Nokia’s Prism Phones Catch the Spotlight

Sure they make phone calls, but Nokia's latest phones are designed with one purpose in mind: getting some attention.

The Razr could face a sharp-edged challenge from Nokia’s two latest competitors in the fashion phone market. The Finnish company launched the 7900 and 7500 Prism phones on Tuesday, which sport a quirky diamond-cut design and an array of visual features designed to catch eyes.

The 7900’s keypad is arranged into an array of diamond-shaped buttons, and the back side of the phone is anodized aluminum with the same design stamped and laser-etched into it. Both the main display and keypad can light up in one of 49 colors. Nokia also selected a 16-million-color organic LED display for the phone rather than a traditional LCD screen. On the business side of things, the 7900 includes both dual-band 3G and quad-band GSM data capabilities, a 2-megapixel camera, and 1GB of internal memory.

Nokia’s 7500 carries over the diamond theme in a slightly smaller package. A band of color runs around the edge of the phone, which Nokia says will be interchangeable for customization. Like it’s big brother, the 7500 also gets a 2-megapixel camera, but a slot for a microSD card is provided instead of 1GB internal memory. Using the card, the Nokia 7500 doubles as an audio player.

Both phones will be available in the third quarter of 2007. The 7900 will sell for 400 EUR ($549 USD) while the 7500 will go for 210 EUR ($288 USD).