The world’s largest mobile manufacture had to reassess its market share calculations recently as knock-offs and unregistered handset sales were taken into account and it saw its stake fall by a few percentage points. However, 2010 is still a big year for the Finnish firm and its latest launches suggest that it is still able to deliver top quality products.

Nokia 1662

Nokia has always produced highly durable products to meet the most basic needs and the 1662 has fitted this description accurately. It has a 1.8 inch colour display that is bright and crisp despite its small size and resolution. Its bar design is unfussy and workmanlike, but it has rounded corners and a two-tone finish that suggests style and sophistication. At just 82 grammes the 1662 will not weigh you down and it is compact enough to fit into the tightest pocket or the dinkiest bag.

An FM receiver is integrated for radio on the move and it has 32 preinstalled ringtones, although with 8 megabytes of internal memory you will not be able to add more than a couple of your own tunes before the phone is full. A speakerphone function is available and the 1662 can be set to ring at impressively loud volumes, making it suitable for use in a noise working environment or when you are outside. You can change the look and feel of the handset with several themes and wallpapers, but since there is no digital camera onboard you cannot snap your own scenes for this purpose.

Nokia 7230

The 7230 is aimed at the youth market and its slider design gives it a clean external finish whilst masking the numeric keypad from view until you need to send a text or access the menus. The 2.4 inch screen is a decent size, making web browsing an option and because it is based on Symbian S40 there are plenty of useful applications onboard for organising your life and having fun. There is no 3G or Wi-Fi connectivity here, but EDGE is present for data use.

Nokia has made sure that social networking access is an integral asset in the 7230’s arsenal. Facebook, Flikr, YouTube and many more popular sites are all accessible as integrated apps or via the web browser. You can check up on your mates, update your profile and stream videos. You can also use Nokia’s Ovi Share service to upload pictures snapped with the 3.2 megapixel camera directly to your site of choice. You can even shoot a video clip with the camera and then upload it to YouTube without having to transfer it to your PC. You will have to wait a while until the upload completes, but its presence will be welcomed by many.

The 7230 supports instant messaging services including Windows Live messenger and Google Talk and an LED will let you know as soon as a friend sends you a new instant message. Webmail support is also included, with services such as Gmail and Hotmail all making an appearance. Push email accounts can be added manually and Nokia will provide you with an Ovi email account for free if you want to setup your mobile email service quickly.

Nokia’s Ovi services extend to other areas of the phone as well. The contact list is not just a static collection of your associates’ phone numbers, but a living screen that is updated every time a new message or call is received. Social networking also plays a part here, as status updates will appear next to your friends under their contact listing. You can connect the 7230 to your computer and synchronise or backup your contacts, making it easy to transfer over your saved settings from a previous Nokia mobile. You can access Nokia’s premiere download services from the 7230, including the Ovi Store and the Nokia Music Store. The former lets you browse through games, apps, themes and wallpapers, many of which are free to download, whilst the latter lets you buy music to listen to from famous international acts. A world of customisation and entertainment is available through Ovi and Nokia is constantly updating the services with new content and features.

Nokia Booklet 3G

This is not your standard mobile phone, but rather a small-scale laptop, usually referred to as a netbook. The reason it is worth mentioning here is its 3G connectivity. This allows it to hook up to the internet from virtually anywhere thanks to the prevalence of 3G coverage across the UK. It is a way of getting a mobile broadband connection without relying on a separate USB dongle.

The Booklet 3G is only 2 centimetres thick and it can survive for 12 hours from a single charge, which is up to three times more than other laptops. It also has a 10.1 inch screen that is housed in an aluminium outer shell for robust construction and durability. However, Nokia has not skimped on the software package, as it comes with Windows 7, which is the latest operating system from Microsoft. It offers a variety of enhancements, including reduced power consumption when no AC power source is detected.

