Amazon sells Nokia E71x smartphone for 1 cent

— -- You can't even get chewing gum for a penny anymore. But you can get a smartphone.

One cent is what Amazon.com is charging for the Nokia E71x smartphone I've been testing.

You're probably thinking a penny phone must be a discontinued model, or a device lacking state-of-the-art features. But the Nokia E71x only went on sale this month. And this sleek-looking world phone has a full qwerty keyboard, Web browser, Wi-Fi, GPS, access to corporate e-mail through Exchange, a 3.2-megapixel camera (with video, no less) and other multimedia features.

Granted, there's the usual catch with a subsidized handset: You have to sign up for a two-year contract with AT&T or otherwise pay $300. If you buy the phone in an AT&T store instead of Amazon, the price with contract climbs to $100 after a $50 mail-in rebate. That's still an attractive deal. Data users will have to sign up for a $30 monthly plan on top of monthly voice plans that start at $40; messaging plans start at $5.

Truth is Amazon sells other phones for a penny (including a BlackBerry Curve model). Amazon's pricing could be a boost for Nokia. The company sells a boatload of phones around the world, but has barely made a splash in the USA, where smartphones are dominated by iPhones and BlackBerrys.

The phone has shortcomings. Nokia doesn't supply a memory card to bolster the paltry 120 megabytes of internal memory, though there's a slot on the phone for adding one. Nor is a stereo headset included for listening to music or watching video — and good luck using your own, since most people have headphones that are too large to fit the phone's 2.5mm jack. The device is compatible with wireless Bluetooth stereo headsets, though.

Moreover, I didn't find the E71x the easiest phone to use in my tests — its keyboard is too cramped, and the interface lacks the polish or pizazz of better-known rivals.

But considering the economic climate, you could do a lot worse.

Here's a closer look.

The basics.