THOSE who liked the Panasonic VS2 and VS3s design but were put off by their skimpy features should check out the VS7.

The VS7 is the beefed-up version of the VS2 if the VS2 was a roasted pigeon, then the VS7 is a stuffed Christmas turkey.

Now, let us dig in and find out if it has the juice to go with the meat.

The VS7 has a one-push button at the hinge to flip it open. First-timers might find it a little difficult to operate because the phone can fly out of the hand if not gripped tightly, as the opening mechanism is rather strong.

As with all clamshell phones, the main concern is that the hinge will wear out after long use. During the course of this review, I relentlessly flipped open and close the phone, and I am glad to report that it still works well.

Overall, the phone feels sturdy, solid and is quite light as it only weighs 113g.

Body check
Design-wise, I would not dismiss the VS7 as ugly but many of my friends were not impressed by its looks.

This is probably because the VS7 sports an unconventional, minimalist design that most are not used to the body resembles two thick wafers stuck together.

The phone has an interchangeable front cover but to change it you have to first remove four screws. I found this rather difficult and unnecessary arent we living in the age of plug and play?

The external LCD (liquid crystal display) screen, which displays the time, lights up when there is an incoming call or SMS.

The screen can display 4,096 colors at 96 x 64pixels resolution and turns blank when the phone goes into idle mode.

I found the display a little washed out and dark even though I bumped the contrast to the maximum.

Fortunately, the VS7s internal 2.5in screen was a lot better as it is able to display 16 millions colors. Combined with the higher resolution of 320 x 240pixels, the screen looked crisp, vivid and colorful even under strong sunlight.

The buttons on the phone are extremely flat one would not be able to feel the position of the buttons without looking at them. However, the good tactile response more than made up for it.

The navigator button was at a tad too cramped for my liking and it might present a problem to users with big fingers or long fingernails.

I found it difficult to play Sonic the Hedgehog one of the two games that came with the phone with the navigator buttons.

The volume control buttons, infrared port and camera activation button are located on the right side of the body.

Excellent camera
Panasonics phones are well known for their built-in digital cameras, and the VS7 does not disappoint it has the best camera that I have encountered.

The 2.0-megapixel camera captured excellent pictures in both well-lighted and dimly lit environments. The pictures came out good and had the right color balance and saturation.

The macro mode was amazing as I could take close-up pictures with great clarity.

Also, the phone allows you to adjust the exposure level when taking the pictures, which is cool.

The only flaw was the digital zoom it was very jerky and slow to respond.

The VS7 also comes with a light that can be set to illuminate in different colors when, say, you receive a phone call or flip open the phone.

Moving on, I found the volume level of the speakers a little wanting.

Usually in a phone conversation I found it hard to hear the other person properly if I am in noisy environments like a packed coffee shop.

The volume was too soft even at the maximum setting and I had to hold the phone close to my ear to hear properly.

In speaker mode, the phone sounded a little muffled because the speakers are located at the back of the phone. Flipping it around solved this problem.

Its strange that the speakers are so soft when the VS7 can play ringtones really loud.

Nice interface
The operating system was user friendly and a joy to use as the functions and settings were easily accessible through the graphical menu.

The menu icons are not animated but you can set your own images or photos as the icons.

However, I could only search the address book using the first letter. For instance, to search for Teoh, I can only enter T and not TE.

Of course, this is only a problem if you have a long list of contacts, like I do.

Connectivity-wise, the tri-band VS7 comes with infrared, Bluetooth, WAP 2.0 and GPRS.

The built-in applications include alarm clock, calendar and calculator, sound recorder and MP3 player.

Since the phone has an MP3 player, it is strange that Panasonic did not incorporate a card slot to expand the VS7s onboard memory of 32MB (2MB is reserved for MMS).

Finally, the performance of the phones lithium-ion battery was nothing to shout about.

Because of its large screen, the battery ran dry within two days when I used the camera a lot. Heavy users should seriously consider getting an extra battery.

Pros : Excellent camera unique design great interface.

Cons: Volume too soft battery life too short no memory card slot.