You get familiar music player track categories (artists, albums, tracks, genres, videos, playlists), which you can scroll through to find tracks. It's easy to create your own playlists, or to tweak sounds using the equaliser functions.

Onboard storage is limited to 30MB of memory, but MicroSD cards are supported and Nokia includes a 512MB card in-box. And if you want to carry more tunes in the phone, cards of up to 2GB can be slotted in to the side.

For any music player, it's what's in the grooves that counts and the Nokia 5220 XpressMusic is capable of an excellent audio performance. With decent earphones sound is rich and detailed, with plenty of bass.

Invest in better headphones

Its supplied earphones don't hit the top mark though - they're reasonable for a phone at this price level, but not exceptional. But swap these for a higher quality set of headphones (plugging into the welcome 3.5mm socket) and sound quality is really lifted, making the most of the audio processing gadgetry Nokia has built in. It's well worth trying – you don't have to spend a fortune for decent earwear that will make a big difference.

Stereo Bluetooth headphones are supported on this model too if you want a wireless option. On the other end of the tech scale, you can play back tunes surprisingly loudly via the in-built loudspeaker – though quality is typically bass-light and abrasive at higher volumes.

You can listen to the FM radio through this as well, provided the earphones are plugged in; it puts in a decent performance.

Fully-featured camera

Less impressive than the 5220 XpressMusic's tune-playing abilities, its camera is a run-of-the-mill 2-megapixel shooter. There's no autofocus or flash but there is the usual tick list of standard phone tweakery and settings adjustments – white balance, colour effects, multi-shot options, and so on.

It does a reasonable shooting job within its quality limitations; colour rendition is quite good, although picture detail is limited. Indoors, image quality deteriorates and low-light performance is poor, restricted by lack of added illumination.

An option is available to upload snaps – and video - straight to online Flickr accounts, should you wish to. Video capture quality, however, is limited, with maximum shooting resolution restricted to 176x144 pixels, giving low resolution, typically stilted footage.

Additional applications

For a low-range phone, Nokia has given the 5220 XpressMusic a good set of additional features – with a typical bundle of pre-loaded applications and tools. Although there's a Nokia browser onboard, it has also pre-loaded the excellent Opera Mini browser, which provides a fine way of checking out full websites.

Other familiar Nokia Series 40 phone added applications include Yahoo! Go - an app that provides information updates, news, online entertainment services, mapping info and email on one homescreen - and Nokia's own WidSets widgets application – pulling together updated widgets from favourite websites and blogs on one screen.

Nokia maps

There's no GPS capability on this handset, but thanks to Nokia Maps software, you can look up maps, search for routes and look for places of interest, with information updated over the air to the phone.

You can also download maps from Nokia's website to add to the phone's memory card, if you prefer, via Nokia Map Loader software and a USB cable supplied. And if you connect it up to an optional Bluetooth-enabled GPS module, you can use the 5220 XpressMusic for precise location finding and routing.

A Search facility – using Yahoo! or Windows Live Search engines – is another handy extra embedded in the phone's software. In addition, the usual supply of organiser tools are in place, with a calendar function, to do lists, notes, various clock and timer options, calculator, world clock and voice recorder application.

For a bit of added fun, Nokia has lined up four Java games and embedded a wallpaper creator tool.