How to detect mobile device?

[handcraftedweb]

This is a most basic question and there are many answers (google "how to detect mobile devices").

But I'm looking for the best, most politically correct forward thinking rugged technique.

I want to serve different content to a small screen device (not just different styles via media queries). I don't need to know the specific device, just want generalized mobile indicator suggesting small screen and slower connection. I'd like a solution that uses common technology (php, javascript, etc.).

Google PHP mobile detect is one possibility, anyone have any experience with that?

[Skibility]

I can't say what one is the best, but that script should work fine for you- I've used it successfully. You can target the major players or you can just check for mobile user in general. From the analytics on my busiest sites, iPhone and iPad are the biggest players. I'm showing 10-11% of searches coming from mobile and 70% of those are on iPhone and iPad.
I look for those and Android phone and that takes care of a large percentage of searches.
In my opinion, tablets(10" or so) don't need to be served a mobile version. Good practice is to give users the choice to change from mobile to desktop version or vise-versa with links.
I hope that helps!
-Doug

[handcraftedweb]

I can't say what one is the best, but that script should work fine for you- I've used it successfully. You can target the major players or you can just check for mobile user in general. From the analytics on my busiest sites, iPhone and iPad are the biggest players. I'm showing 10-11% of searches coming from mobile and 70% of those are on iPhone and iPad.
I look for those and Android phone and that takes care of a large percentage of searches.
In my opinion, tablets(10" or so) don't need to be served a mobile version. Good practice is to give users the choice to change from mobile to desktop version or vise-versa with links.
I hope that helps!
-Doug

Thanks, that helps. My plan (at this point) is to have 2 versions of a site, one version for "regular" computers and larger tablets and another, version for phones/smaller tablets. I need to keep things fairly simple. Not sure where mid-size tablets like Kindle Fire will fit in.

[holyhttp]

2 designs will be enough. It's all about the device-width. Server-side detection will allow you to choose the content to serve to then end-user.