Inside the Booklet 3G is a 120GB hard drive, which is large enough to keep endless documents and thousands of media files stored. Nokia has managed to make this miniature laptop without relying on any fans inside. This means that there will be no excess noise and the heat that is generated will be dissipated effectively. As well as 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi is also included for use at home or when out and about. Unlike other netbooks, Nokia’s creation has an integrated GPS antennae, which allows the user to find out where they are at all times and can be used in conjunction with mapping software for route planning and navigation. The Booklet 3G really does feel like an over-sized smartphone when you take into account the fact that you can send SMS texts from the desktop thanks to a native application that remains open no matter what you are doing.

The Nokia 5230 has not been on the market that long, but you can appreciate how significant the release of a new Nokia handset is when you consider that there are already several websites dedicated solely to the Nokia 5230 and nothing else. This is very early days and because these sites are run for the love of the phone rather than to make a profit, you should not expect the kind of professional finish that you might see elsewhere on the web. However, if you have a Nokia 5230, or if you are thinking about picking one up, you can learn a lot more about the phone if you look at the community sites rather than relying on the mainstream sites which are usually biased in one direction or the other. Obviously these fan sites are in favour of the 5230, but by not being disparaging, they are able to get the absolute maximum enjoyment from the phone at all times.

One useful function of the community sites surrounding the Nokia 5230 is the provision of reviews for third party software. At the moment Nokia’s Ovi Store is still developing and it is not the best place to get reviews of the apps that it offers, so you will need to seek your advice elsewhere. For example, if you want to browse the internet on the 5230, but are dissatisfied with the included browser software, then you could check out a few third party alternatives, having read up a little bit about them online. One option is Skyfire S60v5, which is compatible with any smartphone based on the Symbian S60 software platform. Skyfire gives you various features that are not offered by other browser and attempts to emulate the full desktop browsing experience on your mobile. Opera Mobile 10 is another good third party browser which works excellently on the Nokia 5230’s large touch screen. Or if you want to keep your data costs down you could go for Opera Mini 5, which compresses web pages remotely before sending them to your phone, speeding up loading times as a consequence. There are many more third party browsers to check out and for honest opinions you should visit the community sites dedicated to the Nokia 5230.

Community sites can also be useful tools if you want to hack your Nokia 5230. Hacking is probably a little too strong a term to use here, as it immediately conjures up images of viruses, identity theft and even international terrorism. However, hacking mobile phones is completely different and millions of people do it in order to install some of the third party software that is developed for their platforms, but that is not officially sanctioned by Nokia. The Nokia 5230 requires the user to have officially ratified apps which must be ’signed’ in order to work. Homebrew coders create apps that do not have signing capabilities and as such are unusable on Nokia 5230’s which remain unhacked. Hacking your phone will enable you to install third party software without having to go through convoluted means. You do not need to be a computing whizz kid to hack your phone, as the community has generated several free apps that can be used to open it up to all of the content that you could possibly imagine. There are community sites with detailed guides relating to how to hack the Nokia 5230, complete with photographs to get you through each step unscathed. When performing any kind of modification or hack which Nokia did not intend you to, it is essential to back up all of your data, including contacts and photos. If you do not feel confident enough to hack your Nokia 5230 then you can always download and install apps in the standard way and there are many independent developers who have made content that works using Nokia’s installing system, so there is no pressing need to hack your phone if you do not want to.

If you have yet to purchase a Nokia 5230, you might think that looking at community sites will be of no benefit to you. However, they can often contain useful information that will help you to make your decision. For example, some will contain photographs that other users have taken with the 5230’s digital camera. This kind of thing is performed by professional reviewers as well, but their photos are often of generic household objects or buildings. If you want to see how the camera performs when pointed at groups of people or common scenes, then the community is the place to look.

