Getting a Phone for Mobile Internet Access

There is a wide range of devices suited to a richer internet experience out there. Here are factors you should consider in getting a device for mobile internet access:

1. Screen Size: The larger the screen, the better your browsing experience is likely to be.

2. Text Input: Phones with a full QWERTY keyboard or a touchscreen generally make for a better internet browsing experience. That does not mean, however, that you cannot browse on phones with a regular mobile keypad.

3. Data capability: These days, the lowest data capability your phone must have is GPRS. If it has EDGE; even better. If it has 3G (UMTS); awesome.

4. Browser: The standard phone browser these days is WAP 2.0 or XHTML. Do not bother with WAP 1.1 and WAP 1.2 phones, as those are largely obsolete. WAP 2.0/XHTML browsers allow you to browse both WAP pages and non-complex web pages, while the others mentioned limit you to WAP pages.

5. Java (J2ME): By all means, make sure that you get a phone that has good Java functionality. Why? So that regardless of the capabilities of your phone’s in-built browser, you can always fall back on Opera Mini if and where necesarry. Opera Mini can be a lifesaver in many ways – in the areas of speed and cost-reduction (if you are paying by the byte) especially.