A few months ago, the official Star Sports app was launched for Windows Phone devices. Along with the television network, Star Sports is also an online destination that brings live sports action on Web and mobile for Indian viewers.
The Star Sports app allows you to enjoy all the action from your favorite sports on your Windows Phone device. The app allows you to follow the match the way you want – you can get instant score updates, watch the critical match moments though short video clips and special shows, or watch the entire game live. Yes, the ICC World Cup 2015 live action can be watched free as well!
Experience
The app offers an advanced data integrated player, live scores, commentary, match schedules, highlights, and perspectives of the leading analysts from around the world. You can also catch full replays, video on demand for match clips, and video highlights for batsmen and bowler innings.
The first version of the app had several sections cleverly embed the mobile website. It was done in a neat manner, and the user experience was intuitive and worked well. The recent refresh around the World Cup brought a new UI to the app that is pretty good and highlights the live action and special features.
Subscription
To watch the matches live, you need to subscribe one or more packages available as an in-app purchase. The recent India – Australia Test series pass for example was for ₹110 ($1.76) while an all season football pass is now available for ₹360. While the live streaming of matches for most tournaments requires subscription, all other content, including video on demand are free.
Once you buy a subscription, you get simultaneous access to the live streaming on two devices. In case you want to access it from a third device, all you'll need to do is to log out from any of the other logged in devices. If you have paid for the Universal Pass on the starsports.com, you are entitled to access live action from the mobile app as well.
Of course, several of the tournaments and sports have regional restrictions due to broadcasting rights. For example, the Hockey India League 2015 is available across the world while the English Premier League is only available in the Indian sub-continent.
Quality
The Star Sports app offers HD quality video stream although even if you have a lower bandwidth, the app uses adaptive streaming to display the best available quality that your Internet connection can support. On most occasions, the streaming worked fine for me even when the Wi-Fi was crawling, or 3G wasn't at its best.
The videos only work on 3G and Wi-Fi, which is a fair limitation. Users on 2G network can hear the audio commentary and that worked fine when I was on an EDGE network.
If you are a sports fan and follow cricket, football, tennis, formula one, kabaddi, badminton, or hockey, the Star Sports app is a must have on your phone. Give it a whirl, and let us know how you like it.
