The S2 is a small, neat unit, manufactured by the Chinese company Amoi. Along the bottom of its bright, clear screen parades a line of familiar icons that allow instant access to Google, Facebook, Windows Messenger and, of course, Skype. It is the work of a moment to input your Skype username and password, and have your buddy list come up and integrate itself instantly with the phone’s address book. You are Skyping in seconds.

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I’ve never been much of a FaceBook fan. Who needs it? I have plenty of friends, thanks, and anyway you only have 5 real ones through your life. You know, the kind who you know will come and pick you up at 1am from your broken car, or wipe your brow as you revisit that dodgy Vindaloo. Or lend you a grand (if they had it). The sort of person you don’t NEED to talk to every day, because you can pick up a conversation two months old like it was two minutes ago.

Enter FaceBook, specifically, FaceBook on 3’s new SkypePhone, the ‘S2′.

I’ve been a toe-in-the-Book kind of person. On-again-off-again, maybe-is-it-worth-it etc. Will it steal my time, steal my personal info, make me a slave to it etc? Will I become the sort of person who uses Facebook to announce my defunct marriage, or sacking?

So it was with some trepidation that I approached FB when given the chance to try out a SkypePhone recently. Would my meagre assortment of friends do the business? Could I actually like this?

Firstly, the interface. Nice. At the top, a small copy of your photo, then on the right your latest update. Permanently prefixed with “Bob is….then you add in the text with a single click. Just like typing a text. When it’s so easy to add “on the train to Edinburgh” and hit send, you use it a lot. I do, and no-one is more surprised. It’s easier than composing an SMS, because you don’t need to address it. Click-type-send. Done. It then has a status above the message, saying either ‘updating’ or how long ago you wrote the update – e.g. “Last updated 2 hours ago”.

So the status updates are a breeze to do, and as such you do them a lot. 10 seconds spare? Knock out an update.

And this is where the genius of FB on phone works for me. Below your input field are 6 small links: Profile, Requests, Pokes, Wall, Inbox and Friends.

I’ve never used the first four, and couldn’t care less. Bu the last two are addictive. Inbox takes you to your inbox. I’ve found myself conducting lengthy IM sessions over FaceBook by accident. And it works. It’s do-able.

Friends is the real killer though. A few clicks gets you to a customised, stripped-down web page of your news feed, with friend’s status updates, sorted newest first..

Bruce is wondering where summer went.
Sarah is singing in the rain
Rob is hungover
Dan Lane can’t believe Jaiku is still down
Steve is in Barcelona, on the razzle
Ewan is flogging a dead horse toward Billericay

Each message has the time since it was posted (e.g. 5hours, 3 minutes etc) plus two other options: Message and Call. So you can launch a FB message or a voice cal (if they have added their phone numbers to their FB profile. This looks like it needs work, as it didn’t add the 0 or + in front of the numbers – minor glitch for them to fix).

But the context it adds to your next meeting or call is amazing. I know a mate is upset, I know another has been away for a few days, I know Notting Hill was a blast, I know a friend’s toddler just walked, that Wall-E is a must-see, that Jaiku is broken and that two friends are now linked, opening the door to a potentially brilliant night out for all.

The serendipity that FB on my phone is starting to engender is eye-opening. I’m not stuck in front of a PC for a ‘FaceBook Session’, I’m doing it in otherwise dead time walking to a meeting, waiting for a ride, in the adverts on telly, while the lights are red, etc etc. If it’s fast and easy, people will do it. 3 have removed the pain and mobilised something I never thought I’d enjoy.

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Thank you very much, Ken!

This week we’re bringing you an absolute WHOPPER of a show. A veritable whopper.

1. We’re committed to bringing you our show from different, unusual and picturesque locations around London. I think we’ve beaten everything so far by filming from the Tower of London. Special thanks to Tim at the Historic Royal Palaces publicity department. As you might imagine, with almost 1,000 years of history to play with, Ben had a field day with his facts segment. ( 00:47 )

2. We take a look at the 3 Skypephone S2. ( 02:19 )

3. We’ve got lots of news and commentary on last week’s happenings. ( 05:15 )

Lastminute Labs, Google Gears ( 05:16 ), Orange hiring iPhone-fans ( 08:40 ), Nokia Maps

( 09:16 )/Lonely Planet ( 09:37 ), Blackberry Bold’s browser issues ( 10:26 ), IKEA MVNO ( 11:51 ).

4. James Body of Truphone makes an appearance. ( 07:03 )

5. Review of Etymotics Headphones. ( 13:47 )

6. Mobile Industry Review website news… including quick overviews of our upcoming jobs section. Plus: We’ll be at the Future of Mobile conference coming up soon. ( 17:20 )

7. Future of Mobile Conference.  ( 18:58 )

8. Special Sony Ericsson News.  Very special stuff. ( 19:18 )

9. The first EVER Whatley Goes Wild segment.  Including a special N95 8GB-protective-strap.           ( 19:40 )

10. We announce the winners of our competitions.  ( 22:48 )

11. Dan get’s his present. There’s almost a tear shed…( 24:37 )

12. James talks about the Nokia N78.  ( 25:36 )

Video Feeds:

- 3GP mobile video feed
- Downloadable video feed (roughly 190mb)

The S2 looks like a series step up from its predecessor, with a 3.2 megapixel camera, and a new carousel interface that sounds like it’s taken more than a passing inspiration from the iPhone’s touch UI. The device has also got better memory – up to 4GB expandable – and a 2.2 inch QVGA screen, as well as all the usual apps like Facebook integrated onto the front of the device.

It’s also retained the best features of the first Skypephone – that’s the free Skype calls and IMs, then. I was rather fond of the first device, despite a few reports that its durability wasn’t up to much, so I’ll be interested to see how its successor shapes up.

Obviously it’s got the usual Skype goodness included as standard. But they’ve sooped it up. It is, of course, HSDPA. But plug it in to your laptop with a standard USB cable and it’ll be detected as a ‘dongle’. Kill two birds with one stone. I think I’ll get one for just that.

It’s sporting a 3.2 megapixel camera. Like that. And they’ve gone to town with the on-board applications. Sarah from 3 demonstrated the rather nifty Facebook mini-application that, once you’ve logged in, maintains a connection to the social networking site and acts as a launch point into Facebook Mobile. So you never need to arse about logging in again. The other 3 goodness is there in the form of a wealth of services. We’ll do a full look at it shortly.

The S2, as it’s being called will retail for 69 quid. Done. I’ll have one of those.