Go into buying a budget phone expecting the earth and you can expect to be disappointed. As true as it may be that you pay a lot for style and a name with some phones, it’s in the features department where most budget phones cut those costly corners.

Take the W205 – it’s far from a bad-looking phone, so you can be sure that there are some missing components under the bonnet. Then again, those out looking for a bargain supermini car don’t expect it to have a nitrous supercharger, so who are we to criticise?

What the Sony Ericsson W205 does offer is a smattering of features that cover most of the mobile bases – it has a camera, Bluetooth, Internet connectivity and some dedicated music buttons that tell you that, yes, the W205 is indeed part of Sony Ericsson’s Walkman range.

It’s also a slider phone. This mechanism doesn’t feel quite as satisfyingly smooth as phones higher up in the range, but it’s sturdy enough to remove any fears that it’ll fall apart at this join. As befits its limited feature set, the W205 is attractively dinky and infinitely pocketable. The tasteful black and silver design means its looks are unlikely to offend any onlookers too. Suffice to say, it’s more of a looker than Sony Ericsson’s similarly budget-oriented slider the T303.

If you’ve had previous experience with Sony Ericsson phones, there’s no denying that the W205 still exudes a certain budget vibe in its usage though. For one, the screen is plain nasty. At 1.8 inches, it’s much smaller than the phone could actually fit in - with a big black border hanging around its edge - and it uses a low resolution even by the standards of cheapie handsets at 128x160.

The insults don’t even spot there though. It can’t handle angled viewing well at all and the finish on the screen encourages reflections to an extent that can make it a bit uncomfortable to use at times. So, don’t go buying the W205 expecting to watch the latest episode of 24 on it. But then you wouldn’t, would you?

Further along the imaging scale, there’s the 1.3-megapixel camera. It performs fairly well considering its low specification, but the images produced still aren't of good enough quality to print out to standard 6x4 inch prints with good results.

In short, the W205 is designed for people that aren’t intending to use their phone as a camera. If you’re looking for a budget phone with a slightly more capable snapper, check out the new Sony Ericsson W395, which rests slightly higher up the same range.

We found a similar situation when looking at the Internet connectivity options included on the W205. There’s no Wi-Fi, which is no surprise, and no 3G. You have got GPRS and EDGE, the latter of which can offer pretty decent speeds, but since the W205 is primarily a pre-pay focused phone, you’ll probably be paying a hefty premium per KB at any rate. Plus, the small screen makes the W205 fairly useless for browsing.

It’s a good job that the W205 performs better in the field that’s supposed to be its forte, music. The central face buttons have music functions labelled on them, and one of the directions on the D-pad acts as a music shortcut, when you’re not within any menus.

The music player itself is Sony Ericsson’s standard one, which is very capable. There’s also a built-in RDS radio that uses the plugged-in earphones as an aerial. It’s a feature that’s missing from a number of more expensive Sony Ericsson handsets, so it’s good to see it here.

Granted, there’s no standard 3.5mm jack and a pitiful ~4MB of onboard memory, but the M2 slot will let you bulk that up easily and fairly cheaply. You can currently get your hands on a 4GB M2 card for around £10. Sadly, the phone’s not compatible with microSD cards though. The W205 doesn’t come with an M2 card as standard either, such is its dedication to budgetdom.

So, the W205 is a handset of many compromises. Whether they’ll stick out like sore, bleeding thumbs will depend on exactly what you use your phone for. If you’re after a basic phone, the W205 isn’t an awful choice. It’s not a bad looking phone and sports Sony Ericsson’s easy-to-use proprietary OS – and we’d have been able to give it a fairly unmitigated thumbs-up if it wasn’t for the ugly screen.

Still, we’d recommend scouting around for an older K- or W-series handset if you don’t fall in love with the W205 on sight and are willing to spend a little more. Shop around online and you may be able to find a W580i or K770 for not too many more pennies, and they’re much more capable phones with far prettier screens.