

I switched over to my webcam and lo and behold, I saw myself twiddling the P1i in front of the computer. No lag, no stuttering, and it was smooth and crispy motion. Although there is a 15 second delay between your actions and displaying it on the phone.

I repeated all the tests over the 3G network and although performance wasn't as great as the Wi-Fi network, it was still pretty good. Streaming audio was just as well, although there was the occasional hiccup along the song. And it got slightly laggier on the video side of things, a slow stutter during some intervals of the clip. I know, it does dampen things down a bit, but overall it didn't take much of my viewing pleasure away.

My only criticism: why didn't Orb Networks fix this up as an UIQ 3 app? There's certainly a demand for it.

Definitely worth the time to set up for portable viewing pleasure. But you should definitely get an unlimited data plan, or stick to Wi-Fi if you're going to use this, because it's simply that great: all 30GBs of your music on the go; all of your movies, on the go; even live TV, on the go. And on a 2.6" screen!

It's like a dream come true.