When Nokia first brought out its X-series, the handsets offered a combination of good storage for music along with a speedy, responsive touch-display, which hadn't previously been offered by the Finnish phone manufacturer. The X2 also concentrates on music, but also has a conventional keypad, along with a much lower pricetag.

First impressions

Glossy black is the order of the day for the front of the device and its keypad, along with the sides and part of the back. There are also matte red buttons and strips and a metal battery cover which, strangely, is actually dark grey and looks like it doesn't quite go with the rest of the phone. An odd choice.

The matte red strips are actually multimedia buttons - you'll find media control buttons on the left side, while the volume rocker, camera button and microSD card slot sit on the right hand edge. They don't look awful, but there's something decidedly lopsided about the way the handset is designed. The phone also comes in a blue and white version.

Smart snapper

The snapper on the handset's back is a pleasant surprise - it comes in at five megapixels and also has a flash, although there is fixed focus, not auto focus. We found images okay, although not fantastic, as they appeared somewhat washed out. Having said that, if you like to upload snaps to Facebook, it did this well using the Facebook app - but the lack of 3G on the X2 means this takes some time to achieve.

However, as we said at the beginning, the main focus of the X2 is music. There is the opportunity to insert cards of up to 16GB in the multimedia slot, so you can save plenty of your favourite tunes. And with a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the device you can listen to your music on your favourite headphones.

While we weren't that impressed with the look of the multimedia buttons, they do their job well. So if you happen to have your phone in your pocket while you're enjoying your music, you can easily feel which button to press to step forward or back or play/pause.

While they work well, it's unfortunate that the keypad locks after a while and you can't override this if you want to use just the media buttons, which is a disappointment. Of course, you could always set the keyguard timer to a longer length of time, but we'd have really liked to see the multimedia buttons work anyway.

Music playback

It's also possible to control the music via the navigation pad. As your music plays, the track and artist show up on the home screen. You can scroll to the track, then press select to find the playback screen with playback controls - an easier way to navigate your music collection if you're actually looking at the phone, rather than if it's tucked in a pocket.

There's plenty going on on that home screen. As well as the usual signal strength, battery info, time and network information, under that you'll find music as well as the links to the Ovi app store and built-in radio. And that's not all - there's a shortcut carousel that leads to the Facebook app, messaging and the video and photo gallery. It is also possible to customise your shortcuts to be more pleasing to the eye.

The X2 is a decent device with plenty going for it, especially its price. But the omission of Wi-Fi and 3G is a big one.

The verdict

While the Nokia X2 is very affordable and looks good, the Symbian S40 operating system is getting a tad outdated and the omission of 3G is a big letdown. Even the most basic handset could benefit from a speedy data connection - however, for the price it's not a bad phone.