Hopefully you will now be a little bit more receptive to the community that is steadily growing around the Nokia 5230. Many Nokia fan sites will deal with the phone in part, but there are those that dedicate their entire existence to the 5230. On a side note, there is a truly hilarious video on YouTube, produced by Nokia itself, which was released to show off the 5230 before its launch. The visual content is not particularly odd, although the hand model featured has notably large nails, perhaps to take the place of a stylus. It is the music that makes the advert, which sounds like a completely insane version of a track that would play in the background of a particularly cheerful version of Mario Kart. Nokia clearly has a sense of humour when it comes to its music phones.

Nokia’s first touch screen mobile phone was the 5800 XpressMusic and whilst this has had an enduring popularity and overcome early criticism, it was obvious to anyone using it that resistive touch screen technology was just not good enough to stay the distance. The iPhone had already brought capacitive technology to the table and with multitouch interaction and the elimination of the need for styluses in this instance made every other touch screen mobile look outdated. The 5800 was a music phone and Nokia’s latest high end multimedia device, the X6, has stuck with the touch screen design, but finally booted out the resistive technology in favour of the far more fingertip-friendly capacitive alternative. The results are impressive and worthy of explanation if you are still a little confused about the difference between the various touch screen technologies that are out there.

The Nokia X6 touch screen dominates the front of the phone and there are very few physical buttons present to make things muddled. The X6 is determined to get you using the touch screen for everything and Nokia has worked hard on the interface to make this as easy as possible. The icons are large enough for you to press them with a finger or a thumb and even those with relatively large digits will find that they will rarely make a mistake when navigating the menus.

The Nokia X6 touch screen itself is not only easy to use, but also easy on the eye. It has the widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, which is the same as you will find on a majority of modern televisions. This means that watching widescreen content from the internet or from your memory card will look excellent and natural and there is rarely any stretching or cropping to contend with unless you are watching a movie that is presented in its full cinematic aspect ratio. Colours are vibrant and the backlighting is brighter than some of its competitors, which may help to account for the relative thickness of the X6. Automatic brightness adjustment can be activated and built in sensors will modify the settings depending on your surroundings, which not only improves the battery life but makes everything onscreen look that much better.

Whenever you press an onscreen icon, enter a letter using the QWERTY keypad or tap on the screen twice to zoom in on a web page, a small jolt of vibration will be emitted by the X6. This is referred to as haptic feedback in the industry and has been present in Nokia’s other touch screen mobiles in the past. It acts as an indication that you have pressed a key and whilst it was definitely necessary on resistive screens which required pressure to make an accurate input, with the Nokia X6 touch screen it is useful but not essential, because the capacitive technology makes it much harder to mess up as you type or touch.

It is important to realise that the Nokia X6 touch screen will react only to the touch of a human finger. It will not detect the pressure of a stylus or even a fingernail because it reacts to bioelectrical signals. This means you only need the lightest of touches to get a touch registered, but also means that more advanced interaction such as handwriting translation and drawing are out of the question. Several firms are in the process of creating styluses that work with capacitive screens, but these are a little way off yet and will probably only have a small audience to which they appeal when they do arrive.

If you decide to become the proud owner of a Nokia N900, you will quickly be aware of a couple of things. The first is that the N900 is not really designed for being held in any other way than landscape. This is made particularly clear because the Nokia logo is mounted about the screen when it is held in its natural widescreen orientation. The second is that the N900 is not aimed at the mainstream. Aside from its price, it has in the Maemo 5 operating system one of the most powerful, customisable pieces of mobile software on the planet. This means that as you sleep a veritable army of dedicated enthusiasts will be working behind the scenes to create software, hacks and ports for the N900. You will need a bit of skill and a willingness to experiment yourself if you want to get the most out of the N900, but the rewards for taking the plunge can be significant.

It is the Nokia N900 gaming capabilities that are likely to make it appealing to an audience beyond those looking for productivity apps and enterprise functionality. Until now the iPhone has been championed as the king of mobile gaming and whilst this is true if you consider the sheer volume of games that have been released, the N900 has it licked in terms of hardware. If you are looking for an experience that is similar to that offered by Apple then the N900 can be used in conjunction with the Ovi Store, which is Nokia’s equivalent of the App Store. This is filled with an ever-increasing library of software and games and you can get titles for free as well as for a small fee. This is certainly a useful function, but it does not cover all of the Nokia N900 gaming potential. For that, we need to go to the boundaries of legality.

