Technofile: Many years ago, a relative of mine travelled as a boy to the seaside, his first trip away from his coal-mining village. Presented with the vast, majestic expanse of the sea he simply remarked "Is that all it does?" The same sentiment may well be uttered about the latest, third generation of mobile phones, or 3G as we now call it.
In many ways, 3G mobiles remain incredibly underwhelming. Yes they can download data, in the form of ringtones, images and video at a blistering pace compared with older mobiles.
But at the end of the day, this is eye-wateringly slower than using broadband on a PC, and, let's face it, a mobile is a mobile. You make calls on it and you might text on it. Any other features are a "nice to have" rather than a "must have".
But one thing we can rejoice in is that the handsets for 3G are getting sexier. The new Sony Ericsson V800 model - launched on the Vodafone network - is a 3G megapixel camera phone.
The successor to the Z1010, it has several improvements - such as supporting GSM 1900 networks, so it can be used virtually all over the world. It is thinner and lighter and it has a better 1.3 MP camera with a rotating lens.
The screen is a sharp, high resolution 2.2 inch colour TFT display. When the phone is closed a smaller screen on the outside becomes the viewfinder and displays the caller ID and the picture associated with that person - also in colour.
And as is the case with 3G mobile phones, video, still images and sound can be sent or received in MMS messages and the phone can also receive streamed video.
Music-wise, the V800 has an integral music player and can play previously stored tracks from Memory Stick or download tracks at high speed and set them as ringtones. But prepare to make the tea, and tighten your belt. I downloaded a recent Coldplay track which took a good 10 minutes and cost more than €2.
Aside from that, the V800 is supplied with a 32MB Sony Memory Stick Duo and supports Memory Stick PRO Duo up to 1GB, providing a lot of storage for video, still images, music and games. It also contains Bluetooth, Infra Red and microUSB. It's not short on features then.
ISociety has been sceptical about Vodafone's 3G launch at Christmas, the reason being that we already have what we want from mobiles.
In fact, the move to 3G is more likely to follow the pattern of how consumers have gradually started to move from dial-up internet access to high-speed broadband: you still use it to email, but now it's faster. It's a wonder why people would upgrade their phones to include other services, since many consumers don't even use the current services available on existing 2G phones.
Mike Butcher edits mbites.com
