First announced a year ago, the Panasonic X700 finally launched in 2005. It's an update of the X70 model and the clamshell casing has hardly changed, but the two inch screen has grown in resolution from 132x176 pixels to 176x208 pixels, and many of the original features are retained, including the VGA camera. The 300K resolution results in uninspiring photos, and we hereby call on phone manufacturers to either install decent cameras or better yet to leave the things out altogether.

The X700 has a miniSD card slot on the top of the phone under a cover where - as we recall - the X70 relied on 4MB of internal memory. This tri-band phone runs on the Symbian 60 Operating System, has Bluetooth, infrared, voice recognition and GPRS, which covers the bases nicely. The PC software suite is licensed from Nokia and seems to be the core Nokia software without the extras that allow you to build your own ring tones and wallpaper. In short the list of features is extensive, but the phone failed to meet our expectations.

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Most obviously (ridiculously?) Panasonic claims a height of 97mm for the X700 but this excludes the fixed aerial. We measured the true closed height as 113 mm so the X700 is actually very similar in size to, say, the Orange SPV C500, and that's part of its problem. Last year the X700 would have given the SPV 200 a run for its money, but in 2005 the X700 looks rather dated compared to the latest crop of phones, such as the SPV C500.

We also found that the X700 was quite tricky to use. This isn't a limitation of Symbian, as Nokia manages to make its phones far simpler to use than this Panasonic. For instance, once the PC software was installed and the USB cable was plugged in at both ends we rather expected the X700 to pop up on the PC, but no. Instead we had to push the menu button on the phone, navigate to Connections and then to USB. Once the USB connection was authorized the connection was made. This is a sensible security measure when you're using a wireless connection but it seems pointless when you're using a cable.

It's a similarly long-winded procedure if you want to import a new ring tone or a picture as wallpaper, and we found it all rather unnecessary. We were impressed by the screen, the clarity of the icons, and the blue, red and green backlights for the buttons and we liked the way that the two main navigation buttons change their functions depending on the task that you're performing.

The four way navigation pad and central select button are simple to use, but the keypad is very flat which can make it tricky to use at speed. We suspect this is deliberate as the X700 is fairly slow to respond to menu selections, so it probably helps Panasonic to slow the user down a little.

The phone is quite unbalanced in your hand as the flip contains the camera, the main screen and the small screen on the outside which shows the clock and caller ID while the bottom of the handset is the light part which holds the battery and buttons, and the result is that the phone tips backwards in your hand when it is open.

Those are all small complaints but they add up to a fair amount of dissatisfaction with a phone that looks good both open and closed, and which is technically quite advanced.

Although the X700 is a fairly slow Symbian handset, it has all the features that you could hope for, but it can be an awkward little blighter to use. Give it a few days and you'll find that your level of familiarity will grow rapidly but we doubt that you'll ever grow to love the X700.