Nokia’s newest budget smartphone, the Lumia 630, is impressive, particularly for the price. This entry-level Windows Phone-powered smartphone, which costs just R2 000, is aimed at budget-conscious buyers or those getting a smartphone for the first time.

Featuring an array of bright, replaceable back covers, the Lumia 630, when left lying on a table, can easily be mistaken for the iPhone 5c. But it’s Nokia, not Apple, that pioneered the use of brightly coloured phones with its Lumia line-up. And the colours complement this delightful phone.

The 134g Lumia 630 feels good in the hand and, although its body is plastic, Nokia has managed to make it feel more premium than similar smartphones — yes, Samsung, we are looking at you. The back cover has a matte texture and the sharp edges offer a good combination of grip and comfort. The finish is best described as stylish but simple.

There are only two external buttons on the Lumia 630 — the volume rocker and the power button are placed on the right side of the phone, putting them in the right place for easy thumb access.

Unfortunately, Nokia has removed the dedicated camera button, something that was available on its predecessor.

Because this is an entry-level smartphone, you can’t expect the Lumia 630 to knock your socks off in terms of hardware performance, but it fares surprisingly well given what’s inside. Applications run as expected, with only a few processor-intensive games causing problems.

It has 8GB of storage space, which can be expanded using a microSD card up to 128GB. There’s also 512MB of RAM, and this is one area we feel Nokia shouldn’t have skimped — a bit of extra RAM would have gone a long way to making this a near-perfect entry-level smartphone. It sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset with a quad-core 1,2 GHz Cortex-A7 processor. The 4,5-inch display offers decent enough image quality at 480 x 854 pixels for a pixel density of 218ppi. There’s support for 3G (no 4G/LTE) and Wi-Fi and there’s also assisted GPS with Glonass.

The Lumia 630 has a user-replaceable, 1 830mAh battery that provides sufficient juice for about a day and half of moderate usage.

“Selfie” fans should take note that there’s no front-facing camera on the 630. The auto-focus rear-facing camera is a 5-megapixel affair that produces decidedly average images. There’s no flash either, so the camera is best used in good light. In the right conditions, the images it produces are respectable. It can also shoot 720p video at 30fps.

It is hard not to like the Lumia 630. It’s a fun-looking device that will find favour with young people and smartphone users on a budget.

One of the best things that this phone has going for it is the latest Windows Phone software. Although the size of the app ecosystem still lags behind rival platforms — and this is probably the main reason to consider the alternatives if you’re in the market for a budget smartphone — the operating system is highly intuitive for first-time users.

Software bundled with the Lumia 630 includes Nokia’s MixRadio music streaming service and Microsoft Office, allowing users to view and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Documents are synced with OneDrive. There’s also Nokia’s Here Drive+ maps and turn-by-turn voice navigation software.

Although the breadth of apps available for Windows Phone remains disappointing, many of the most popular ones, including Instagram, are now available. And the software is easy to master, even for those who have never used a smartphone before.