Unless you know exactly what mobile phone you want, shopping for one can be a little daunting. If you only want a mobile phone to make calls, you might find buying one less easy than if you wanted the latest start of the art mobile phone.

You are probably familiar with WAP, Blue Tooth, Sim etc, then perhaps you'll want to skip this bit.

If however you would like a quick update or indeed a simple mobile phone buyers guide – read on.

To simplify matters we have identified three types of user and outlined the type of phone that might suit them best.

A Simple phone to make and receive call.

If all you want is a basic handset that will make and take calls, you might find that you can only gat a very basic phone that does a little more than make and take calls. You will be able to make calls but also access voicemail, this is an answerphone with a fancy name! ... you'll also be able to text messages. These are called SMS – but if you don't want to send text messages, don't use the facility. It is likely that pretty soon, once you are familiar with your new 'basic' mobile phone that you will begin to use the SMS.

Then pretty soon, you will be sending and receiving text messages. You might even wish the basic phone of your choice had a few more toys. Stand by, your new phone is highly likely to have a calculator, calendar, address book, and alarm clock. Yep, that's right, that very basic mobile phone isn't as basic as you thought, but the truth is, you'll be pleased that it has some extras.

Tariffs may be the next issue to worry about. If you just want to make the odd call every now and again, don't get involved in a monthly contract, no matter how cheap the calls are .. Pay As You Go is likely to be your best bet. No shocks and nasty surprises, you simply pay and amount, say £5 and each time you make a call, the cost is deducted. Topping up is easy, you can do it by credit/debit card directly on your phone, or pop into your local shop for a 'top-up-card.

Camera Phones with Video.
Most mobile phones include digital cameras for still photographs and video. The more megapixels, the better quality image. Beware that a digital camera may say 3.0 megapixels but a camera phone is likely to be 0.3 megapixels ... a massive difference.

Mobile Office
If you want the ability to connect to all of the tools back at the office look for a mobile phone with such , operating systems as Symbian and Smartphone. The systems literally turn a phone into a laptop!

Ergonomics: With the exception of 3G models, which need to retain at last some screen size to make the most of their multimedia content, handsets have reduced in size rapidly. A common weight for a handset is around 100g. This is partly to do with the fashion element - small being beautiful ? but flip-tops, rotating screens, flip-out and fold-out keyboards have all been tried by manufacturers as they struggle to add more features while retaining at least some ease of use.

Battery life: Expect anything between 40 and 100 hours between charges depending upon the particular phone and the usage it is put to. Recharging time will also vary between models. Other factors that will affect battery performance are: colour screens and video transmissions and poor network coverage where the battery has to work harder to maintain a signal.

Predictive text: If you are going to be doing a lot of texting - remember the 160 character text feature is largely an accident - then predictive text can help you reduce the chances of thumb strain and let you converse more quickly in the lingua franca of our times.

Camera phones: Almost standard these days on anything except the most basic handsets, the digital cameras in phones have a smaller number of mega pixels available than most digital cameras, typically 0.3 rather than the 3.0 common in dedicated digital cameras. This means picture quality will suffer. But it does not seem to stop the unfettered use of them at sporting and cultural events.

Colour screen: Increasingly common, the main advantage of a colour screen is that it displays web pages and pictures on your phone better and can be useful for games players.

GPRS: General Packet Radio System is the means by which second generation or 2G mobile phones can connect to the Internet. A GPRS enabled phone can collect e-mail and view WAP pages. Costs for such services are based on the amount of data received, though some contracts include elements of GPRS time.

GSM: The Global System for Mobile Communications uses three frequencies for phones, 900MHz, 1800MHz and 1900 MHz. A dual-band phone will work on two out of three frequencies (900MHz and 1900MHz). These are the frequencies used in Europe, Asia and most other places except the United States (which uses 1800MHz). A tri-band phone will operate on all three frequencies and therefore, in theory, will work anywhere in the world.

Bluetooth: This is a technology that enables electronic devices to communicate with each other without being physically connected. Bluetooth equipped phones can be used via a wireless headset and can connect to PCs wirelessly to transmit information. Infrared enabled phones have similar capabilities but the infrared ports of the various devices you are transferring data between need to be in line of sight.

MMS: Multimedia messaging is used by camera phones to send pictures, sound and text all in one message. The recipient needs to have an MMS phone; otherwise they receive a text asking them to access a website that will display your message.

Ringtones: Part of the fashion element of the mobile phone, polyphonic ringtones can be downloaded straight to your phone and even linked to specific callers.

Services: As speeds of transmission increase and video quality improves providers are increasing the number and types of service available to subscribe to. The latest news, weather, and sporting results can all be accessed via the latest mobiles.

3G: The 3G set of technologies available in the latest phones allows the delivery of multimedia content to you in a device that you can hold in the palm of your hand. Content providers have barely scratched the surface of what they can, in theory and for a price, beam to you whenever you want it. Sporting highlights, latest films, video messages, and online gaming all are likely contenders for services your network provider will offer through your handset. The drawback so far is that the "killer application," live video calls to other handsets, is not, because of a combination of poor network coverage and new handsets, of high-enough quality to make subscribing to such a service worthwhile for anyone but the earliest of early-adopters. If take-up does increase you may find your voice calls getting cheaper via this route.

WAP: WAP pages, essentially web pages adapted for the smaller screen, are now accessed by mobile phone users to get the latest information on a range of topics from results to shopping.

Tariff choices: Getting to the bottom of tariffs can be extremely difficult. Most tariffs are scenario-based and rely on you knowing what pattern of calls (daytime, evening, weekend), texts, voicemail and other services you are going to be using. If you can not find a scenario that fits your profile exactly in the various online calculators that let you compare tariffs across all the networks our advice is to take a pay-as-you-go package for a short time, with an itemised bill, and then review your choice with real data to hand. There are two basic choices of tariff: pay-as-you-go or a monthly contract.

Pay-as-you go, or more accurately, pre-pay calls allow you to make calls on the handset as long as you have sufficient credit. You can top up your credit with vouchers, swipe cards, and in some cases even from cash machines. The advantage is you only pay for services you actually use (and there's no surprise bill at the end of the month). The disadvantage is that call rates tend to be higher than contracts and that your choice of handset may be restricted.