When Nokia first began showcasing the N900, it created a video to outline the kind of emulation that was possible using the Maemo 5 platform. In that video, an emulation programme was shown running classic Nintendo titles from yesteryear. Nintendo got a little upset as it looked like Nokia was encouraging people to download pirate ROMs, but in actual fact the intention was to show off the kind of cross-platform capabilities which the N900 offered thanks to its powerful hardware and flexible Maemo platform. The emulation community is still considered to be verging on the illegitimate, but there are plenty of legal ways to enjoy the Nokia N900 gaming capabilities.

The most recent Nokia N900 gaming hack that has come to public attention involves a PlayStation 3 controller. Using the Bluetooth connectivity offered by the N900 and the Bluetooth signal that is given out by the wireless PS3 control pad, an inventive hacker has been able to use the two in unison and control N900 games using the full size pad. This is useful for several reasons and significantly bolsters the Nokia N900 gaming credentials. Using the N900’s TV output, you could hook up the phone to your television at home and then sit on your sofa using a wireless controller to play games on the big screen. For the time being this is not something that too many people will attempt, because the process of installing the necessary hack is a little daunting for even experienced mobile modifiers. However, it does prove once more just how flexible the Maemo software is and it could be something that third party accessory developers could pick up on. If a firm was to produce a wireless Bluetooth controller for the N900, there is a high chance that it would become a hit and if official software support was provided via the Ovi Store, then the N900 would cement its position as the premiere mobile gaming platform of the modern era.

As the baby brother of the 5800 XpressMusic, the Nokia 5230 is surprisingly well-equipped to perform as a multimedia phone for music, video and internet access whilst you are out and about. The software on the phone itself has been honed over several years to give you a listening and viewing experience that is able to rival standalone portable media players. One aspect you may not have considered is the software suite that allows you to organise your music on your PC and then transfer it onto your phone, which in this case Nokia has called Ovi Player in order to link it into its range of Ovi-branded services.

The Nokia 5230 Ovi Player software is something you will want to install as soon as you have a few minutes. It usually comes in the retail package that accompanies the 5230, but can also be downloaded from Nokia’s official website if you would prefer it, or indeed if your computer does not have an optical drive and so cannot read the disc. When you first load up the Ovi Player it will automatically initiate a scan of your PC in search of compatible music files that are ready to load onto your 5230. Once your library has been compiled, you can arrange your tracks to view them by recording artist, album name, genre or by the date upon which they were added. It is perhaps easiest to describe the Nokia 5230 Ovi Player as an alternative to iTunes for those who are happier with a Nokia device in their pockets and you will see why in a moment.

There will usually be some discrepancy between the music that you have stored on your PC and that which you have transferred over to your 5230. The Ovi Player works around this by showing you separate libraries relating to each one so you can get a good idea of how full your 5230 is and what new tracks you have yet to transfer over. You can also see any audio CDs that you have inserted into your computer and playing a CD back via the Ovi Player is just as easy as you would expect. The Ovi Player also allows you to rip CDs onto your hard drive, or directly to your phone, so that when you pick up a new disk you can have it available on your 5230 library quickly.

As well as allowing you to organise your music, rip songs from CD and transfer them to your phone, the Nokia 5230 Ovi Player gives you access to a fully featured music download service. Here you can browse the latest tracks, find your favourite artist and download their song quickly via your internet connection. Although the Nokia 5230 is capable of downloading and purchasing music directly from the phone,you could use the Ovi Player on your PC to perform this action if you were concerned about eating into your monthly data tariff. You can take the pain out of purchasing music using the Ovi Player as you can register your own payment card in a few minutes and then have access to instant download using your stored details. When you do purchase a music track on your phone, you can transfer that track to your computer, which is excellent news as some alternative devices will keep the track tethered to the device that downloaded it. You are then free to listen to it both on your phone and on your PC, which makes paying for your music a sensible choice to make.

