For some manufacturers creating a fashion phone means changing the colour of a casing or modifying a small detail. With its 7900 Prism, Nokia has taken the idea of design to much further lengths. We set out to discover whether or not the 7900 is too focused on design and not enough on features.
The Nokia 7900 Prism is currently available SIM-free for around £270 or free on a monthly contract with O2.
Design
Taking the 7900 Prism out of its box is like picking up a retro Star Trek gadget for the first time. Although it's shaped like a mobile phone, there's something other-worldly about it, making you want to play with it. Similar to the Nokia 7280, you get the impression that it's not your run-of-the-mill handset.
The 7900's metal back gives it a very solid feel and the 'diamond-cut' patterns bring an otherwise thin but dull casing to life. The 2-megapixel camera is surrounded by a silver diamond-shaped border and the LED photo light sits next to it underneath a semi-transparent triangular piece of plastic.
But it's the front of the phone where you really feel like you're staring at something straight out of an art college student's portfolio. At the top of the front of the 7900 there's a medium-sized OLED screen and underneath that, a diamond-shaped navigation key followed by a keypad made up entirely of triangular shaped keys.
The triangular keys are unfortunately not very easy to press and while the rest of the phone feels well designed, the keypad really doesn't. It's not that using triangles was a bad idea but because the keys are so squashed together and small, you end up pressing more than one key at a time quite easily.
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User reviews2
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twellve 11 April 2009
Good: customisable keypad lights, 1GB memory
Bad: phone crashes, battery difficult to remove, difficult to type, poor photo quality
Comment: I've had this phone for a year and a half. During this time, it has crashed perhaps half a dozen times. In order to fix this, one must remove & replace the phone battery. However, the phone is so efficiently designed, that this is not easily accomplished (has to be leveraged up with a pin). This was the solution offered to me by Nokia's support staff who were equally baffled, initially, as to how to remove it.
Contrary to the editorial review, my phone has no FM radio support, nor could I find reference to this in either amongst the phone's applications or the provided user manual. The included earphones are clumsily attached to a lanyard of sorts, as such, they have remained unused to this day.
As mentioned by others, the keys are somewhat difficult to type with due to their shape and feel somewhat cheap and plasticky compared to the rest of the metal housing. They are flush with the rest of the faceplate making typing difficult, raised buttons might've worked better.
The camera is slow and, despite sporting a flash, picture quality is fairly poor unless you're in a well-lit area and can take your time.
It is somewhat on the heavy side, weighing over 100g, and the battery life is slightly on the low side. The mains charger emits an irritating, high-pitched buzz when the phone is charging. The chargers connect via a mini USB port on the top of the phone, which makes it slightly awkward for talking whilst charging.
Web browsing on the 7900 is rather slow-going and the built-in browser's user interface isn't the best. The Instant Messaging and MMS features have never worked for me, but I attribute that to the service provider, not the phone.
On the plus side, the phone itself is good-looking design-wise and a number of people have commented on its attractiveness. I was definitely sucked in by the ability to change the colours of the keypad lights and do use this feature occasionally. The top surface of the phone 'breathes' at you in the form of glowing lights; it glows more urgently when you have received a message.
The loudspeaker feature has good sound quality and works well.
The metal housing has proved sturdy and protective. Despite being dropped many times, it has only a couple of superficial dings and is otherwise no worse for wear. Unfortunately, the back has started to slide off more easily, sometimes unintentionally, over time.
The USB charger works quickly and takes up less space than then mains charger. It also conveniently allows you to store files on the phone if you find yourself short of a flash drive in a pinch. Additionally, stored music files can be used as ringtones.
It is definitely a unique phone; I have yet to see another 7900 Prism in the wild.
Adrian K 30 January 2008
Good: I'm a sucker for gadgets that look good.
Bad: May be a little harder for me to text with (I text a lot).
Comment: This is a really nice looking phone. I don't really like the pink, though :P .
The only problem is it looks a little hard to text with. It is still a good gadget, though.
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