While most Leanback users are currently on Google TV, the app will work with any computer with a full browser and Flash. The key is to log into YouTube on both the mobile device as well as Leanback.

YouTube Remote will initially only be available for Google’s Android OS; plans to include other platforms are in place. According to product manager Kuan Yong, while YouTube Remote is currently a separate app from the standard YouTube mobile browser, the plan is to merge the two once YouTube Remote exits beta. “We want to get this experience out across all YouTube apps,” Yong said.

One advantage that the YouTube Remote has over other remote controls is that all the navigation takes place on the handheld device, as opposed to juggling one’s attention between the remote and the television, which decreases eye strain.

Said Yong, “Only the active stuff happens on the phone, and only the passive stuff happens on the TV.”

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required):

• Three Reasons Over-The-Top TV Apps Will Beat Big-Cable
• Google’s New Route to Your Wallet: Music and Books
• Apple’s Path to the Living Room

The idea behind iSeeU is pretty simple: Mount a mirror on your cell phone, and you’ll be able to film yourself during a call with a rear-facing camera. Check out the rather charming video below for a quick demo.

The neatest thing about iSeeU seems to be that you can easily swivel it around, making it possible to share all kinds of stuff without having to move the phone (or switch camera inputs on the 4G, for that matter). The company also has a number of additional videos up on YouTube, but there’s really not that much more to explain. It’s a cell phone accessory, after all, albeit a clever one.

Related content on GigaOm Pro (subscription required):

• Report: The Consumer Video Chat Market, 2010-2015
• Mobile Operators’ Strategies for Connected Devices
• How to Market Your iPhone App — A Developer’s Guide

The new application (iTunes link), which went live today, enables users to stream live to Justin.tv from their iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS handsets. For users of Justin.tv’s video viewing app, released earlier this year, the streaming capabilities will be added as a free upgrade to their existing application. That will give a huge boost to the live streaming startup, as it already has more than two million installed users for its old app.

Justin.tv’s live streaming app was built to take advantage of hardware encoding on the devices, and will enable users to record and stream continuously even as they move between 3G and WiFi networks. But the biggest difference between its iPhone app and that of other live streaming companies is that — like its Android app — Justin.tv’s signup, social sharing and chat features are all self-contained, while Ustream or Qik users have to log on to those websites to set up or use some of those features. It also enables iPhone 4 users to switch between front-facing and rear-facing cameras on the fly.

The launch comes as Justin moves aggressively into the mobile space. In the two weeks since it introduced its mobile app for Android devices, mobile streaming traffic has jumped dramatically, with mobile streams now making up about 20 percent of all live broadcasts. The availability of the live streaming platform on iPhone should increase that number even further.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: Report: The In-App Advertising Landscape (subscription required)

Velocitude’s technology works by detecting the mobile device on which a user is accessing a website and automagically transforming that website to fit the screen dimensions and capabilities of the device. Since the majority of websites are not currently optimized for mobile delivery — and since the mobile device market is incredibly fragmented, with all sorts of device form factors and operating systems — technology like Velocitude’s makes it easy for publishers to reach all those devices without building new pages or websites for each of them.

According to Akamai’s director of corporate communications, Jeff Young, the new content transformation service should be integrated into Akamai’s network within the next 30 days and will be available as a module along with its existing application acceleration and dynamic site acceleration products. There’s also a heavy e-commerce and m-commerce component to Velocitude’s service, which should fit in nicely with Akamai’s existing small object and dynamic site acceleration capabilities. Akamai serves 90 of the top 100 e-commerce sites online; this acquisition will give them the ability to deliver mobile commerce services without creating applications or websites to target individual devices.

Akamai’s Velocitude buy is similar to rival Limelight Networks’ acquisition of mobile services firm Kiptronic last year. Kiptronic also provides on-the-fly mobile page transformation, enabling Limelight’s customers to create a website that is dynamically formatted to fit different mobile screens.

Mobile is becoming a huge market, as shown by the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI). In February, the network equipment vendor forecast that by 2014, we will be using 3.6 exabytes of data traffic each month on mobile networks worldwide. And Akamai wants to be the CDN to deliver that data.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: Report: Delivering Content in the Cloud (subscription required)

For more on cloud computing, join the GigaOM Network for its annual Structure conference June 23 & 24 in San Francisco.

