<span lang="en">This paper deals with the analysis of mobile multimedia services, with special focus on current media resolutions for mobile handsets. Since variable network conditions entail variable quality levels, nowadays several applications implement some kind of dynamic service adaptation in order to mitigate these effects. This paper analyzes the service performance from an end-to-end perspective, taking into account the several agents involved in the service provision. From a detailed study, the different possible sources of degradations are identified as well as their impact into the expected quality as perceived by end users. Based on the obtained results, the possible effects of different adaptation capabilities are discussed. The identification of the main source of degradations at the destination endpoint improves the adaptation capabilities and enhances the service performance in terms of perceived quality.</span>