Mobile Phone Guide
Mobile phones have become such an every day occurence that around 92% of UK population own at least one mobile phone handset!
The UK market is dominated by a very wide selection of different mobile phone handsets from manufacturers including Nokia, Siemens, Sony, Philips, Ericsson, Motorola, Panasonic and Sagem.
After mobile phone text messaging or SMS as it commonly known became so popular, the latest craze sweeping the mobile phone world is video and picture messaging. Many handsets now contain colour displays to receive photo messages while others contain tiny video cameras to send both still and moving digital video images.
More expensive mobile phones will also contain things such as GPRS which allows you to browse the internet and send and receive emails at connection speeds not far off a standard dial-up internet connection.
When you buy a mobile phone you will either opt for a Pay as You Go mobile phone where you pre-pay for a certain amount of talk time. The other option is a contract mobile phone where you you agree to pay a monthly line rental for a period of time. The line rental may or may not include a certain duration of calls depending on which network and tariff you sign up to.
The latest technology that is on the way in the mobile phone area is something called 3G (third generation) that will allow much higher connection speeds allowing you to watch movies and live football matches.
The UK is dominated by around five mobile phone networks including Vodafone, 02, T-Mobile, Orange and Virgin although more providers have joined the market more recently include Tesco Mobile Phones and Sainsburys Mobile Phones.
The main points to look out for when buying a mobile phone are:
Size of handset
Battery talk/standby time
Accessories included eg. Handsfree Car Kits
Type of messaging eg. SMS, MMS
Internet access connection speeds - GPRS / 3G
Network Coverage
Tariff / Contract / Pay as you Go etc.
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