Virgin 3G radio application Review

I guess its been a week since this marvellous application has been launched and already it has more than a thousand downloads! For those of you who do not know about it already, the Virgin 3G radio application has been developed by sydus mobile for Virgins 3G network in the UK. This application lets cellphone users from around the world stream Live radio to their phones via GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA. Currently their are 3 virgin stations available, namely they are: Virgin radio, Virgin Radio Classic Rock and Virgin Radio Groove. I'm using GPRS which is relatively slow and yes it does hang somewhat when buffering and playing. When you start the application, it asks you to select an accesspoint. When the accesspoint has been selected it tries to connect. When connected successfully it displays the names of the 3 radio channels for you to select, click on one and it starts to buffer and after a little pause begins to play. I was impressed at the quality of the sound that i was getting. You can control the volume by moving the Navi-key left or right to decrease and increase the volume respectively. Even with GPRS, although not perfect the streaming was very good and i was impressed with the speed! I wish i had stereo earphones to plug into my 7610 and listen! but the loudspeaker works good too. The application is easy to use and i particularly liked the simple yet attractive Menus and images. Previously i had never streamed data onto my phone using GPRS (i had tried avec radio but it had never worked for me.) So this was the first time i've ever done it and boy am i happy! I only wish i had an unlimited data plan now. Perhaps the best thing about the application is that it is completely free and not just people on Virgins network are able to use it but people like me in Pakistan are able to listen to UK radio LIVE on my phone, i was able to impress and amaze alot of my non-geek friends who reacted, "No way! it must be recorded" but its not! its live as live can be! I have always found radio to be better then stored MP3's or AAC music files. There's just something about being able to listen live, not just the same old songs again and again! you get choice and it gets you going! I have not once failed to connect to any radio station during my one week of using it and my phone has given no errors. I would recommend this application to anyone who wants to know what their series60 or UIQ phone can do and what mobile internet is really about! If you are lucky enough to have EDGE or unlimited GPRS plans then im sure you will not get enough of this! The application can be downloaded from www.allaboutsymbian.com or www.sydusmobile.com One of the best ever series 60 applications i would say and also ranks as one of the best freewares! enjoy!