The Pogo is gogo

The Pogo handheld gadget has officially gone on sale.

The British-made device gives consumers the chance to use several of the services many were not expecting until futuristic third-generation mobile networks are turned on in 2003.

Anyone buying the Pogo gets all the usual services from a mobile phone - but they also get web browsing, game playing, e-mail, a diary, music player and an online contacts book.

The funky looking device is on sale via the Carphone Warehouse chain.

Compare and contrast

The basic Pogo costs £299. Added on to this is a one-off £30 fee to connect to the Fresh mobile network it uses.

The Fresh virtual network piggybacks on One-2-One's mobile network.

There are no line rental or connection charges for Fresh, although every call is charged at 10p per minute. Calls to different networks are 35p per minute. Users also have to pay a £7.99 per month fee for web browsing.

Pogo users can browse the web with the device because every page they look at is converted into a slimmed-down format that fits the screen and capabilities of the device.

Falling sales

By contrast, most mobile phone makers are waiting until they have rolled out third-generation (3G) networks before they offer the chance to use the web via a handheld gadget.

The Pogo's developers are hoping its funky looks and quasi-3G service will prove popular with teenagers who are typically the most voracious consumers of mobile services.

However, initial hopes for the device are modest. So far, Pogo has ordered battery packs for 5,000 devices, but even if it sells all these it will corner only a tiny fraction of the UK's phone using population, which currently numbers around 40 million.

Towards the end of 2001, sales of mobile phones tumbled, a move many analysts blamed on consumers delaying replacement of their handsets until the new phone systems become available.