The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, which was released in August 2009, was Nokia’s third touchscreen-oriented device, and took many elements from its sibling device, the Nokia 5800. The general idea behind the Nokia 5530 was to condense all the best elements of the Nokia 5800 into an entry level device for users that wanted smartphone capabilities, just without the hefty price tag. Read on after the jump for our round up of the Nokia 5530’s best bits.

Design wise, the Nokia 5530 is rather handsome looking device, featuring a stainless steel chassis and a 2.9-inch touchscreen interface. Granted this is slightly smaller than the 3.2-inch display of the Nokia 5800, but it makes the device sleeker and more portable, as well as much lighter in the pocket.

Obviously, because the 5530 is a stripped down version of the Nokia 5800 it doesn’t have a lot of the features and design elements which make the 5800 a high-end device. For instance, while the 5530’s 2.9-inch screen is ample and crisp enough for viewing you email, messages, and videos on indoors, it does become a little frustrating when outside, and you will experience problems with glare that aren’t present on the higher-spec 5800.

Check out our Nokia 5530 XpressMusic review

Nevertheless, the Nokia 5530 is still a decent piece of kit, and you’ll have no problems running a multitude of applications and widgets, which can also be organised on the home screen to suit your needs. Overall, we found that the Nokia 5530 ran the majority of apps very smoothly, such as video playback, which was always fast and reliable.

The 3.2-Megapixel camera on the 5530 which features a single LED flash is adequate, and will ensure that you get decent enough shoots in a variety of locations, both in doors and outside. That said, it is no way near as good as the Nokia 5800’s dual-flash LED, which allows you to take superior shots, even in low light – unfortunately, the 5530’s camera, isn’t up to scratch in this department.

Check out our Nokia 5520 XpressMusic camera review

Overall though, this is an entry-level device, which means there’ll always be limitations with what you can do with it. However, during testing we found it to be a very reliable and robust device that ran both programmes and applications very smoothly. In addition, the touchscreen interface is very user-intuitive and the overall performance of the device, in general, was second to none.

So, if you’re looking for a smartphone, but just not at smartphone prices, then the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is probably a good place to start, as you’d be hard pressed to find a better or cheaper alternative.