Nokia 7280

The surprisingly powerful 7280 looks more like a fashion accessory than a phone.

Off or in standby, the 7280 looks like an art-deco lipstick case with a tiny, 1.5-inch mirror, felt pads on the sides, and a fabric tag on the edge.

Pull gently on the ends of the 7280 to slide the phone open and light up the sharp, tiny screen. The wheel to the left of the screen is an iPod-like scroll wheel; there's no keypad.

The SIM card is located in a drawer on the bottom of the phone. To pop out the drawer, stick a paperclip or the included "SIM release tool" in the "release hole". Yes, that's what Nokia calls them.

The phone's features include a decent speakerphone, a voice recorder, a good FM radio that works with the included wired headset, EDGE data support, and a complete Bluetooth implementation. There are no games or Java, but, really, who cares?

There are three ways to dial the 7280: voice-dial from your phone book; scroll through your phone book; or use the scroll wheel to roll through a string of numbers, picking out digits one by one.

You use the same scrolling method to pick out letters in a text message as you do to dial, but thanks to Nokia's predictive algorithm, which guesses the letters you're most likely to hit, texting is a lot easier. Here we have typed 'li' and it correctly predicts 'k' as most likely to follow, since the word we're working on is 'like'.

The FM radio works when you attach the included headset. The 7280 also offers a media player, which can handle video.

The 7280's VGA camera takes pictures at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. Slide the phone open to reveal the lens.

The right side features microphone, headset, and charger connectors.

When the phone rings (in a music-quality AAC ringtone), it glows a soft red.

The bottom of the phone sports a speaker, infrared port, and the SIM drawer.

The 7280 comes with this fabulous felt and leather wrap. You can't use the phone while it's on, but, as they say, you've got to suffer for fashion.