Nokia 500 pictures and hands-on

Budget Symbian smartphone

16 September 2011 9:03 GMT / By Chris Hall

The Nokia 500 is pitched as an affordable, but colourful, feature phone and as we understand it, will be exclusive to Carphone Warehouse in the UK.

It’s a compact Symbian Anna handset, offering up a vibrant 3.2-inch screen with a 640 x 360 pixel resolution in a 16:9 format. The phone comes with three included covers in the box, so you’ll be able to swap them to match your style.

The Nokia 500 feels solid in the hand and the design is clean and clutter free, which reflects a number of Nokia’s recent handsets.

It seemed plenty responsive enough to our exploratory pokes, no doubt thanks to the 1GHz processor sitting under the hood. The Symbian OS shined from the display, offering up Nokia’s favourites, such as Ovi Maps.

Elsewhere you’ll get a 5-megapixel camera; although the video capture looks a little on the low quality side, maxing out at 640 x 480 at 15fps, which isn’t great, but befits this phone’s budget status.

It isn’t the most exciting phone around and Nokia hasn’t been having great success of late with smartphone users turning to affordable BlackBerry and Android handsets, but if Symbian is what you love, then the Nokia 500 won’t break the bank.

Yours for £149.99 on PAYG, or £15.50 a month on contract.