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Ready for 3G: Nokia does another weird phone with 7600

Nokia seems determined to produce phones that don't look like phones; the company's first 3G phone may perform well, but in appearance is the oddest yet.

The 7600, you might imagine, would be just like the 7600 but designed to work on WCDMA standard 3G networks as well as GSM nets. Wrong!

Like the 7650 it is a camera phone, which may turn out to be a miscalculation if more offices follow the trend to ban them. The camera is built into the body of the thing.

But its shape is extraordinary. "Taking Nokia design to a new level," is the way the press release puts it. And it goes on, in language as bizarre as the design, to talk of how the device "incorporates a 65,000 colour screen as the heart and soul of its front face."

Size is rather more encouraging: weighing a mere 123 grams and measuring 87mm x 78 mm x 18.6 mm, the Nokia 7600 is claimed to be "one of the lightest and smallest GSM/WCDMA phones in the world."

Strangely, it won't work in America; it has a GSM fall-back wireless, but this is on the European/world standard frequencies of 900 and 1,800 MHz, not the North American 1,900 MHz standard.

There's an integrated MP3/AAC music player. It gives you some idea of how carefully Nokia has designed the battery circuits of this phone. While the company claims a uniquely "no compromise" battery life by comparison with rival 3G phones from people like Motorola and NEC, when it comes down to it, you can only listen to 50 minutes worth of music before the battery dies.

That compares with a pretty impressive claim of 4 hours of talk time (on GSM) and just under than 3 hours on WCDMA.