$498 (without contract)
Available at all SingTel shops from July 1

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, BenQ has paid several rivals compliments by incorporating some features from some of their successful models into its S81.

For instance, the S81 is encased in a plastic and aluminium casing that looks similar to the Nokia 6300?s stainless steel case. The keypad is reminiscent of my old O2 XphoneII smartphone with its uniquely grooved keys. And the five-way joystick harks back to the silver joystick on LG?s KE820.

Making phone calls and writing SMS messages on the S81 is an intuitive affair. Phone calls are loud and clear and 3G video is acceptable.

Navigation is made easy with an easy-to-understand, icon-based menu.The phone is also light, and its LCD screen is bright and easy on the eyes. In size, it is slightly larger than the Nokia 6300, but a little lighter.But what it lacked most was the classy look of the Nokia 6300. The casing material, rather than making the phone look good, made it less substantial than its rivals.

Worse, the S81 is so light, it felt more like a toy than a cellphone. The keypad also produced irritatingly loud clicking sounds when pressed, most likely because of the way the phone was assembled.

The camera, with a 1.3-megapixel sensor, another easy-to-use feature, suffers little in terms of shutter lag. However, it took a pretty long time to process the image, which is not really great. Which makes you wonder whether BenQ added this feature just to keep up with the competition.

Another issue: the music player. I don?t mind that the cellphone does nothave a radio, but it should at least support all the major music file formats. Instead, it plays only MP3 and AAC files. Those who rip their music into the WMA format have to look elsewhere.

FINAL SAY

For its price, you could find a better built phone with all the right features than the BenQ S81.