The Nokia 5230 Ovi Player software is excellent overall, as it performs in exactly the way that you would want, whether you are buying songs, transferring them to your phone or making a playlist from your existing library.

The Nokia 3720 Classic should arguably be called the 3720 Classy, because any phone to which Nokia grants the ‘classic’ suffix is sure to be a pretty gorgeous piece of kit. With its Classic Range, Nokia usually ignores the tropes of contemporary phone design and goes for something that is fantastic to look at as well as functional and robustly put together. The 3720 Classic is no exception and its styling will be the perfect antidote for those who have been put into a depressed stupor by the prevalence of touch screen phones with identical designs.

In fact, the Nokia 3720 Classic is a bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing because its external design which suggests cocktail parties and fine dining, is actually a disguise that masks a phone that is really thinking about white water rafting, desert hikes and tropical downpours. If you asked it what its favourite smell in the morning was, it would probably reply ‘napalm’, in a voice eerily reminiscent of Robert Duval.

The Nokia 3720 Classic is built to be a tough cookie, or as we might say in the UK a resilient biscuit. On its list of sturdy design features are water, dust and shock resistance, which is far more than the average mobile can handle in an average day. All of this allows the 3720 Classic to bear the brunt of some serious punishment, whether it is from mother nature or from your own fair hands. Nokia suggests in the accompanying literature that the 3720 Classic is ideal for people who want to share their adventures and for once this kind of marketing guff is actually fairly accurate in describing the product in question.

Because the Nokia 3720 classic is not a smartphone, it will not be keeping you entertained with high end games and apps for the rest of time, but then that is not its purpose. If you decide to pick up the 3720 Classic, it will be because you do not want to spend your days mollycoddling an expensive mobile that you cannot really take anywhere due to its fragility. But the Nokia 3720 Classic is not an entirely dumb phone, as it comes with a few features that will let you make the most of it whilst you plan your latest expedition or bring it with you to the beach on your next holiday to the Sea of Tranquillity.

The Nokia 3720 Classic has built in Bluetooth connectivity, but sadly it lacks a GPS antennae like some more expensive mobiles. If you are going to be journeying with the 3720 Classic, you would probably benefit from GPS sat nav capabilities, but luckily there are a number of third party GPS receiver products that allow you to connect to devices like the 3720 wirelessly. Then you can use mapping software, which is preinstalled on the 3720, in order to plot routes and find fascinating new civilisations or just make your way to the local shops. These GPS receivers are often mountable in your car and you can place them pretty much anywhere nearby to the phone because Bluetooth has a range of a few metres. You can then add the Nokia 3720 Classic to an in-car cradle attached to your dashboard or windscreen for some instant navigation access and easy hands-free operation.

Of course given its luscious styling and choice of grey or yellow detailing, the Nokia 3720 Classic fits in with a variety of environments. If you want to take the 3720 Classic with you when you go out to paint the town red, there are a number of carry cases which offer luxury about protection or indeed convenience. Feminine leather cases for the 3720 Classic are available, although you can use them safe in the knowledge that the phone they are storing is ready for whatever you can throw at it or indeed whatever you want to throw it at.

If you find yourself out in the middle of nowhere, perhaps in a log cabin with no electricity or television, you could use the Nokia 3720 Classic to keep yourself entertained. It comes with Windows Live Messenger preinstalled, so anyone with a Hotmail or live account will be able to sign in to their instant messaging service of choice and see who is online for a quick catch up. Obviously this will depend on whether you have much network coverage in your area, but finding dead zones is getting harder and harder as providers increase the range of their services.

