The mobile device is being used more and more to access the internet -- be it via mobile broadband, or wi-fi, now that more devices are being shipped with wireless connectivity capabilities. The reasons behind this trend are pretty obvious and certainly include:

• the ease-of-access the mobile phone has to offer, because it is always at hand,
  
• it's much more portable than a laptop, (yes even more portable than a netbook),
• new devices have better hardware (e.g. larger screens), which make it feasible to render more websites on a mobile phone,
• browser vendors are now concentrating considerable effort in becoming established and dominating in the mobile market, so we have better mobile browsers, 
  
• but also, it's mainly because of our growing need to be and stay online.

Our mobile allows us to stay connected, even outside our home, even away from our PC, or in places where we need to fill our time (e.g. long queues, when commuting on trains/buses/underground, etc), and what better time-filler than the Internet itself?

This is why it is now (and this will definitely be a big issue in 2k9) important to have a good mobile browser on your mobile phone. At the moment the state of the art in mobile browsers is somewhat low, considering only two mobile browsers have passed the Acid 2 test (a popular way of measuring the completeness of the rendering engine).

According to this very interesting post from Igor Faletski's blog:

We did a quick comparison meant to save some time to those wondering
about the same thing. Please note, however, that some mobile browsers
have special “mobile” rendering modes that improve accessibility of
websites and reduce download time. This wrecks havoc on tests like Acid
that are focused on pixel-perfect rendering precision (more here). Don’t hold that against them - in the end the real-world browsing experience is what matters most.

In addition to iPhone, Android, Nokia S60 and BlackBerry Bold we
picked some new featurephones (LG VU, Samsung Eternity), as well as
several popular multi-platform mobile browsers (SkyFire, Opera Mobile, the pre-release Fennec and Opera Mini).

I recommend you head on over, and have a look at the results! The post paints a pretty clear picture of the state of things. I hope browser vendors have it in their plans for this year to provide us with some better browsers, to help improve our experience on the mobile internet!