Nokia 225 is cheap and cheerful, but mostly cheap

If you fancy a splash of colour without splashing out lashings of cash, the brightly-coloured Nokia 225 feature phone costs just 39 euros.

That European price directly converts to $54 or £32, but exact prices for the rest of the world have yet to be confirmed.

The 225 is an old-school candybar phone sporting a 2.8-inch screen with dustproof and splashproof keypad underneath. It boasts a 2-megapixel camera, FM radio and a MicroSD slot for up to 32GB of music, apps and photos. The battery will last up to 36 days for the single-SIM model, or 27 days for a dual-SIM version.

The dual-SIM version will be available in some countries — dual-SIM phones aren’t sold in Great Britain, for example — and will allow you to keep two numbers in the same phone. One for work, perhaps, or one for the old ball and chain and one for the bit on the side.

Lumia hue

Decked out in red, yellow, green, black and white, the 225’s cheerfully-hued case evokes the luminescent Lumia range of smartphones, but without the all-singing, all-dancing, app-powered and Internet-connected bells and whistles.

The 225 does connect to the Internet for basic apps. To keep saving you money after you’ve bought the phone, the Nokia Xpress Browser eases the strain on your phone bill by preshrinking websites before the data reaches your phone, which has the added advantage of showing you the site you want even on slower networks.

Other apps loaded on the phone when you buy it include Facebook and Twitter apps and a handful of games: Block Breaker 3, Asphalt 6, Assassins Creed 3, The Avengers and Real Football 2012.

The Nokia 225 is set to land over the next couple of months in selected markets.