Nokia 7900 Prism review: In colored light

Connectivity: USB in focus

Connectivity is another aspect of Nokia 7900 where more can be demanded. The main focus here is the USB connectivity and it is really seamless. Upon connection of the USB cable, it prompts you to select the connection mode. You can then alternate these modes by only a few keypresses. Moreover, Mass storage is available, allowing your phone's memory to be directly accessed from a computer.

On the other hand the microUSB is not as widespread as the miniUSB, but as it seems, we'll be getting more and more of it. The Bluetooth version is 2.0 and it supports the A2DP profile, which allows stereo wireless connection. The rest of the connectivity options include the network support - luckily Nokia 7900 Prism supports 3G for faster data transfers, as well as EDGE and GPRS where 3G support is missing.

There is no infrared port on the device and no memory card slot, which can sometimes be the most convenient way of transferring information.

Web browsers

Nokia 7900 has an integrated WAP browser, which also manages HTML pages. No changes in functionality have been made and it is identical to the one used in Nokia 7500. Font size modifications are available, as usual. When set at the smallest font, the display visualizes up to 11 text lines. Direct address entering is available too. The browsing experience with this application however is nowhere near the standard set by the browsers in Nokia's smartphones.

The built-in web browser is by far not the best in business

The browser faces serious competition from another brilliant application - the famous Opera Mini Java application. The latter is pre-installed and is definitely our first choice for browsing the web on Nokia 7900. It is far more intuitive and fits text better than the integrated browser. The browsing experience is at a significantly better level with the Opera application. We nonetheless couldn't help wishing the screen was larger on this occasion.

The Opera mini web browser does a significantly better job

Organizer: time-proven performance

The organizer of Nokia 7900 is at a very high level, which is to be expected in a S40 device. Month, week, and day views are available for the calendar. The week can start on Monday, Sunday, or Saturday. There are five types of events: reminder, meeting, call, birthday and memo. Further, each type of event has its own specific fields like start and end time, type of alert with various advance intervals, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly repetition.

The calendar on the handset offers three view modes and five events available for setting up

There is also a handy to-do manager that enables you to categorize tasks in three priority levels. Tasks can be alerted of, as well as marked off once accomplished. They are easily synced with the calendar application. Text notes are available as well; their length is limited to 3000 characters.

The To-do manager can come in handy in organizing your time

The alarm clock is repeatable; it can be set to go off on any weekday and works even when the phone is switched off. You can also customize the snooze time if you wish.

The alarm clock has a large number of customizable options

The other organizing functions available include a voice recorder with a 60-minute length limit, stopwatch, countdown timer and a calculator. They are all easily operable and decently looking. This time however, the calculator offers two different versions - a standard easier to use one and a scientific version with far more functions available. An elaborate loan calculator is also at the user's disposal.

Some of the other organizing applications - voice recorder, countdown timer and stopwatch

Two different calculators plus a loan calculator are to be found on the handset

Applications

Nokia 7900 comes with a relatively small number of preinstalled applications outside the organizer. The unit converter application has been dropped and so has been the size converter. Luckily, the Sensor application is onboard providing Bluetooth communication. It allows the user to detect other users who are in the vicinity and to exchange messages with them.

Nokia Sensor user interface

The other included application is the world clock, which allows checking the time in any time zone at the cost of only a few clicks.

World clock can tell you what time is it in any part of the world

And finally, the applications that complete the content on Nokia 7900 are the internet-based Yahoo search and Yahoo Go, as well as Download applications. While the first greatly facilitates the access to the popular search engine, the latter connects you directly to Nokia's download center, where you can find a lot of downloadable content for you phone.

The Yahoo Go application deserves some special attention as it gives the user instant access to the most popular services offered by Yahoo.

Yahoo Go provides instant access to the most popular features

Games

Gaming lovers will probably appreciate the preinstalled content, as it includes four games. The first one is Golf Tour and is a decent implementation of the popular game.

Golf Tour game

Music Guess game tests your ability to recognize songs by listening to small parts of them.

Music guess game

The final two games in line are a version of Nokia's all times favorite Snake (in this case Snake III) and a nice rendition of the popular Japanese game Sudoku. All the games have decent graphics and are comparatively easy to play. Leaving the imperfect keypad aside that is.

Snake III and Sudoku games complete the list

Conclusion: when you want to be unique

Summarizing our experience with Nokia 7900 we have to say that this attractive handset offered quite pleasing performance. It was fun to use and provided very good user experience in most cases.

However, it is a complicated question whether and how worth it is to purchase. Having in mind the hefty price tag of the Prism, we cannot overlook the fact that Nokia 6500 slide would be a much more reasonable buy in terms of value for money. Though the Prism's exotic exterior and playful lights stand little comparison to the solid conservatism of the slide.

"...Still, the Nokia 7900 has a strong enough point - the unique features. It's got what it takes to stand out in a crowd, and that might be more than enough for quite a number of people..."

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On the other hand, if looks are what you're after Nokia 6500 classic seems a viable alternative with its seamless case of anodized aluminum. For the record, the price of the Classic is now quite lower than that of the Prism.

Still, the Nokia 7900 has a strong enough point - the unique features. It's got what it takes to stand out in a crowd, and that might be more than enough for quite a number of people.