The Nokia 3720 Classic is a real fighter and it should be able to remain with you through thick and thin. It may not offer the most advanced software package in the world, but its rugged design and solid central features will allow it to appeal to a particularly wide audience. If you are into your mobile phones, it is sometimes easy to forget that not everyone is interested in high-end smartphones, no matter how many digital cameras, screen inches or pico projection capabilities they pack in. As a mobile phone, the 3720 meets and exceeds the minimum requirements by a long way and it is built so that it will not suddenly pack up for no apparent reason, which is a good way to protect your investment.

Because the Nokia N97 Mini is so packed with features and functions, it can be easy to overlook something excellent in any analysis because there is a lot going on. So here we will be ignoring the live widgets, skipping past the web capabilities and overlooking the full QWERTY keypad. Instead it is the Nokia N97 Mini video capturing and playback capabilities that will be the focus of our attention.

The Nokia N97 Mini video capturing is performed using the 5 megapixel camera which sits in a small protrusion on the back of the phone. The camera uses Carl Zeiss optics and this technology has been present in a number of high-end Nokia smartphones over the years, resulting in high quality image capture and video recording in a variety of situations. The highest quality video settings on the N97 Mini result in video clips that are shot in the widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9. Since most video streaming services now support widescreen clips, you will be able to make videos with that cinematic touch, as well as ensuring full compatibility when the time comes to upload your work. The Nokia N97 Mini video is captured at a consistent frame rate of 30fps. If you have tried recording video to your phone in the past you will probably have been lumbered with a handset capable of 15fps capture rate, which results in jerky motion, wobbly pictures and a pretty poor overall product at the end. This is not the case with the N97 Mini, which records video smoothly and at the high resolution of 640×360. Although there are one or two mobile phones out there that can boast high definition recording capabilities, the N97 Mini is so well appointed in other areas that the generally excellent video performance is to be welcomed.

The dual LED flash which illuminates dark spaces briefly when you are taking still images can also be applied when shooting video. This time it will remain on constantly to act as a video light for when the night has arrived and the lights are down low. Sadly when you turn on the LED video light you lose out on the autofocus feature. This does mean that results are not always consistent across the board, but it is only a minor sacrifice to make for night time video making.

One of the best video features that the N97 Mini supports is in-browser playback for Flash video. Many smartphones require a separate application to view popular video streaming services such as YouTube, but this is not the case here. You can visit all of your favourite sites and provided they use Flash to playback video, there is no restriction on what you can watch. This certainly pushes the N97 into a league of its own and it makes rival devices from other manufacturers such as Apple look a little bit underwhelming in the process.

Once you have used the Nokia N97 video capturing capabilities to your advantage, you can upload your clips straight to your favourite online video portal without having to take the time to transfer the files to your PC. You can always do this if you need to use the clips in some advanced editing, but for sharing exciting moments in your life with your mates without delay, the instant upload feature will certainly come in handy. The Nokia N97 Mini has 8GB of onboard storage space to fill with your videos and you will find that if you are a fairly prolific filmmaker then this limit will be reached quite quickly. In this instance you will need to add in your own microSD memory card, but you can increase the capacity by 16GB and then exchange the memory card later for transfer or file sharing.

The Nokia X3 is not endowed with a particularly large screen. It does not have a big batch of internal storage space and it does not have the much-desired touch sensitive display. However, what it does have is an operating system based on the Symbian S40 platform and that is a fairly firm foundation upon which to build up a music and multimedia phone. The Nokia X3 is one of many mobiles that takes advantage of Symbian S40 and whilst this is not the most advanced version of the platform, it provides a suitable introduction into the smartphone world, hinting at what is possible on the higher end handsets without making consumers spend large wads of their hard earned cash in the process of investigation. If you decide that you are happy with the capabilities and software of the X3, then you need not make the leap into full smartphone territory, but if your interest is garnered by what the Nokia X3 can do, then you could always pick up a more heavy weight music phone when you next upgrade. The Nokia 5800 or the N97 Mini might be suitable. But that may be getting a little ahead of ourselves, as in this article we are going to be looking at why the Nokia X3 might be a worthwhile purchase for someone looking to customise and enhance their mobile experience with a budget in mind.

