The Nokia 3500 Classic has an eye catching, quality design. Its plastic casing is incredibly light but impressively solid. A glossy black front combined with classy, solid chrome edging, makes the Nokia 3500 Classic look like an expensive telephone.

The 3500 Classic's keypad keys are large and well separated, easy to press, and a bright blue backlight adds a good dash of style. Messaging speeds are quick and the five-way navigational pad and selection buttons do most of the work. All of this makes the Nokia 3500 Classic a pleasure to use.

The main menu is a simple 3x3 grid layout with the submenus in a list format. All icons are not only labelled with clarity, but also show a brief description when you leave the cursor on an icon for a few seconds. This helps first-time users become familiar with the phone’s functions.

The Nokia 3500 Classic has a good range of features including SMS and MMS messaging, T9 predictive text input, a standard phone book, and the full array of PIM features such as an alarm clock, calculator, calendar and a to-do list.
In terms of multimedia, the 3500 Classic includes a 2.5mm jack for hands-free headphones. For entertainment, the 3500 plays music and videos, offers voice recording and an FM radio. For media storage, there’s a 2GB microSD card slot beneath the battery.
 
Considering the Nokia 3500 Classic’s lower end of the price spectrum, it is high on connectivity with Bluetooth and a standard mini-USB port for PC synchronisation. The 2-megapixel camera lacks autofocus and a flash; however, this is common to most phone cameras at this price point.