t's been a long time since we last held such an unusual phone in our hands. Nokia 7500 Prism is so much different from all other mobile devices in terms of design. With its dazzling geometric patterns and distinctive triangular keys, the Prism is one of the most striking phones announced recently. Keeping a low profile is one thing this device can't do. Anyway, stay with us for the good and bad of it.

Nokia 7500 official photos

Key features:

• One of a kind design
• Typical s40 quick interface
• More than decent music performance with good equalizers
• Richer than usual preloaded content
• Keypad is comfortable, despite its unusual look
• Exchangeable accents to freshen up the phone's looks

Main disadvantages:

• Mediocre camera
• No hot-swap capability for the memory card
• The display lacks brightness
• Inadequate battery life
• Price tag too high for the offered functionality
• Joystick needs time getting used to
• Fingerprint magnet

Nokia 7500 - two distinctive edge go through the front panel from end to end

Nokia 7500 has been in the limelight since the very day it appeared on the Chinese website of the Finnish company. With the angular design and a price tag befitting far greater functionality, there is no doubt that this is a love-it-or-hate-it phone. A mere glance at the specification sheets is enough to convince us that Nokia 6300 offers almost the same set of features at a significantly lower price. Shiny plastic and diamond-like shapes on the outside, we are yet to see if its performance is diamond-hard.

Out-of-the-box

The contents of the package are downright mid level. Alongside a 512 MB microSD memory card, there's a wired stereo handsfree. The earphones aren't as good as the ones found in Nokia 5700, but still produce decent quality sound. Sadly, we found no adapter for the microSD card (making it compatible with standard SD card-readers), nor a USB cable. The DC charger was there but we were disappointed to find out that this phone was using the Nokia AC-3X charger, instead of the AC-5 we found in the Nokia 5700 box. The typical retail package also includes an artificial leather wrist strap, a pouch and two exchangeable color accents. The color accents are very easy to replace and make a surprisingly big difference refreshing the phone's looks. A manual and a booklet highlighting the Nokia 7500 most important features complete the box contents. We should once again make a note here that part of the content of the retail package is market dependant and will probably vary by country or vendor.

Box is in the golden mean in terms of content

Triangular plastic

Nokia 7500 Prism is dressed in black and has a body made of plastic with only a few metal details. Except for parts of the back and the sides, where matt plastic was used, most of the handset's body is shiny, which sadly makes fingerprints an inevitable burden. The device stands at 109 x 44 x 14 mm with a volume of 70 cc and weight of mere 83 g. Overall the construction quality is good and there were no creaks or other disturbing sounds during our test. It does feel good in hand but cleaning your Nokia 7500 is a fulltime job, as every touch on the shiny plastic results in a fingerprint.