Being due for an upgrade on my mobile contract, and my last three mobile phones being Sony Ericcson handsets, I was offered the Sony Ericcson Vivaz (U5) at a discounted price and thought I would give it a try. It was my first ever touchscreen handset so I wanted to go with a brand I could trust. The specs of the phone were more than adequate for my needs (calling, texting, some basic apps) and it had the bonus of a HD camera.

When I first took the handset out of the box I liked the look of it but was a bit disappointed as the casing is very 'plasticky' which looks quite cheap. You have to take the whole of the back off the phone to access the battery and SIM card. Inserting the SIM was easy work. The battery was partially charged so I was able to turn the phone on before I plugged in the wall charger.

It took a while to start up but the screen was very bright and colours very vivid. It took me a while to get used to the touchscreen of the phone (with it being my first touchscreen phone) but once I did I got on very well.

The menu screen was very self explanatory and the 'buttons' were well laid out. It is easy to customize.

The contact were easy to access and call quality was good. The Vivaz got very hot during calls around 10 minutes in and this seemd to be an ongoing issue.

You could choose from a few keyboard options for writing texts such as a mini qwerty keyboard, landscape qwerty keyboard or a number pad with predictive text. I found the landscape keyboard easier.

Sometimes accessing the menu, or leaving one operation to go to another, i.e. accessing the settings menu after sending a text message, seemed to drag and often freeze for a few seconds. It could get quite slow. This could get quite frustrating. Also, the touch screen wasn't always very responsive and you would have to press quite hard to get a response. I also turned off the 'auto rotate' function after a while because it wasn't very responsive and always seemed to rotate too late and then take a while to rotate back.

I was happy with the 8.1mp camera on the Vivaz even though its startup wasn't instant. I wouldn't choose it over my digital camera but it was sufficient enough for snap shots.

The Vivaz can capture 720p HD video. I found the video to be good in well lit circumstances but wouldn't rely on it in other situations.

Battery life was good but it was mostly used for calls, texts and the odd photo/video.

Apps are available but I found that it wasn't that easy to download them so didn't bother.