It's just as well mobiles are for phoning, because they're rubbish for surfing

My E-Ludditeness increases daily.

Don't believe a word they tell you about web-surfing on your mobile phone. I have long thought they were rubbish for browsing and my recent experiences have proved myself right.

Upgraded my mobile phone to a shiny new Samsung. Have always gone for Motorola before, but thought a change might do me good. Discovered that I could get a month's free web-browsing on evenings and weekends. Took it up, despite finding it rubbish in the past. Thought they might have sorted out the problems - delays in downloading pages, rubbish when they do download, etc.

Imagine my surprise when the service turned out to be every bit as bad as I remember it. Apart from the sluggishness and minuteness of the whole exercise, it all seems to be about money. Get the weather report for free, but pay if you want five days' weather. High spot of the month was coming across the availabilty of three free music tracks - which I took them up on. Great - except they all play at half-speed. I have no settings to change, and it is not possible to do anything with the tracks on my laptop because they are rights-protected.

My mobile phone is my Bible, my prayerbook and my almanac. As well as using it to make and receive phone calls and texts, I use it to tell the time, to check when I am working, as a memo recorder and all sorts. But when it comes to surfing the web, no thanks.

And if it's to make a restaurant reservation, call a cab or find out where I am, it's easier to make like ET and phone home...