That’s why I thought I would love the Verizon FiOS Mobile Remote. It’s an app that turns your smartphone (currently only two phones, the excellent Motorola Droid and the so-so HTC Imagio, are supported) into a remote control for your FiOS set-top box. As it turns out, though, setting up the app was much more difficult than it should have been — thanks to some weird settings on the HTC Imagio review unit I used for testing — and the app itself left me wanting a bit more.

To use Mobile Remote, you need to install the app on your Droid or Imagio smartphone. Droid users will find the app in the Android Marketplace, while users of the Windows Mobile-based Imagio can download it via their mobile browser. (Note that your phone must be connected to a Verizon FiOS Wi-Fi network in order for the Mobile Remote app to work. ) You then need to enable the Mobile Remote widget on your FiOS set-top box. You register your phone by entering your mobile number on the TV. Once the setup is complete, you just launch the app on your phone and it will automatically connect to your TV; a small icon will appear, briefly, in the corner of your TV to tell you that the connection has gone through.

Getting to this point, though, was difficult for me. I followed the setup instructions to the letter, only to find out that my phone wouldn’t connect to my TV. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app on my phone and tried again. Still no luck. I then exchanged several e-mails with Verizon’s tech support, and talked to them on the phone several times. They checked all of the settings on my set-top box, and said they could find no discernable problems.

I was ready to throw in the towel when the FiOS folks offered to send help directly to my house. Two reps walked in, one of whom already had the app installed on his Motorola Droid. He took a look at my TV, and within minutes had his phone connected to my TV. The problem was, we had discovered, with my HTC Imagio. He fiddled with the wireless settings and was able to get the Imagio connected to my TV, too. Finally. (As a side note, the Imagio review unit that I have for testing has had repeated problems establishing and maintaining a Wi-Fi connection.)

After all that work to get it up and running, the Mobile Remote app had a lot to live up to. And it did deliver, to a certain extent. I was able to instantaneously adjust the volume and channels using the up and down arrows on my phone’s screen; the TV reacted to the phone just as quickly as it did to my actual remote.

The biggest drawback of the Mobile Remote app is that it does not display a numeric keypad on the screen; it shows only arrows or DVR controls. And you’ll need numbers, especially if you’re hoping to switch from channel 103 to 665 in time to catch your favorite show. To access numbers, you hit the “keypad” icon on the bottom of the screen, which brings up an on-screen QWERTY keyboard — letters, not numbers. You then hit the numbers icon to find the numbers themselves, which are laid out in a straight line as if you were accessing them on a keyboard. I’d much rather see the Mobile Remote app display an on-screen replica of the number buttons as laid out on your actual remote. Verizon says this is something that could be added to a future release.

The app does have some nice touches though. For one, it automatically mutes the TV when a call comes into your phone. It also lets you display photos from your phone on your TV, and lets you import your favorite channels from the TV to the phone to make switching to those channels easier.

Mobile Remote is not quite the improvement over my actual FiOS remote that I was hoping for. If Verizon adds a numeric keypad, though, and makes it available on more phones, Mobile Remote could be the answer to my remote control woes. It’s just not there yet.

Related content on GigaOm Pro: With TV Apps, Over-the-Top Video Gets New Backers (subscription required)

The app will be free to download when it launches on an unspecified date in the next several weeks, but the app itself will only offer sneak previews — full content will cost $10 monthly over 3G and Wi-Fi connections. Bitbop will work on devices such as the iPhone, Droid and several BlackBerry models at launch with more handsets on the way. Fox, NBC Universal and Discovery will provide content, along with other yet-to-be-announced partners, and some movies will incur a yet-to-be-determined charge beyond the monthly subscription fee. Read more on GigaOM.

1Cast officially went live in October 2009, allowing users to create personalized playlists of news that interests them. With the service, 1Cast users can search, create personal queues, and share short videos with their friends. 1Cast is seeing continued adoption, with video views growing up to 50 percent per month, and engagement times increasing rapidly, according to CEO Anthony Bontrager. He says the average user spends more than 22 minutes per session watching video on the site — an amount that is virtually unheard of, particularly when talking about short-form, on-demand video clips.

