Take no notice of the faux-leather adorning the back of the handset, it’s the only slight disappointment of an otherwise splendidly designed mobile phone.

The Nokia E65 is a 3G handset, despite its agreeable slimness (just 16mm thick), and aside from one strange omission it’s feature-packed. (That omission is a front-facing camera for video calls – perhaps Nokia knows nobody’s interested.)

It’s well-connected: there’s infra-red, USB cable and Bluetooth. You can surf the internet using the fast data connections that 3G delivers and, best of all, there’s Wifi built in so when you can access a wireless network you can Google without a phone signal, or the accompanying data transfer costs. The Wifi works well, scanning quickly and connecting simply.

Its display is pleasingly large and very sharp, making web-surfing possible even when the text displayed is on the small side.

Nokia’s excellent web browser lets you scan pages easily, a transparent mini-map superimposing itself if you scroll at speed so you always know where you are. Press the back key and the mini-maps take over while you navigate to the page you want. It’s simple and very effective.

This is a S60 phone – meaning it uses the smartphone software platform formerly known as Series 60 – which has a selection of software programs, including readers for Microsoft Word and Excel documents.

Business types may like the one-touch button that takes you straight to conference calls, and the PC suite software synchronises calendar and to-do lists easily. Travellers will be glad that it’s a quadband handset, to ensure widespread network compatibility, and the additional antenna that 3G handsets possess means that it will work in country-regionplaceJapan, too. Pretty much worldwide coverage, then.

Making a slider phone is an art. Samsung managed it early on, with just the right amount of spring to make it easy to open and close the handset. Nokia’s slide is excellent, finishing each opening and closing movement with a satisfying click.

Once it’s open, the phone reveals neat, easy, well-spaced keys – none of Nokia’s early penchant for swirly, curly numbers. Each has a ridge across the middle, making it especially simple to dial and text accurately.

There’s a camera here – nothing special, just 2 megapixels, but enough to take acceptable photos. The sting in the tail is that there’s no flash, let alone autofocus, so there’s no way this phone will compete with Nokia’s photo-oriented mobiles like the N73 with its 3 megapixels and Carl Zeiss lens.

Still, not bad for what is pitched as a business phone, many of which don’t have cameras at all for industrial security reasons. There’s a music player on board though, oddly for Nokia, there’s no FM radio.

That’s a minor niggle, though, in a largely successful handset that has good looks more associated with fashion phones.

Vista compatible: Yes