Nokia 500

Just announced this week, the Nokia 500 is a budget Symbian Anna smartphone that packs a processor on par with high-end handsets. The feature set is sufficient for the average user and should appeal to those who love to personalize their phones.
Upside
The Nokia 500 comes with a 1GHz processor which is good enough for its class, and a notch above the E6's 680 MHz chip. Multitasking--a key feature of Symbian Anna--should be a breeze and we think that the occasional lag experienced on the E6 will be absent on the 500.

The 3.2-inch 640 x 360 capacitive touchscreen seems small, but definitely makes the phone more pocketable than some of the 4-inch monsters in the market today.

The 500's larger touchscreen than the E6 should also translate to a better Ovi Maps experience. Nokia has upgraded Ovi Maps with Symbian Anna, and it now comes with additional features such as Gig Finder (only available in Australia) and Lonely Planet (in Southeast Asia and Pacific regions).
Downside
From what we've seen of Symbian Anna so far, the UI still needs some polishing. For example, the browser does not reflow text so you'll need to scroll left and right to read some Web sites. Also, there are limited apps on the Ovi Store. Unless a dedicated Facebook or Twitter app is released on the Ovi Store, users will be restricted to the Ovi Social app to access social-networking sites.

Also, Nokia has committed to Windows Phone 7 as its platform, and is sticking with Symbian only until 2016. However, that should not concern you too much if you change your mobile phone every few years.
Outlook
The Nokia 500 is far from being the flagship Symbian Anna handset, vying with the E6 and X7 for the hearts of consumers. However, it might win over some wallets if paired with a right carrier plan. It will be available in Singapore and Malaysia by the end of Q3 2011. Availability for the rest of Asia has not been confirmed and how it performs will depend on telco tie-ins.
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Posted in: NOKIA