The Nokia 500 is a budget smartphone priced at around £130 and comes pre-loaded with Symbian Anna. There are, of course, quite a number of  budget Android smartphones around such as the LG Optimus Pro so the Nokia 500 seems to be facing a huge sales confrontation.

You could argue that Nokia's Symbian Anna is a higher risk option than the well established Android OS so the main factor to take into consideration may well be the Nokia 500's specification.

Low budget smartphones normally come with a low specification but lets see what the Nokia 500 offers. The Nokia 500 is powered by a 1Ghz processor yet Nokia did not confirm which one, it has a 3.2 inch HD capacitive touchscreen with on-screen qwerty keyboard and split screen messaging.

Physically, the Nokia 500 measures 110 x 53 x 14 mm and weighs 93 grams. Other goodies include a 5 megapixel camera, HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity. In terms of memory capability there is 2GB of internal storage with the added bonus of adding up to a 32GB microSD card.

There are two colour options which are black which arrives in Q3 and white in Q4. There is also a range of 8 colours for the battery covers.

Other notable items are Bluetooth 2.1, A-GPS, 3.5mm audio connector,. Nokia say that the latest Symbian Anna comes with enhanced software features, a faster Web browser and new Ovi Maps.

3G will reserve judgement until we undertake our Nokia 500 review but for the moment the 500 looks a fair buy to us.