News organizations such as Al Jazeera, Associated Press, BBC World News, Bloomberg, CBC, Reuters, CNBC, Dow Jones, Fox Business News and The Wall Street Journal all make their videos available to the service, providing a wide range of national and international news coverage. The service is also working on integrating local content from local Fox TV outlets and Meredith Corp.

In addition to mobile devices, users can log onto the service online at www.1cast.com. The company also plans to enable users to watch its news clips on the TV by launching the service on Boxee’s media center platform as well as through the Yahoo TV Widget framework.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: How Mobile Network Operators Must Evolve as Data Ramps Up (subscription required)

FLO TV launched the Personal Television late last year, but the company has been providing mobile TV service via cell phones for a couple of years now. FLO TV service is delivered over a dedicated mobile TV network; it doesn’t piggyback on existing 3G networks used by cellular carriers. The company says this allows it to deliver a higher-quality television experience, one that is more like the TV-watching experience that people are used to having at home.

But using the Personal Television did not quite live up to that standard, even though the $200 device makes a great first impression. It’s small (4.5 inches wide by 3.1 inches tall by .5 inches thick); at first glance you could mistake it for a portable GPS. It features a 3.5-inch touch screen for watching TV, and a neat little kickstand that flips out for propping it up on a table or desk. 

The Personal Television relies on FLO TV’s service for content, and the service is a bit expensive for what it delivers: it costs $14.99 per month (though you do get six months of free service when you purchase the device). FLO TV delivers about 15 channels to the Personal Television, including ABC Mobile, CBS Mobile, NBC 2Go, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon, among others.

Some of the content is simulcast with what the networks are broadcasting to regular old TVs. If you turn on CBS Mobile at 11:30 at night, for example, you’ll see David Letterman. But some of the content is also “timeshifted,” according to FLO TV. Letterman’s show, for example, is shown again the day after it airs at 11:30 am, so that people can watch it on their lunch break.

The timeshifting serves a couple of purposes. One, it fills gaps that might occur because FLO TV does not broadcast your local programming, like the news you might see at noon every day. It also allows you to watch programs that you’d miss because the Personal Television does not offer any DVR-type recording features, nor does it offer access to any sort of on-demand library — yet. FLO TV says on demand features are likely to be added to future products.

The absence of a DVR and an on-demand library is not a deal breaker for me. But the poor reception I often experienced when testing the Personal Television would be. According to FLO TV’s coverage map, I live in an area with relatively good service. Yet, in some areas of my house, reception ranged from poor to nonexistent. Programs often looked pixelated and smeared, and sometimes the video froze up completely while waiting for a signal.

Reception did improve when I moved around the house, and got even better when I drove to a neighboring town to test the device. At its best, the picture looked as crisp and clear as anything you’d see on a standard definition TV. The 3.5-inch screen can feel small, though, so expect to squint if you’re trying to make out the text in a news report, for example.

The Personal Television is FLO TV’s first dedicated device, and the company says it does not consider itself a “device company,” but rather a company committed to bringing the experience of mobile TV to consumers. To that end, FLO TV is currently working on both an in-car TV system and an iPhone add-on.

The Personal Television is hampered by its high price and mixed reception, but it could also benefit from more programming. I think the idea behind it has promise, though, and I’m very interested to see how well the iPhone add-on works when it’s available later this year. Using a device I already own to watch TV on the go could be a lot more convenient — and affordable — than purchasing an additional device just for that luxury.

Well, I have news for both crowds: When it comes to video recording, the Droid and the iPhone 3GS are nearly identical. While the Droid produces video that is a bit crisper and clearer, the difference between the two is not marked, and the video cameras on both phones offer the same features.

Like the iPhone 3GS, the Droid’s video camera is easy to operate, but skimpy on the extra features. You access it through the Droid’s camera, where you just slide an on-screen toggle to switch to video-recording mode. You can then press a big on-screen button to begin recording. So far, the experience is virtually identical to recording video on the iPhone 3GS; the only difference is that the Droid has a physical button on its right side (or the top of the phone, if you rotate it to record) that you can use as an alternative to the on-screen button. The hardware button is a nice touch as it allows you to stop recording without having to move the phone and look at the screen, which can result in a jerky camera movement.

