I recently wrote about the Sony Ericsson Vivaz (see Sony Ericsson Announce New HD Vivaz Smartphone) which is due for release soon and I recently got some hands on time with the device.

It really does make a difference getting up close and personal with devices such as this and the Vivaz was quite a surprise – as it’s quite light for the feature set that is packed into the device.

The user interface on the Vivaz is very quick and really quite responsive, and is based on the Symbian S60 5th edition platform. But that 8.1 Megapixel camera will take some beating from other similar devices.

Yav Zare, Area Development Manager for Sony Ericsson, talked me through some of the features of the Vivaz which you can see in the embedded video – the Vivaz is due for general release in just a few weeks.