Nokia 7500 Prism

Sexism is a terrible thing, but sometimes it's all but unavoidable. At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, the Nokia 7500 Prism is definitely a phone for girls. And not just girls, but girly girls. It's designed to share a handbag with a rat-sized lapdog and £500's worth of make-up, and only its relatively low price (£129.99 from Amazon) is likely to keep it from arriving at this unenviable destination.

Never before has style eclipsed function so thoroughly, which isn't to say that it functions badly, but only that you're unlikely to buy it for any other reason than that it has glossy buttons and will draw looks. Like every handset from Nokia's 7 series, it's a 'fashion phone'.

You can learn everything you need to know about its appearance from the image accompanying this review. The keypad is made up of rhombuses cut down the middle, so that each button is a triangle, some pointing up and some pointing down. This pattern extends around the back, and the overall effect is bizarre. A thin band of colour girds the outer edge, and if you don't like the default blue you can replace it with green or pink, both of which come in the box.

It has the look of a phone that's been garishly caked in cut stone by an heiress. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't have the feel of one. The case is made of plastic and – although lightness is an admirable quality in a mobile phone – the Prism's 83g feel flimsy in the palm of your hand rather than sleek and sexy. At 109x449x14.4mm it's thin and slight, but rather tall.

In terms of features, the Prism falls slightly below the watermark, although it does have some high points. It comes with 30MB onboard storage, plus the capacity for a 2GB SD card, which is apt since its best feature is probably the music player, which supports MP3, AAC, and WMA, and interoperates with Windows Music Player. You can also adorn the player with five different skins.

Likewise, there are 12 themes to choose from, which is far more than the usual five or six, and the 16.7m colour 240x320 display is far crisper and brighter than a phone of this general standard usually boasts, reinforcing our impression of the Prism as a handset whose looks matter far more than its personality.

Web browsing is adequate, with, amongst other things, WAP and the Opera browser included. There's also Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0, along with which the Prism sports Nokia Sensor, which enables you to generate ad-hoc social networks.

The big question is: does the Prism's strange design get in the way of its role as a gaming device? The answer, unfortunately though somewhat predictably, is yes.

The triangular keys work perfectly well for dialling, but for gaming they can take a little getting used to. For instance, '5' isn't actually above '4' and '6' but, like an optical illusion, it looks as though it is, and so the first few times you boot up Tower Bloxx or My Dog 2 you'll find yourself groping for the right key until you get the hang of it.

"No problem," you might be thinking. "I can just use that neat-looking thumbstick."

Well, I've got bad news for you. The thumbstick is terrible. In keeping with the rest of the phone's design, it's made of glossy plastic, which wouldn't be a problem if it weren't fairly stiff. To keep your thumb from slipping around all over it, your natural tendency is to push down, with the obvious consequence that you often accidentally press too hard and end up where you don't want to be.

Navigating the menus is tricky, but you get the hang of it by always moving your thumb to the edge of the thumbstick and pushing it from the side. The same technique works to a certain extent in games, but only those that don't require fast responses. In any case, your control interface shouldn't be something you have to get used to.

Preloaded on the phone are: Snake III, a colourful sequel to the classic Snake, from before the series became dark and minimal; City Bloxx, a variant on Digital Chocolate's superb Tower Bloxx; a perfectly serviceable version of Sudoku; and a game called Music Guess, which is exactly the same as the quiz that comes with an iPod, and entails identifying whatever song is playing in as quick a time as possible.

It's a decent range, which demonstrates that the Prism is technically capable of running and displaying games well, despite the poor controls. And they say 60 per cent of casual gamers are female, so there's a market for the demographic most likely to opt for this flawed fashion phone. As a gaming device, however, it falls far too short of the front runners to recommend.