What the Droid lacks, though, is even the most basic video editing tools. Where the iPhone 3GS allows you to trim video clips on the phone, the Droid doesn’t offer anything. If you want to edit your videos, you have to do it elsewhere. But transferring your video clips to another device from the Droid is a breeze. Once you’ve captured a video, you can click a link to share it, and you’ll be presented with a list of all the accounts or connections available to you, such as MMS, e-mail, YouTube or Bluetooth. It’s similar to the way the iPhone 3GS allows you to share video via e-mail, MMS or through YouTube.

The similarities between the two phones don’t end with the experience of using them as video cameras; they also offer similar specs. The Droid’s video camera offers a slightly higher resolution, as it records video at a resolution of 720 by 480, and captures 24 frames per second. The iPhone 3GS, meanwhile, offers a video-recording resolution of 640 by 480, but captures 30 frames per second.

So, now comes the big question: What does that translate to in actual usage? Take a look at these two videos, shot using a Motorola Droid and an iPhone 3GS held side-by-side (video captured by the Droid is on top; video captured by the iPhone 3GS is on the bottom):

The Droid’s camera picks up a bit more detail, and the colors look brighter; the iPhone 3GS video looks more washed-out. The Droid does handle colors nicely. Here’s another clip captured by the Droid in a more colorful environment:

Where the Droid beats the iPhone 3GS easily, though, is when you’re watching videos on the handset itself. The Droid’s screen measures 3.7 inches diagonally, and it boasts a resolution of 480 by 854 pixels. The screen on the iPhone 3GS, meanwhile, is 3.5 inches in size, but offers a resolution of just 480 by 320. Videos look decent on an iPhone — until you’ve seen them on a Droid. It’s like watching a miniature HDTV.

Neither of these phones is going to blow you away with its video-recording capabilities. The Droid will impress you with its stunning screen, though. So if you plan on watching a lot of videos on your handset, the Droid is the phone for you. If you’re looking for a phone that will serve as a video camera in a pinch, however, both the Droid and the iPhone 3GS will suffice. It won’t please the Droid fans or the iPhone-crazy to hear it, but when it comes to video recording, these two phones are equal.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview

But most of all, why would anyone pay $279 for this device?

On paper, the Cyberus ID700WTA “Smart Info Engine” sounds great. It’s a portable media player/e-book reader with a big 7-inch color touchscreen. It plays back photos and videos, as well as audio tracks in a variety of formats such as AVI, MPEG4, DVIX, XVID, WMA, JPG, BMP, TIFF and PNG. It has wireless Internet access, and allows you to watch video from YouTube, listen to IP radio, check weather, get news updates and driving directions, check your Gmail, and look at photos from Picasa.

And the device looks good out of the box. It comes wrapped in a handy leather case (my test unit came in a black case, but brown and white also are available) and is light and comfortable to hold. It comes with an AC charger for powering up, and Sungale says it will offer three to four hours of battery life once fully charged.

The Smart Info Engine also comes with a mini USB cord for connecting to your PC. Once I made the connection, though, I started to notice the device’s flaws. One of its biggest drawbacks is its included software, called File Converter, for transferring content over to the player. The app’s interface is downright ugly, which would be acceptable if the app were usable, but it’s not.

The File Converter software should, conceivably, convert files to the right format for you. I’m not just going on the name alone here: The software has a button that says “Convert.” But each time I pressed it, nothing happened — until the software froze on me. I thought I might have better luck with the app’s other option: “AddFile.” And I did, to an extent — it added my content to the list, eventually. But it was incredibly slow to respond, and several times the app just froze up on me. Each time, I had to force-quit the application, and finally resorted to transferring content over using Windows Explorer.

Once I managed to get the content on the Smart Info Engine, I was hoping things would go a little more smoothly. I was wrong. When you turn on the device, you’re presented with two options: Link to Internet or Go to Main Menu. I attempted to connect to my home wireless network, which is protected with a WEP password. But the Smart Info Engine wouldn’t connect — it kept giving me an error message. I was able to connect to my neighbor’s unsecured Wi-Fi network without a problem, though. (And, yes: I double-, triple-, and quadruple-checked that I was entering the correct password.) Sungale provided me with a firmware update for the device, but this did not correct the problem. It said the issue was likely due to a flaw with my home network setup, but I have since been able to connect multiple other devices with no problem.

