The Nokia 3500 Classic appears to have been designed with a particular type of consumer in mind: someone looking for classic styling, ease of use, standard features and affordability in a mobile phone unit. Definitely someone who isn’t too picky about features like high image resolution and large storage capacity.

The 3500 Classic is part of Nokia’s range of Classic mobile phones that offer all the essentials in a stylish yet simple design, and at affordable prices too. In terms of appearance, it is elegant and simple. Its case is very compact, measuring just 107mm high, 45mm wide and 13.1mm thick. It only weighs 81 grams, which makes it even more of an ideal pocket phone. Its TFT screen is quite small at just 1.8 inches; although, relative to the size of the phone itself, this seems quite reasonable. The keyboard is designed in a standard way and does not present any problems. The elegant aspect of the design, and perhaps the only elegant aspect of the Nokia 3500 Classic itself, is the dual-color casing, with a choice between grey, blue, pink and mandarin colors combined with black. But even with a bright color, the 3500 Classic still looks very stylish. A smooth metal edge outlines the front of this mobile phone, protecting the screen from scratches.

However, in terms of features, there is no doubt that the Nokia 3500 Classic is really a low-end mobile phone. While they have all the basic multimedia features, that’s really what they are: basic. But for its price, the 2-megapixel camera with 8x digital zoom, for example, can be considered pretty decent. It’s definitely better than, at least, the Nokia 3110’s 1.3-megapixel camera. However, if you like excellence in a camera phone, you’re better off with a Nokia N-series unit if you can afford it.

Similarly, you can’t expect excellent resolution from the 3500 Classic, which only offers a very limited 128-by-160-pixel screen. The video recorder function is also not remarkable. Other multimedia offerings of this Nokia model are a music player, FM radio, MMS and Java games. The music player is good enough but not spectacular, and it plays most of the standard formats, including MP3 and AAC. Internet support is available with the 3500 Classic’s XHTML browser, GPRS Class 10, HSCSD, and EDGE technology that enables faster data transfer speeds. It also has all the standard connectivity components such as Bluetooth, USB, and an AV connector.

The built-in memory is a bit limited, with only 8.5 Mbytes of capacity. However, the phone does have a microSD memory card slot that can be used to expand the storage by up to an additional 2GB. Battery life is pretty good too, offering a standby time of around 300 hours and a talk time of up to 4 hours. And speaking of talk time, it’s also handy that the Nokia 3500 Classic has a built-in hands-free speakerphone, as well as voice features like voice recording, voice commands, and speaker-independent dial-by-name.

Overall, the 3500 Classic delivers, even if it’s nowhere near top of the line when it comes to features.