Extreme Saving

OK I admit I'm of a luddite when it comes to mobiles.

I grew up in seventies when home telephones were a luxury, came with dials not buttons and mobile meant walking to one encased in a graffiti-daubed red box. I probably made no more than half a dozen calls before the age of ten. And these usually involved tramping down a mile or so to the local phone box on Christmas day to speak very loudly to distant relatives.

So to me calling someone on the phone still something of a luxury and the calls have to be very short (monosyllabic if possible). Vodafone must hate me - I can stretch a £10 top-up out to nearly six months. Coupled with that I can never remember to charge my mobile - so it is invariably turned off. It annoys she-who-must-be-obeyed no end.

So you can imagine my surprise when one of 3's marketing bods over at 3mobilebuzz asked me if I wanted to try out a couple of their new fangled skype mobiles. It looks like someone was watching when I posted those free Skype credit offers way back when. Hey it's free I thought (and also a great chance to earn some brownie points mobilewise with the other half).

Sure enough a week or so later two of them arrived. First impressions were good.

Whitey is a white with blue accents coloured skypephone and probably the cutest of the pair (the missus immediately pounced on that one). So I was left with Blackie - the more refined sophisticated one.

Setting up skype was painless - you either provide it with your existing account details (it brings in your existing contacts) or you can set up an account on the phone (only a username and password is necessary - entering an email is advised though in case you forget the password like I did).

The other half was entranced by the prospect of being able to call me as much she wanted without it costing a penny (not that this is normally a barrier).

Note - in real life a skypemobile will cost a tenner a month on pay-as-you-go to keep the service going but you can use it as often as you like after that. That seems pretty sweet (but it's clearly designed for regular chatting - rather than the occasional caller like myself).

Despairing parents of teenagers will definitely want to take a second look - but only if you can persuade other parents in the neighbourhood to do the same.

The skype call quality itself is also pretty damn fine too. It's certainly comparable to normal mobile but there are a couple of minor gotchas.

There's a small and variable lag. Most times it's practically unnoticeable - others it's a bit distracting. But that's mainly down to the second gotcha - there's a small amount of echo feedback (the microphone is sensitive enough to pick up what's coming out of the ear speaker).

The final gotcha skypewise is it's much more dependent on reception than normal mobile calls. Big cities like London and Leeds were fine. Sleepier places like Dorchester weren't.

But I'm being picky - even a mobile telephobic like me can see the potential of feeling able to make as many calls as you like (potentially to skype equipped friends and family overseas).

At the risk of sounding like a newly converted Scrooge - it appears this insidious little device has managed to worm it's way into my affections (not least by being able to remain alive in the face of nearly a week without additional electricity supplies). I think I've made more calls to the other half in the last month than in the previous year. So as a tool for promoting marital bliss it is very good value indeed.

It will be hard to go back to Pay-As-You-Ghetto rates on Vodafone.

But skype is not all it does. It has a capable 2 megapixel camera, solid web browsing and TV!

Yep you can even watch the devil box on this thing. Sadly no wildlife programmes on BBC Two - but diehard nature lovers are catered for by the National Geographic Channel. TV coverage is a bit patchy outside of London though and it does cost an extra fiver a month.

Now I wonder if 3 need anyone to test out their mobile broadband service...

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