Because the Nokia X3 is a product of the world’s largest mobile manufacturer and the Symbian OS has its roots back in the 80s, there is an overwhelming amount of content out there. Whether you want to customise your inbound calls with ringtones that match up to your friends’ tastes, or play games that will keep you entertained for long journeys, there is something out there for everyone. In fact, the best way to find yourself some content for the X3 is to head to your search engine of choice and browse for whatever you fancy. If you want wallpapers, which are particularly popular amongst the Nokia X3 community, then you can find thousands upon thousands of them and a majority are completely free of charge. This is usually because the sites that offer them are supported by advertising and occasionally by a few premium paid-for products and also because most of the contributors to these sites are enthusiastic amateurs with some image editing software and a bit of spare time. With that in mind, there is no reason that you cannot find your own way to create wallpapers and custom content for the Nokia X3. It is compatible with a variety of file types and there are some great free editing programmes out there, some of which you can use in your internet browser with no downloads required. You can even craft your own custom ringtones from sound effects, songs and any other audio detritus that you have lying around on your desktop. Loading sounds and images on the Nokia X3 is easy using the included software suite and since you can put high capacity micoSD cards into the mix, you can have a huge library of homemade content on tap to make your X3 suit your mood or the day of the week.

If you do end up with a good selection of creative content for the Nokia X3, you could always become an active participant in the various online communities that support it and many other mobile phones. In a majority of cases these communities do not privilege a particular handset, but could be tailored to one manufacturer. However, in the modern market many mobile share similar screen sizes and as such images that have been created for one type of phone could easily be used on another. The Nokia X3 has a 2.2 inch screen with the common QVGA resolution of 320×240 and so you can scour the seemingly limitless number of community sites looking for perfect wallpaper, or a place to peddle your own wares.

Nokia’s current generation of mobile phones come with access to the Ovi Store, which should be your first port of call if you want to download custom content for the X3. However, since the X3 does not have a Wi-Fi connection, you could end up getting charged significantly for any data usage you incur whilst using the Ovi Store on your phone. It is for this reason that using your home PC and then transferring the downloaded content to your phone later is a better plan. It might be easy to criticise the Nokia X3 for its lack of Wi-Fi, but amongst its price range the presence of Wi-Fi is rare and adding it would not only increase the cost of the handset, but also bring the X3 into direct competition with other Nokia music phones with similar specifications.

The Nokia X3 and the Symbian S40 software that powers it have both evolved to the point where you cannot move online without tripping over some piece of unique content. That a majority of this is completely free only sweetens the deal and makes the X3 much more than a modest music phone with no touch screen and a fairly basic camera built-in. Software and customisation are able to help a phone transcend the physical constraints of its hardware capabilities.

On paper and in name the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a music phone through and through. But today most phones are required to be chameleons, changing their capabilities to cater to as many people as possible. As such the presence of a 3.2 megapixel camera integrated into the 5800 should come as no surprise. Although the 5800 is not attempting to replace standalone digital cameras with its own device, it does bring perfectly acceptable quality and a host of good software features to the table in order to make the pictures that you do take worth holding on to.

The Nokia 5800 camera makes use of the 3.2 inch touch screen to provide a full screen view finder. This makes framing your shots and then getting instant previews of the pictures that you have taken easy. The lens technology comes from Carl Zeiss and this means that although the 3.2 megapixel image resolution is not pushing towards top of the range performance, you do get better image quality and fidelity than you might on other smartphones. Further technical capabilities include the 3x digital zoom, allowing you to pick out far off objects or tighten in on your subjects without moving about. You also get dual LED flashes to eliminate the issues of low lighting levels, which can leave phones that lack flashes with very poor results in the twilight hours.

