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I am looking at Planet 3 service offered by ‘3’. I did my tests using a Sony Ericsson K608i phone, but several Nokia phones and I understand an LG offering are all currently capable of running it. Having recently used a Nokia I cannot help but notice the screen area was larger on that. On the K608i it is 3.5x3cm but not all this is available to the image or movie, however what was shown was surprisingly clear.

As with most mobiles insert the SIM and charge the battery. Long gone are the days when a phone was solely something to make or receive calls. With the ‘3’ SIM inserted the default screen looks very standard with the exception of ‘Planet 3’ option on the bottom right of it. Pressing this produces a number of circles circling a planet around five seconds later you are presented by a Today on 3 screen.

The first option is Go To Services click on select and you are greeted by a number of small icons, when I first saw these there were twelve now a couple of weeks later there are twenty three so you can definitely say it’s an expanding service.

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Some are included in your basic subscription and others are chargeable however these charges are clearly highlighted and in most cases at least three warning are given before your SIM or credit card are debited.

I say credit card as at least one – and I suspect two – are adult content and a credit card number is required to ascertain age. I know this not because I have used either but my original SIM I was sent would not allow me to browse the web – although all other services seemed fine – and the lady I spoke with on the catchily numbered 333 help service said so.

I was then sent another SIM and this allowed me to do everything I tried. My main need was to keep in touch with the cricket when I was away from home and the mobile www.bbc.co.uk did this. It has not yet however improved the English performances. For those who cannot be out of communication then other sites are also available. The top five are BBC, Hotmail, Yahoo, Amazon and or course Ebay.

Football is another icon and there appears to be pages for every football league and premiership club. Music is another such offering and while the £1.50 charged for each download is somewhat more than most other services you not only get a copy of whatever track on your phone but you are sent a text with a code number that allows you to download a copy to a Windows PC as well and this in turn can be saved to CD. I suspect there is a time limit on this as the first download I did was on the original SIM and I never did the PC download. The second download was with the second SIM and this download worked fine the next day. When I tried the first download two weeks later I was always met with a Sorry, due to a technical issue, we are unable to provide you with your track at this time. Please try again later.

The main services however revolve round TV and movies, certain services allow you to watch a number of popular programmes MTV, Nickelodeon and Vidzone are currently offered. Certainly news from ITN is also available. I also see there are icons for I’m A Celebrity …as well as X Factor and Lost. Should you wish you can send video images captured to ‘3’ and then this can become part of another icon SeeMeTV, while there were some quite interesting offerings as you get paid a fee – currently 1p each time someone wants to view one of these images I have no doubt some will be of a titillating nature, you currently pay 10p to view or save these to your phone. Dial Tones, Magazines are just two of the other icons available.

For anyone who spends a lot of time away from mains power then a modern phone and a service like Planet 3 may be the answer.

No doubt in the future you can watch TV soap operas as they are broadcast, but not just yet from ‘3’. Me I think the phone is best used as that but there are times when news and other items just can’t wait. The impending deadline on an Ebay item will be vital for some and being able to add that last minute bid on your phone could be a plus.

A couple of times the phone became unusable, I could not even make a phone call. However my PC background said remove battery and SIM card – in my terms reboot – and this worked. I have no way of knowing if the service, the SIM or the phone was to blame.

Full details and costs from http://www.three.co.uk/index.omp try the graphical ‘Explore Planet 3’ icon from that web page to get an idea of what 3G has to offer and if it’s for you. I certainly think it will appeal to the younger age group.