Dev.mobi set some criteria to define what a decent mobile browsing experience is. After determining the parameters, the site concluded that four out of five mobile phones offer a "good" experience when it comes to browsing the mobile Web. Um. What???

The two parameters that dev.mobi says define a good mobile Web experience are screen resolution and a good browser. There's no doubt that the resolution of a phone's display plays a large role in how things look on the screen, such as icons, images, photos, etc. Dev.mobi argues that phones with a resolution of 240-by-320 (or 320-by-240) meet a minimum standard for rendering mobile Web pages in a clear and readable manner. Dev.mobi found that, in measuring all the screen resolutions available to mobile phone buyers in the U.K., 72% have a resolution of 240-by-320 or more, with 68% at least matching 240-by-320. Dev.mobi didn't provide data for the United States.

I think screen resolution is a fine factor by which to judge a cell phone, but simply having a higher-resolution screen doesn't automatically make the phone good for the mobile Internet.

Then there's the whole browser thing. Dev.mobi says any phone that has an xHTML WAP 2.0 browser is capable enough to load most mobile Web sites.

This may be true, but there are far more factors than an xHTML browser involved in providing a good mobile Web experience. Not all browsers are created equal. Not by a long shot. (We'll ignore the fact that many smartphones have full HTML browsers on them and provide near-desktop-like mobile browsing experiences). Then there's the level to which the browser is integrated with the hardware. Is the browser tied to the functions and the buttons of the phone in a way that makes it convenient to browse?

Last, and not least, is the network to which the phone is connected. The best screen and best browser don't mean diddly squat if the phone can only connect to a GPRS network. Good connectivity (a.k.a. SPEED) is essential. If a Web site fails to open after 10 seconds, many people get irritated and impatient. You can't tell me that a good screen is going to make up for that.