Before you take your pictures you can apply a range of filters to make them look artistic or funny. However, taking the pictures is just the start. Once you have an image onboard, you can edit it on the 5800 without having to rely on a separate computer to do the job for you. You can resize images, crop out areas of the picture that you do not want and apply a general fixing tool to reduce glare, improve brightness and generally apply a bit of professional sheen to hastily captured pictures.

If you do want to transfer your photos to your PC, the Ovi Suite is the perfect software package for doing so. It is easy to organise your photos and then upload them to your preferred social networking site or blog to share amongst like minded individuals. Of course the inclusion of a microSD memory card port makes your Nokia 5800 camera even more versatile, allowing you to expand the internal memory, capture thousands of photos and then share them with friends or upload them later.

The Nokia 5800 camera can capture video as well as photos and with a capture resolution of 640×480 at 30fps possible, you can get some high quality clips out of this phone. In addition, you can record for up to 90 minutes in a row, depending on the amount of storage space you have left. The result could be an entire feature film if you are feeling creative, or a whole host of clips charting your life and exploits. You can zoom in digitally when recording video as well, which is something that other phones often lack. Video editing software is built into the 5800 and you can chop up your clips in any manner desired, as well as being able to add in your own soundtrack and insert titles. Once you have created your masterpiece, you can upload it to your PC and then use it as you wish.

The Nokia 5800 camera is a great all-rounder. It will not match up to standalone digital cameras or camcorders, but then it is not really trying. It attempts to offer you as much functionality as possible without drastically increasing the cost of the mobile phone as a whole and it meets this target totally.

Nokia has been a firm supporter of the Symbian operating system for many years and is one of the founding firms behind the Symbian Foundation, overseeing the development of the platform and implementing it in many of its smartphones. The Nokia 6600i Slide interface is based on the Symbian S40 5th edition package and although this is not quite as capable as the fully fledged S60 version, it still offers a good range of functionality and semi-smart capabilities presented in a way that is basic enough for anyone to understand.

If you have used a midrange Nokia phone in the recent past you will already be familiar with the look and feel of the Nokia 6600i Slide interface. You get a simple home screen and you can customise the background with any image that you like, whether it is one that you have snapped with the camera or one that you have downloaded from the internet. The basic home screen displays information including signal strength, date, time, battery level and message updates. This is all par for the course, but there is another home screen accessible that can be overlaid on the basic version. Called Active Standby, this secondary interface allows you to access a fully customisable array of information. The screen is divided into four sections, with the top representing a shortcut bar that can be filled with little hotlinks that take you to various apps and services including the camera, the browser and your messaging inbox. The next section can be used to activate the built in radio receiver or your music player and the Nokia 6600i Slide interface allows you to have these two running in the background, with updates showing what track or station is being listened to appearing on the home screen. The next section contains your calendar and notifications, to let you know if you have any upcoming appointments that you need to see to. Finally at the bottom of the screen you get a little bar that can be modified using the Ovi services. You can use this to view news feeds from your most frequently visited sites, although you will need to go online in order to get the updates delivered, otherwise this will remain inactive.

The 6600i Slide interface is not limited to the physical keypad and customisable softkeys; there is also an accelerometer built in that allows for some intuitive controls that can be accessed at any time. Basically you just need to tap the surface of the phone twice to perform a few commands. For example, when the phone is closed and the screen is not active, you can tap twice to reveal the current time. If you get a call and you want to ignore it, you can silence the ringtone by tapping the phone. A double tap can put your alarm into sleep mode, which is certainly an easy way to flail your arm in the general direction of your phone and turn of the alarm when you want five minutes more in bed in the morning.

The main menu of the Nokia 6600i Slide can be fully customised as well. The standard array of icons is fine for those who do not like to fiddle, but if you have a specific idea about how you want your phone to be laid out, it is something that you will certainly enjoy tinkering with. With a grid of 12 menu icons to modify, there is quite a wide remit for customisation. You can always reset the phone to its default settings if your alterations to the interface turn out to be imperfect, but having the option to craft your own mobile experience is a boon.