Nokia 500 Review
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The Nokia 500 is the mass production of the new Nokia Symbian line, as it has the lowest specs out of the bunch announced in time for the holiday shopping craze. With that said, it’s no slouch, as it sports a decent display with 229ppi pixel density, 5MP camera and a 1GHz processor, based, however, on the older ARM 11 architecture
The Finns have skimped on things like an LED flash, and the internal memory – the handset has only 2GB - to keep costs down. The Nokia 500 ships with Symbian Anna unlike the rest of the new kids on the Symbian block, but is expected to receive a Belle upgrade further down the road.
An affordable handset from Nokia with decent specs and some colorful battery covers thrown in to keep things exciting is usually a Finnish recipe for success among teens and in emerging markets, but is that the case with the Nokia 500? Read on our review to find out…
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- One Nokia 500 handset
- Two extra swappable battery covers in different colors
- Wall charger
- MicroUSB cable
- Stereo headset with microphone
- Manual and warranty leaflets
Design:
The Nokia 500 is a true candybar phone with its narrow rectangular front, but turn it on its face to review the 5MP camera and the speaker grill, and a nice curved back is revealed. The tapered form and soft-touch plastic finish of the battery cover, plus the fact that the handset is chubby at 0.55” (14.1mm), make it very comfortable to hold and operate with one hand.
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The tapered form and soft-touch plastic finish of the battery cover make the Nokia 500 very comfortable to hold and operate with one hand | ||
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You can compare the Nokia 500 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.
The 3.2” plain LCD display is not with the best viewing angles out there, but it’s bright enough, and, thanks to Nokia’s usual 360x640 pixels, sports 229ppi pixel density, which is above average for the phone’s category, and helps when reading small text.
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Buttons below the display | |
The 3.2” plain LCD display is bright enough | |
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Top | Right | Bottom |
The sides of the Nokia 500 | ||
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Back | Camera | Battery compartment |
Drag the picture or use the keyboard arrows to rotate the phone. Double click or press keyboard Space to zoom in/out
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13 Comments
1. box (unregistered) posted on 05 Oct 2011, 08:16 3 0
This might be the phone to tide me between the 5230 Nuron and either the Ace WP7 or the Symbian flagship, hopefully something higher-spec'd than the 701, whichever comes with a contract first
4. heulboje (unregistered) posted on 05 Oct 2011, 13:06 0 0
A good looking (stylish) device which is going to satisfy everybody who wants to call/message around and perhaps wants to play around with his cellphone during a boring train journey...
Well done IMHO
5. Shiv179 (unregistered) posted on 06 Oct 2011, 02:13 0 0
"It still has 256MB of RAM like the 2010 generation, and it shows when you are installing apps, for example – the progress bar doesn’t fly as quick as on the Nokia 701 with its 512MB"
So you are saying that installing apps is slower because of half the RAM?
Installing apps faster means having more RAM?
Are you serious?
7. kikiansyah posted on 14 Dec 2011, 20:30 0 0
The Nokia 500 is the mass production of the new Nokia Symbian line, as it has the lowest specs out of the bunch announced in time for the holiday shopping craze. With that said, it’s no slouch, as it sports a decent display with 229ppi pixel density, 5MP camera and a 1GHz processor, based, however, on the older ARM 11 architecture
The Finns have skimped on things like an LED flash, and the internal memory – the handset has only 2GB - to keep costs down. The Nokia 500 ships with Symbian Anna unlike the rest of the new kids on the Symbian block, but is expected to receive a Belle upgrade further down the road.
An affordable handset from Nokia with decent specs and some colorful battery covers thrown in to keep things exciting is usually a Finnish recipe for success among teens and in emerging markets, but is that the case with the Nokia 500? Read on our review to find out…
Nokia 500 Review
Nokia 500 Review
What's in the box:
One Nokia 500 handset
Two extra swappable battery covers in different colors
Wall charger
MicroUSB cable
Stereo headset with microphone
Manual and warranty leaflets
Design:
The Nokia 500 is a true candybar phone with its narrow rectangular front, but turn it on its face to review the 5MP camera and the speaker grill, and a nice curved back is revealed. The tapered form and soft-touch plastic finish of the battery cover, plus the fact that the handset is chubby at 0.55” (14.1mm), make it very comfortable to hold and operate with one hand.
9. coolkid12130 posted on 05 Jan 2012, 02:22 0 0
it has a small screen and it doesn't run on android.
android is way better
10. 1djmdosi posted on 14 Feb 2012, 09:09 0 0
smart gadget bt slow downloader with no flash camera,,,bt smart indeed
11. celicnaruza21 posted on 06 Mar 2012, 09:46 0 0
Hello all. I just bought this smart phone for 135 euros in Serbia (full equip, In store not with agreement.). I just tested some important features that were pain back in N97's ^3 symbian , Like dvix,crashes,UI(User Interface) and much more. I have 6 generations of Nokias . This is best phone i ever bought and its really cheap. I only dont like 256mb of RAM but 1ghz single core procesor makes surfing,gaming,browsing files switching trought open apps beautifull. I just got update from Anna to Belle and its working perfect. Belle os is like Android-Symbian system and it works perfectly . This phone is really preatty and its light. For 135 Euros(in Serbia) u get Dvix Player ,Web Browser via W-lan Photo 5mpx, 2gb of storage and much more... This is really god phone for average users that do not rape Hardware .
13. r3alqwerty posted on 27 May 2012, 17:49 0 0
Hello. Tell me please, if the phone has lags or slows down when trying to open and read text file over 1000+ pages or .pdf about 10-20 mb? Using quickoffice or other reader apps.
15. jassibhalla02 posted on 09 Dec 2012, 04:32 0 0
i have it..and use pdf and word files often..
size of the file does not matter.., if u zoom in, which one has to to read, navigation between pages does gets slower..open a 1000 page file or 2 page file., doesnt matter..
14. jassibhalla02 posted on 09 Dec 2012, 04:29 0 0
i have it..yes, RAM is low.., everything else is upto the mark...upgraded to Belle Refresh, got new widgets,Microsoft Mobile Office 2010 can be installed., ..got space on SkyDrive after installing Microsoft One Note..
decent camera..pre-installed angry birds....and other apps..
got extended warranty upto 2014...
budget phone..u wont regret buying at this price range..better than samsung galaxy lower models..
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