Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro Symbian smartphone

The first inkling that the Vivaz Pro isn't quite the premium handset it first appears comes when you pick it up and realise that those chrome-look strips and metallic-style back are all plastic. Then, when you slide out the Qwerty keyboard, it feels a bit rough and clunky, not the smooth gliding experience we've become used to, though it seemed to get a bit easier with use.

The keyboard, at least, is responsive

The keyboard itself is a nice one, though, with 42 gently protruding keys made of rubberised plastic, the number keys accessed using a blue Alt button. The keys are nicely spaced and give just the right amount of feedback, plus the direction keys come in handy for navigating web pages on the smallish screen.

So far so good, but sad to say that one of my main gripes with the original Vivaz, the insensitive resistive touchscreen, is back, and it's really starting to get on my nerves. All the good work done by the Vivaz's style and feature set is undermined by this most basic of essentials.

With capacitive touchscreens becoming more common, it only makes sub-standard screens like this stand out, and using it soon became a chore. It often interpreted my brushes as presses, accessing functions I had no intention of using, and equally often required several jabs of a finger before taking any action at all. The fact that the UI features more than a few small, fiddly buttons, doesn't help matters and it was generally a pain to use.