The Sony Ericsson P800 (launched 2002) and P900 (2003) (picture in the P900 article) both could have buttonless, touchscreen only front panels.

Although they came shipped with a half screen height flip-down panel with the normal dialling keypad on, there were instructions in the manual on how to remove the flip panel (which unclipped without requiring tools and could be later reattached). With the panel removed (as I did on my P800) you could still use the phone for all functions - there was a setting in the OS to tell it you had removed the panel and it would then display a virtual panel on the touch screen when it was required. For basic phone number dialling you could use your finger as the buttons were quite large; text input would have been possible too (in the old press 7 4 times for 's' manner) but it was better to use the stylus that clipped to the side of the phone and use the PDA-style handwriting recognition instead.

There is no denying that they were not as slim as current phones and the screens were small by today's standards, but I loved my P800 at the time. I wonder if it was this line of phones that Apple were trying to ape when they were trying to be more Sony-like? Note also in the P900 article picture the rounded corners on a rectangular shape!

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