Mobile site or media queries

At the moment I’m consider the approach we take to mobile web for a major retail site. The most appealing technical solution seems to be making use of CSS3 media queries to munge the layout for different resolutions and serve the same content presented differently.

I’m mulling over whether this is actually practical, or if the content you wish to present to mobile and the overall experience is sufficient different to warrant a seperate UX design and site build.

I think this has to be based on what you’re trying to achieve, and in this case the user needs are not significantly different. The only change is that the way of presenting the experience will differ when dealing with a smaller resolution device.

I’m pretty sure that serving similar content with a more linear presentation would be sufficient to massively increase the usability of the site, and it would definitely seem like a much cheaper option. However, I have to bear in mind that CSS is fun, and working with agencies no so much. I guess I may be a little biased…