It wasnt that long ago, that your mobile phone was not that mobile. Carrying a brick around comes to mind, with an antenna longer than the normal radio and in any colour you wanted so long as it was black. You also needed to make sure you had a power supply because you were not going to get much talk time before it needed charging up. Not that we could afford to spend much time on the phone, with astronomical charges per minute, providing you were in a good reception area of course

Well how things changed in an amazing short period of time. First the phones got smaller, then they lasted longer between charges, they then took away the extendable aerials. We thought we in the modern age of technology, until one day someone decided to make the mobile phone a fashion accessory too.

Almost overnight, phones changed colour, patterns with removable cases that you could change to suit your outfit or mood. It was no longer only business professionals that wanted a mobile phone, but everyone from your granny to 9-year-old kids.

It wasnt enough for your phone to look good; it now had to sound good too. So mono ring tones went to polyphonic which then went to MP3 playback. If you are going to look at your screen why look at in black and white? Why not colour? So now the colour screen was born, and with that came wallpapers and photos.

The digital camera had also been advancing, so it wasnt long before just about every phone would also have an integrated digital camera, to take photos and even video footage to compliment what was now your mobile entertainment centre.

It has been a common trend for mobile phones to become smaller, but different styles have also evolved. You have your standard, facia and keys style, but you also have a clam style (a rounded flip phone) and more recently the slide mobile phone, where you cant see the keys until the facia is slid open. Of course each style represents you as a person as every feature has been added, there is now more choice than ever and in some cases can be overwhelming.

But this year I found a difference when I came to renew my mobile phone contract. I found that my old phone was still one of the main players and in fact more expensive that the previous year. It was true the phone had just been released only one year ago, but it is also true that even other models did not have features beyond my old phone. Yes there were newer models that looked good, but when looking though the list of features, there did not seem to be any advances in technology just a new design.

Of course we will always move on with technology, but has the speed of the development of the mobile phone now slowed down in that we may consider having a phone longer than 12 months now, and not feel out of date if we dont? This was the first year, where I felt it had. There is technology of integrating TV into your mobile phone, but is it going to be cheap enough and do I really want o watch a minute screen when the trend at home is to have largest TV you can squeeze into your living room. The idea sounds good, but I dont think it will be as popular as the designers think. Times are going to be harder for the mobile phone manufacturers, trying to inspire us hard to please, always looking for offers, mobile phone, buying public.