Best Buy Unlocked Nokia 5220 XpressMusic GSM Music Phone

Nokia's XpressMusic range of handsets keeps getting quietly augmented with new additions. The 5220 XpressMusic is not the flagship mobile of the range by any stretch of the imagination. That accolade goes to the touch-screened 5800, but it is, nonetheless, a mobile with some innovation to recommend it, and, in these cash-strapped times, its circa £100 SIM-free price tag might appeal too.The Nokia 5220 XpressMusic has a quirky physical design based on a non-uniform candybar scheme. The handset is very light at just 78g. It is tall and thin, with official dimensions of 108mm tall, 43.5mm wide and 10.5mm thick. That's only half the story, as the handset is taller on its left side than its right one, by some margin. I measured it at 114mm tall on the left, 108mm on the right.

A funky asymmetric shape and vibrant colours reinforce the young market this tri-band handset's aimed at. This isn't for the typical corporate types on the commute; it's one for you teens. It's a rugged piece of kit, with plenty of resistance to life in a bag, and a bright 51mm (2-inch) 265,000 colour screen. One of the most admirable design decisions was the inclusion of a standard 3.5mm headphone socket, and more admirable still was the decision to stick it on the top of the handset (the N95's was stuck on the left-hand side for some reason). The majority of music phones on the market don't have standard headphone sockets seen on all MP3 players, so this is a huge win for the 5220.

There's only 30MB of on-board memory for storing these files, but microSD cards up to 8GB are supported. Nokia says only 2GB cards will work, but we used an 8GB SanDisk Mobile Ultra microSD card filled with over 6GB of music and video without issue. In addition to the 3.5mm headphone socket, you can listen to music wirelessly via stereo Bluetooth 2.0. There's also a 2-megapixel camera, minus any kind of flash for night shooting of course, but it can capture rubbish-quality video. Safe to say this isn't a phone for budding photographers.

Nokia 5220 xpressmusic

Features of nokia

2G Network    -           GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900

                                    GSM 850 / 1800 / 1900 - American version

SIM                -           Mini-SIM

Announced      -           2008, April

 Alert types     -           Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, MP3, AAC, 3D, video ringtones

Loudspeaker -           Yes, with stereo speakers

3.5mm jack     -           Yes

Card slot         -           microSD, up to 8 GB supported

Phonebook      -           2000 entries, Photocall

Call records    -           20 dialed, 20 received, 20 missed calls