Mobile phone manufacturers originally designed mobile phones with customizable ringtones so that you could easily tell if if it was your phone ringing when you're with a group of people. Things change though, and mobile phone ringtones are now much more than a convenience – they are an art form, even a fashion statement (“I'm cooler than you 'cause my ringtone is cooler than yours...”).

Mobile phone ringtones come in three basic varieties:

Monotone: Most monotone ringtones are something akin to your plain old ring that you might find on a touch tone phone. Or perhaps they are a beep, beep, beep. Either way, these are your Plain Jane ring tones.

Polyphonic: These ringtones use multiple tones to create melodies. Polyphonic, of course, just means “many sounds”. Polyphonic ringtones are usually MIDI files. MIDI files are not actual audio files. Instead a MIDI file is a set of instructions that tell the player (in this case your phone) what instrument sounds to play and when. Polyphonic ringtones are a great upgrade on standard ringtones, but they still don't really sound like a real audio recording.

MP3: These are the Rolls-Royce of ringtones. They are actual MP3 audio files of the original recording. You can usually purchase and download to your phone MP3 ringtones of your favorite songs for a couple dollars each. They will sound nearly identical to the original recording, just lower quality. The recordings are also often edited to make them suitable for use as a ringtone.

Customized ringtones can provide you a lot of fun with your phone – you can make your phone “you” with ringtones.