Nokia E55 smartphone

There's a bit of a learning curve involved in using this, since not all of the options are available using the menu, but it's a decent enough system once you get the hang of it. With its page overview function, pop-up barring, visual history and support for Flash video, as well as dedicated apps for Facebook, Youtube and Myspace, it amounts to an efficient little package.

No frills optics, but acceptable for snaps

The camera is accessed by holding the shutter button on the side and comes alive in about five seconds – so it's not great for quick snaps. There's no autofocus, and none of the fancy Carl Zeiss lens malarkey that comes with Nokia's N-series. There is a 4x digital zoom though, with a warning bar that supposedly reminds you that the picture quality is liable to deteriorate to the point where it's not really worth taking the pic.

While there's no macro setting for close-up shots, there are seven scene modes to help you choose the correct light settings. Along with a timer, there's also a 6x multi-shot setting and a so-so LED flash, as well as an additional VGA camera on the front for video calls.

The panorama function is interesting, allowing you to take five pictures, beginning from either right or left through 180 degrees. Once you've taken the first picture you move it around until the camera automatically lines up and snaps the next one. This makes it very easy to use, but it's not 100 per cent accurate and there can be some ghosting effects if you move the lens too quickly.

Pics can be geotagged too, using the E55's aGPS transmitter, which is backed by Nokia's Ovi Maps. This found our position easily enough, even indoors, so long as we were near a window. For a 3.2Mp camera, picture quality isn't too bad if you take a bit of care with the settings, though it doesn't handle light gradations very well, and soon shows signs of noise in less than perfect light. Video records at 15fps and can be a little jerky. Overall, the quality proved to be a little better than we were expecting.

Not the first choice for movie viewing, but should be fine for occasional use

Movie playback is acceptable but the display is a bit small for extended viewing. Vids are automatically resized to fit the screen and there's not much in the way of controls, just pause/play, fast forward and rewind. Movie buffs should note, the E55 comes with 100MB on memory on board and a supplied 2GB microSD card, accepting cards up to 16GB.