Nokia is one of the few companies that actually has a designer line for cell phones. The Nokia 7390 is part of the company's L'Amour designer collection, which also includes a few other models. Since the phone is part of a designer series, needless to say, it's going to be relatively better than traditional cell phones. And of course, Nokia delivers well on our expectations of a pure glamorous phone.



The Nokia 7390 is available in two colors: powder pink and bronze black. We looked at the latter version. The color combination is quite striking and very different for the 7390, as the black exterior surrounds a bronze patch and an exterior display with an exotic pattern. Interestingly, as you move towards the back, there's a leather patch right underneath the camera lens. Although it [leather patch] isn't really useful, it's a touch to exaggerate the 7390's designer heritage.

The 7390 is a typical flip-phone with an external display that boasts 160x128 with 1.25-inch resolution and support for 262k colors. The display is impressively bright and supports the standard display properties, such as photo caller ID, battery life, date, time and the remaining set. It also converts as a viewfinder for the integrated camera, but unfortunately, that's all it can do. Since the lens is located on the backside, you can't use the external display as a mirror for self-portraits. What a pity! Furthermore, you can also use the display to go through a few additional items, such as music playback with the three buttons that are situated right underneath the LCD panel.

The camera lens is on the other side, while the volume up/down buttons and camera button are implemented on the right side. The left side has the power button, an infrared port and a tag. Personally, the tag is a decent touch. It's all about flaunting and exclusivity at this point. Nokia, for some odd reason, Nokia has moved the mini-USB port and the power connector to the very top. It isn't the ideal place, of course. Also, the microSD expansion slot is taken all the way behind the battery cover. Now, if you are not the person to tinker with that regularly, it's actually a great location. But if you like to constantly insert/remove the card for syncing multimedia files, it's going to be painful.

As you flip open the 7390, you will be welcomed with an internal display that's even better than the external one with a 2.25-inch display, 240x320 resolution and support for 16 million colors. Thanks to the pure viewing goodness of the internal display, it's a pleasure going through various menus, calling, texting and working with the phone. Below the display, you will find the standard 4-navigational keys with an OK button for navigation, two shortcut keys and Talk/End keys. Hopefully, you are not a messaging fan, or you'll have quite a bit of issue sending messages on the fly with the 7390. The keys are almost embedded in body, and as such, pressing them isn't such a joy.

From a features standpoint, Nokia's 7390 has a fairly typical feature set. You get access to e-mail, text messaging, multimedia messaging, infrared support, Bluetooth connectivity, browser support, video & audio playback, video & audio customization and equalizer options and everything else in between. Then there's the 3.0-megapixel camera that took quality photos. With the highest resolution at 2,048x1,536, 8x digital zoom, JPEG/Exif, auto focus/flash/self-timer and a slew of other options, it's a much better camera than what a lot of camera phones offer. You can also record video: 20 seconds for a multimedia message or up to 4 minutes for personal viewing. For audio playback, MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+ and other formats are supported as well.