Nokia has now produced three handsets with touchscreens. Arguably only one has true high level smartphone potential – the N97. With its slide-out keyboard and wide screen format it is the logical successor to the much-loved Communicator.

The other two, this handset and its predecessor the 5800 XpressMusic are, as their names suggest, primarily intended as music phones. But their fully touch compliant screens also make them rivals for the iPhone and various LG and Samsung handset which lay claim to smartphone territory, and their operating system, S60, is, of course, fully smartphone.

So, if anything, the 5530 XpressMusic is a hybrid, music focussed smartphone. It is available exclusively from the Carphone Warehouse.

With an all-screen frontage the 5530 XpressMusic is a bit narrower than the average handset of its type and the screen is a little on the small side overall at 2.9 inches. A shade smaller than that of the 5800 XpressMusic it is probably on the borderline of the smallest size a touchscreen can be and remain effective.

That noted, the screen’s 640 x 360 pixels are clear and bright, and the 5530 XpressMusic feels OK in the hand, its 104mm x 49mm x 13mm and 107g of weight sitting nicely in both the hand and pocket.

Both SIM card and microSD memory card, the latter boosting 70MB of built in memory, fit into slots on the left edge of the casing. You get a 4GB card with the handset. The slots are protected by a very long hinged cover. It is an unusual arrangement, but not problematic.

The fairly lowly price of the 5530 XpressMusic indicates that some compromises have had to be made in the specifications department. The biggest loss is GPS. Both Wi-Fi and HSDPA are built in, there is a 3.2 megapixle camera, (though no front camera for video calling). There are twin speakers for stereo music output.

Music focussed as it is Nokia has opted for a 3.5mm headset connector on the bottom edge of the phone. It is a pity that the provided headset is one piece, though, so you can’t substitute favourite headphones for those provided and retain the handsfree mike.

The main screen has large and very finger-friendly shortcuts to up to twenty contacts and four user configurable shortcuts to applications. That bodes well, but the user interface of S60 5th Edition seems unchanged from what we saw in the 5800 XpressMusic, with one particularly annoying aspect retained.

Sometimes you tap once for an action, sometimes twice. The haptic feedback lets you know you’ve pressed, but we found that sometimes we had a little wait for action when in fact the handset was anticipating a second screen tap.

It was irritating, though in time you do get used to the one-tap, two-tap convention. There’s a hold button on the right edge that stops unwanted screen taps when the phone is in your pocket.

There’s a stylus living in a housing in one corner of the handset. this doesn’t inspire confidence right out of the box as we think all touch capable smartphones should ideally be usable with the finger only.

Fortunately we only came across one instance when the stylus proved important. Using the built in handwriting recognition, which is actually pretty good if you write clearly and slowly. Fingertip text entry is available either via a QWERTY keyboard when the screen is in wide mode or a phone style keyboard in tall mode.

An accelerometer ensures automatic screen rotation and, incidentally, can also be used to mute calls and snooze alarms.

It is all liveable with, but there is one fundamental issue. S60 5th Edition feels like S30 3rd Edition with touch bolted on top rather than a user interface developed from the bottom up with touch at its heart. If you can live with that, then this handset is worth a look.

Essential Verdict
Performance: 8/10
Design: 8/10
Features: 8/10
Value for Money: 9/10
Overall score: 7/10

Specs
Operating system: Symbian S60 5th Edition
Processor: n/a
Memory: 70MB
Dimensions: 104mm x 49mm x 13mm
Weight: 107g
Display size: 2.9 diagonal inches
Display resolution: 360 x 640 pixels
Expansion slot: 1 x microSD

Review written by Sandra Vogel. Originally published in Smartphone Essentials magazine.

Popularity: 1% [?]