Once connected, you’re instructed to proceed to the main menu, which is a bit, well, basic looking. It features small square icons for the various features of the device — almost in the style of an iPhone. But the design lacks the finesse of an iPhone, even though the 7-inch, 480×800 pixel screen should be up to the task.

You tap on the icons to access various features, like YouTube or Gmail, but the touchscreen is not nearly as responsive as I would like. Prepare to push hard. The Smart Info Engine also lacks a stylus, which would have been helpful, as some of the text you have to tap is small, particularly when you’re using an onscreen keyboard.

Once you access YouTube, you can browse available videos in categories like Top Rated and Top Favorites Today. You can access your own YouTube account, but I couldn’t find any way to search the site. And you’re not actually seeing the YouTube site; you’re seeing a list of videos reformatted for viewing on this device. Once I played back videos, though, most looked surprisingly good. I noticed some occasional stuttering, but nothing terrible.

I wish I could say the same about watching the videos I had actually stored on the device. I transferred a couple of titles to the device itself and loaded some videos on an SD card that I inserted into the available slot. Finding the content was a breeze, but when I played it back, it looked awful. My video constantly skipped, and often was too pixilated to be viewed at all. And despite the fact that the Smart Info Engine has a big 7-inch screen, video plays back in a smaller window that looks to be about 3.5 inches diagonally. Why not just use the whole screen?

That’s yet another question about this device, but the answer seems to be: just don’t buy it.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Report: A Global Mobile Video Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• Report: The Live-Stream Video Market

Avaak says the system is designed for a variety of uses, including keeping an eye on pets or elderly parents; monitoring vacation homes; checking in on latchkey kids; securing a small business; and more. And it’s so easy to set up that anyone can use it. Unfortunately, the web-based surveillance tools are too limited to be a truly useful remote security system; at this point you can only watch live video, though the company says it plans to add recording scheduling soon.

The kit includes two tiny wireless cameras and a wireless gateway that connects to your router. You just turn the battery-powered cameras on, press a button to pair them with the gateway, and you’re good to go. The four included magnetic mounts are so well-designed — they’re the shape of a ball, cut in half — they impressed me with their simplicity. They grab the camera and hold it securely; it really couldn’t be easier.

Once the cameras are in place, you can log onto my.vuezone.com and create an account, with an identification number from your wireless gateway. Once you’ve created a user name and password, you can access your cameras from any browser that supports Flash. (That means you can’t use the iPhone’s Safari browser, but the company says an iPhone app is coming soon.)

The Vuezone’s Web interface is neatly laid out: Your cameras appear in a window on the left side of the screen, and you can drag them to the main window to play their video feed. The video quality is decent, but varies greatly depending on the lighting in the room. (And these cameras have no microphones, so the feed is video only.) You can change the settings to accommodate for low, normal or bright light, and to a certain extent, this helps. I used the “low light” setting in a room with a dim lamp, and the video appeared nice and bright. But when I tried to use the camera in a darker room, lit only by a nightlight, the video was so dark it was difficult to see — even on the low light setting. This is too bad, because this camera could really appeal to parents who want to see what their little ones are doing in their bedrooms when they’re supposed to be sleeping.

That’s not the only limitation of the Vue network. While the system comes with two cameras — and supports up to 50 (additional cameras are available for $99 each) — you can only see one feed at a time. You can drag all of your cameras into the main window, but only one will play at a time — if you have one camera playing, it will stop automatically if you start another one.

Another limitation: You can only watch live video. You can’t see what happened while you were away — so if someone broke into your house, robbed you, but put everything back in place, you might never even know that they’d been there. You can’t schedule video to record while you’re away from your computer, though Avaak says the feature is coming soon — and it will be a most welcome addition. (You can record video as you’re watching it, but I’m not sure why you’d want to.) And the Vue cameras don’t have any kind of motion detector that would cause them to turn on when something happens in the room, but the company says it is considering adding this to future versions. Scheduled recordings and motion detection would greatly increase the appeal of this product to people looking for a home or small business security system.

