We recently received the Pantech Laser, a super thin touchscreen phone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Here’s our quick feature tour of the phone.

I’ve spent the last few days with the Pantech Laser in my office, and while I think there are a few highlights that will make the phone an attractive buy for many users, the price tag, paired with some of its limitations, make it a tough recommendation for AT&T users.

The Pantech Laser’s big trick is that it’s a thin touchscreen phone that also packs in a full QWERTY keyboard. when I first picked it up I was blown away that such a thin device could contain such a solid keyboard. its 3.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen display looks good, but is not sensitive enough. You’ll need to be deliberate with your taps.

The Laser has a “Drawing Commander” application that lets you draw actions on the screen to launch apps. Drawing the letter M could launch Messaging, for example. the trouble is, you have to first launch the drawing commander to then draw your command and open an app. You can customize one of three homescreens with shortcuts to your favorite applications, so why wouldn’t you just open the Messaging app first? Drawing Commander is a gimmick.

The web browser on the Laser is practically useless for accessing full HTML sites. For one, the screen’s resolution is so low that you’ll see the topmost fraction of any website. Second, scrolling and panning is slow and tedious. third, the touchscreen isn’t accurate and so tapping links is a lesson in frustration. Stick to mobile sites.

As a messaging device, the Laser is very capable. its keyboard was comfortable to type on and its messaging is threaded, which means your texts are presented in a clean conversation view.

If it’s a thin messaging phone you’re after, then the Pantech Laser will suffice. For a better web experience with a similar, albeit fatter, formfactor, I suggest checking out the Samsung Impression. You’ll even save a few bucks.