At one point, everyone needs a sturdy no-nonsense phone which offers all the basic features and does not cost a bomb. The Nokia 5130 XpressMusic is exactly the kind - one of the most affordable handsets from the Finnish manufacturer that has come our way.

The newest kid on the block from Nokia targets the budget segment of the market with an attractive price tag. It manages to include all the features that one might desire of a good music phone, making it a very good package.

Looks

This is one area where the handset hits the dumps. It does not boast of any striking looks and loses out on the charm that the Nokia 6300 offered with its slim waistline. The handset has rounded edges with trendy dotted pattern on the back. The illuminated indicators over the music keys make the phone look a little tacky, even if it's clearly aimed at a more youthful audience.

The phone is fairly small and light-weight. The real difference from the other Xpress family handsets is in the material choice. It will be suitable for the teenagers market since it is easy on the pocket loaded with many features.

Display

The handset has a 2 inch display with QVGA resolution. It offers reasonable image quality with decent brightness and contrast. The vibrant screen is certainly helped by a pixel density. The text looks great but the icons on the main menu look a bit blocky and jagged. The display also has poor viewing angle which spoils the fun and there are no brightness adjustment features.

Music

This is decidedly a music phone and its design completely supports this function. The dedicated music keys are over the sides of the phone. These keys are fairly large in size, but the problem is that they are a bit too flush. It is also difficult to know which key does what by just moving your fingers on the keys.

The music player is Multitasking and comes in handy, so it will still play the music even if we exit the application. We can control it by using the button facility. The dedicated playback controls lets the users shuttle through individual songs and skip whole tracks.

The microSDHC slot supports cards up to 4GB. The phone wins the brownie points for the 3.55mm audio jack, so one can plug their own headphones to make calls and listen to music. The music quality is better than most of the so called music phones available in the market. The built-in speaker is impressively loud which makes music quite enjoyable. The headphones are also loud enough.

The phone doesn't come with any music transfer software, which is odd, though the Nokia PC Suite is available as a free download anyway.

Barely longer that than the phone itself, is the shortest USB cable that can be seen, not to mention the most inconvenient one.

The phone has FM player which is increasingly becoming an important feature.

Camera

The phone comes loaded with a 2-megapixel flash-less camera, but that's hardly a surprise for this type of handset. The result is not so bad, especially for outside pictures. This camera is also can record standart video.

Battery

The handset is supported by lithium battery with 1020mAh. This big capacity is dedicated mostly for the music player. And if the music player isn't often used, the phone can stand until three days of charging.

Connectivity

To make any connection with the other hardware, the handset is completed with microUSB software version 2.0 and the newest Bluetooth. One can also hear the music via Bluetooth stereo headset.

Verdict

The phone is small and cheap but has more features than one pays for. The audio quality is remarkable. There are phones at four times this price that don't have all these features, and though the phone lacks 3G networking and the accompanying services, but if one focuses simply on the music abilities, one will be happy with what they hear.