Avaak is off to a good start with the Vue personal network; it’s incredibly easy to use. Once the company adds the ability to schedule recordings, it will be far more useful, and able to compete with similar systems, like Logitech’s Indoor Video Security Master System. Until it has those features, though, its appeal is limited.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

To set the stage, I only use my phone as a “phone” for work, for personal use, I generally prefer texting. I’m interested in apps, and I use a Mac and Gmail. Here’s been my initial thinking:

Reasons to Get a Droid:
-Verizon’s network is better (or so the snarky commercial tells me)
-I’m already hooked in with the Verizon system
-Video recording is 720×480 at 24 fps (quite nice for those impromptu video interviews)
-5 mega-pixel camera (iPhone has 3.0), with image stabilization and location tagging
-YouTube baked right in
-I can play my cat videos on a 3.7 inch 854×480 screen (the iPhone is a 3.5 inches and 640×480)
-It’s on an open platform that many people (hopefully) will be developing all kinds of cool stuff for in the coming months

Reasons to Get an iPhone
-Not first-gen hardware
-Plugs into my existing Mac ecosystem at home and work
-Plenty of apps already available
-YouTube baked in
-Video recording with not-quite-livestreaming apps available

I’ve heard mixed things about the iPhone. Om chucked his, but other friends of mine still love theirs and don’t even mind the cruddy AT&T network. With the Droid not available until Nov. 6, I realize that you probably haven’t used one yet, but speaking in broad terms, what do you think? Should I avoid the Droid or does the Droid pwn the iPhone?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview

Samsung and Sprint, which is offering the Instinct HD for $250, are highlighting the HD features of the phone. And it can capture HD video; in fact, you’re reminded of this every time you fire it up. Before you can capture any video, you have to select your desired resolution: HD (1280×720), VGA (640×480) or QVGA (320×240). I found this constant reminder a bit annoying; I’d rather pick a default resolution and just change it via a settings menu.

That’s not my only complaint about the camcorders controls, either. You can launch the phone’s 5-megapixel camera by pressing a dedicated button on the side of the handset, but to change it to video recording mode, you have to press a teensy camcorder icon on the phone’s touchscreen. The icon was so small, I couldn’t accurately tap it without using the tip of my fingernail.

Luckily, you can start and stop video recording by pressing the camera button on the side of the phone — which conveniently sits on top when you rotate the handset sideways so it’s in widescreen mode. But to zoom in and out you have to tap another on-screen button. This one is big enough that it’s easy to tap, but doing so does cause the camera to jerk slightly, and you’ll likely notice that movement in your video clips.

In the HD clips I captured, video quality was, for the most part, very good. Close-up subjects looked the best, while larger scenes tended to look a bit washed-out and less crisp. And while it’s nice that you can zoom in and out while recording, using the zoom degraded the video quality to the point that I simply wouldn’t bother.

One of the key HD features about the Instinct HD — it’s mentioned multiple times on the box — is the ability to play your photos and videos back on auxiliary HD devices. The phone even has a mini-HDMI video out port on its side. So, after I recorded my videos, I was all set to hook my phone up to my HDTV to see how they looked. And I would have been able to…if only the necessary mini-HDMI to HDMI cord was included with the phone. Alas, it’s a $30 accessory.

The Samsung Instinct HD does take advantage of some of Sprint’s cool video services, like Sprint TV (which offers a mix of live and pre-packaged TV and video clips) and the NFL Mobile Live service, which lets you watch live football games. Both of these services are included with the voice and data plans that Sprint offers for the Instinct HD, which start at $69.99 a month.

When compared to similar cell phones, the Instinct HD’s camcorder shines in some respects: The video quality tops most phones I’ve tried, and the video out port is a nice touch. But it lags in usability and that HDMI cable really should come with the phone. But what the Instinct HD — and any other phone I’ve tested — can’t do is replace a dedicated pocket camcorder. Cameras like the Flip and Kodak’s Zx1 simply offer superior usability and video quality.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• A 2011 Mobile Forecast
• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview

The HAVA Mobile Player lets you view the contents of your HAVA-connected TV over your iPhone’s Wi-Fi connection; like the SlingPlayer app, it does not work over 3G connections. It’s available for $9.99 in the App Store. That’s a bargain compared with the $29.99 that the SlingPlayer app will set you back, but it still seems high to me. To use it, you need a HAVA set-top box, the cheapest of which costs $150. I’d love to see the mobile app come with the device.

