The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro has been fully loaded with tons of messaging options

There has been a lot of demand for a touch screen smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard, Nokia's answer to these demands is the C6, but today we are looking at Sony Ericsson's Vivaz Pro; essentially it is a regular Vivaz with a QWERTY keyboard mounted on the back, but the Swedish-Japanese duo say it is more than that, well they have replaced the 8MP camera with a 5MP effort to accompany the keyboard, the 3.2 inch resistive touch screen stays and the 720MHz processor has also kept its place.
At first glance the Vivaz Pro just looks like a slightly fatter version of the Vivaz; the extra few millimetres and grams are barely noticeable, the keyboard is solidly mounted to the back of the phone by a slider, by switching the phone to landscape mode via the in-screen accelerometer you can slide the QWERTY keyboard down for messaging, the keys are sensibly sized for fingertip control, but the keyboard does look a little dated. The phone comes in black or white and the Vivaz Pro looks like it will appeal to business users more than anything else.
Sony Ericsson have stuck with the Symbian S60 operating system which will be familiar territory for experienced Nokia users, whether this is a cunning plan to win over some of Nokia's loyal followers only Sony Ericsson will know, but for me, though the platform can be a little sticky, Sony Ericsson have made a bold move in trying to increase there customer base. The basic layout of the home screen and main menu pages will be recognizable and overall the OS is easy to get used to and once to get to grips with the resistive screen you will find yourself whizzing from screen-to-screen.
Thankfully the Vivaz Pro hosts plenty of messaging options with SMS, MMS, e-mail, IM and social network integration; the e-mail client allows users to set the phone up with up to ten different personal and business accounts, popular providers like Exchange, Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail are among the long list of compatible choices while Instant Messaging is equally well supported by the likes of WindowsLive Messenger, GoogleTalk and Yahoo! Chat, with many more to choose from. Social networking is quite a pleasant experience; there are dedicated applications fro you to manage your Twitter and Facebook accounts.
The Sony Ericsson relies on its Wi Fi technology to get a consistent web connection; there is also EDGE/GPRS and HSPA network coverage. The browser delivers a pretty good experience to be fair; though it is not the fastest and not the most responsive, it does do what you need it to do and that is allow you to surf through your favourite sites on the go. Sony Ericsson have had to strip away a few mega pixels on there digital camera system but the HD video recorder still remains; the camera interface has loads of detection and focus settings for budding young photographers to play with, there is a flash/video light and 4x digital zoom too. There are also some sharing facilities which can be accessed for uploading content to your social networks and even YouTube. The music player is where Sony Ericsson have shown there experience; the Vivaz Pro boasts TrackID and Album Art features for the serious music fans and the video player can play a number if different codec's.
The Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro has been fully loaded with tons of messaging options which are all aided by the slide out QWERTY keyboard on the back, there are a ton of online features to take advantage of including the social network facilities and the camera is still pretty good even with the mega pixel reduction. Sony Ericsson have some how managed to turn a media based smartphone into a messaging powerhouse without compromising the basic performance and feel of the device.

See the Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro and
Sony Ericsson Vivaz at phoneslimited.co.uk