Despite phones getting more and more advanced and more and more capable of offering convenient features designed to enhance and improve our daily lives, many users still appear to be reluctant to use them for much more than their basic functions.

Quite how long it’ll take for people to start adopting features such as gaming and music downloads on a more widespread basis is anyone’s guess, but recent news from Sony Ericsson of a partnership in the UK with online digital media giant Napster suggests it could be sooner rather than later.

We’ve got O2 to thank for availability in this country, who has provided a service that allows users to search, browse, preview and buy full-length music tracks from Napster’s catalogue, which now stands at over five million songs. Tunes can be paid for either through your phone’s contract or credit or through a computer, and the service will be enhanced and personalised for users by offering recommendations based on preferences and previously purchased tracks.

It’s an intriguing partnership, but in our humble opinion appears to have set itself up for a fall before it has even begun. Legal downloads of music in this country have been criticised before for relatively expensive prices in comparison to identical services offering an identical product in countries like the USA and Russia, and it appears as though ‘rip-off Britain’ could be about to strike again. Downloads using the service will set you back an alleged 99p per track, or £4 for five tracks, making digital music as expensive as buying and ripping an album yourself. Will the convenience and variety on offer offset the uncompetitive prices? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.