Compressing a large MP4 file that is on 2.30mins long I have been sent a video that is only 2.30 mins long. But is a whopping 168mb, unfortunetely this has to be embedded into an app - so I need it as small as possible. I need to get the file size down big time.

It's attributes are Frame Width 1920 x 1080. 25fps data rate: 8690 kbps
Total bitrate 9008kbps

It will be going on a tablet that is 1040px at potrait.

What is the best way to shrink the file size?
I can recommend you to one nicely done piece of software which can enable you to compress this file, it is called HandBrake. Its encoder options provide for manipulating the Frame width, rate, quality and resulting format size.