Nokia 515 review: Time machine

Modest retail package

The Nokia 515 comes in a rather unassuming, budget-looking blue box made out of recycled paper.

The retail package features the bare minimum

Inside it, you'll find the wall mount charger, Nokia's WH-108 headset with a microphone (no volume controls on that one) as well as a pin for accessing the phone's innards. It would've been nice if Nokia completed the package with a stand-alone microUSB cable or a microSD card slot, but sadly that's not the case.

Nokia 515 360-degree spin

The Nokia 515 measures 114 x 48 x 11 mm, which is in line with the company's featurephones of old - the 6700 classic measures 109.8 x 45 x 11.2 mm. Notably, the 515 is thin enough to allow effortless pocketability.

In terms of weight, the Nokia 515 weighs a hair over 101 grams, which makes it one of the lightest handsets around (although the Asha lineup goes even lower). The aluminum casing and Gorilla Glass 2 covering the display add their fair share of weight, but on a shell this compact that's barely felt.

Design and controls

The Nokia 515 features an extremely clean and minimalist design. It's understated elegance make its back look as upmarket Italian suite. The glossy plastic used for the keys at the front do spoil the impression a bit, but generally the 515 looks much better than anything else in its price range.

The back of the handset is made of a single piece of aluminum with a rubber patch towards the bottom enabling the normal functioning of the radios inside. It's also removable, by sticking the supplied pin into the small hole at the bottom, giving you access to the battery and card slots.

We've got the back version of the Nokia 515 here in the office, but the phone is also available in white with a silver aluminum back. In our mind it looks even better than the black one, but as usual picking between the two is a matter of personal choice.

The Nokia 515 is quite the looker

As we said the front of the phone is its least stylish part, packing a small 2.4" display with a classical alphanumeric keypad below it. The oldschool combination does have a touch of class to it, but we really wish Nokia went with a different material for the keys.

The screen is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 2, making sure the screen underneath won't be easy to scratch or break if you drop it.