I tested HAVA Mobile Player using a demo HAVA set up by the company for testing purposes. Connecting to the device was easy: I just entered the name and password, and within a few seconds, video was playing on my phone. Video looked good, too. The picture was clear, and audio was always in sync with video. I was even able to read on-screen print and graphics with ease when watching news channels like CNN.

As impressed as I was with the app’s video quality, I was equally unimpressed with the way the app’s controls were implemented. The menu reappears when you tap the screen; from there you can access favorite channels, the remote control, the controls for the set-top box, and the DVR controls. But once you delve further into these controls, the app stumbles. The remote control, for example, lets you scroll through or tune to a specific channel. There’s a slight delay while you wait for the channel to change on the remote TV, which is to be expected. My complaint is that once your channel comes on, the remote doesn’t disappear the way it should. Instead, it stays on-screen — occupying at least half of the screen — until you manually close it.

You access the guide through the set-top box control icon — and similarly, after the guide launches, the controls don’t disappear. They stay on-screen, blocking most of the guide info, until you manually control them. But the problem here is that there’s an X icon that says Exit, and another X icon, which sits in a circle. The “Exit” button is the one that you use to Exit the guide itself, while the circled X is the one you tap to hide the controls. Figuring this out, though, took some trial and error.

HAVA Mobile Player also lets you access your DVR remotely, but the DVR features did not feel fully fleshed out in my tests. The DVR controls are basic, with options for playing, pausing and recording live TV. When I pressed pause, though, nothing happened; I saw a message saying that the app was sending a pause command to the remote DVR, but the show continued to play. Adding to the confusion, the DVR controls don’t actually allow you to access the content stored on your DVR; to do that, you have to go into the set-top icon, and then into the menu. It’s an inelegant solution.

HAVA Mobile Player tops SlingPlayer Mobile in price and in video quality, but lags in usability. If you already have a HAVA set-top box, this app is a decent mobile solution. The mobile app alone, though, is not enough to make me purchase a HAVA — not until those controls get revamped.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• In Q3, the Tablet and 4G Were the Big Stories

The M120Pro is 3M’s second pico projector, after last year’s M110Pro, and offers several improvements over its predecessor, including better battery life and a (slightly) brighter lamp, for the same price: $350. Still, despite these upgrades, the second generation of pico projectors isn’t a drastic improvement over the first.

The M120Pro is slightly larger than the 110, but both are tiny. The M120Pro is narrower but slightly longer than an iPhone; you could slip it into your pocket and barely notice that it’s there. It runs on a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery that 3M says can deliver up to four hours of life, making the M120Pro truly portable. That’s much better than the one hour of battery life that 3M claimed for the M110Pro.

Of course, the small size results in a few drawbacks, and chief among them is brightness — the M120Pro’s lamp tops out at 12 lumens. That’s a bit brighter than the 10 lumens lamp found on the comparably sized Optoma Pico projector that I reviewed a few months back, but it’s not an improvement you can see with the naked eye. It’s also far short of the 100-lumens lamp that ViewSonic’s portable PJD2121 projector offers. (The ViewSonic projector is considered an ultraportable, but is too big to carry in a pocket and does not run on batteries.)

And 12 lumens of light may not be enough for you to use this projector in some situations. I tested the M120Pro in a room full of daylight, and found the image so dim as to be almost unwatchable. When used at dusk, the picture improved noticeably, but it wasn’t until nighttime that the M120Pro projected a bright, lively picture that was easy to see.

3M says the M120Pro is capable of creating an image between 8 and 50 inches, measured diagonally. I found the image degraded noticeably when I tried to make it any larger than about 32 inches in size; the picture looked blurry. The projector’s native resolution of 480×640 was enough to deliver crisp, clear images when the screen was small, though.

The M120Pro includes composite A/V and VGA connector cables, plus a handy tripod. A separate adapter will allow you to connect the projector to an iPhone or iPod. I wasn’t able to test this feature, but it seems to me that this is a situation in which a pocket-sized projector would prove most useful: when connected to similarly portable devices. It would allow you to create your own virtual big (or medium-sized) screen wherever the mood strikes.

The 3M M120Pro will satisfy users who put a premium on portability and are willing to sacrifice a bit of power to get it. But those who put picture quality above everything else should keep on looking.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• In Q3, the Tablet and 4G Were the Big Stories