Nokia launches 7500, 7900 Prism phones

Following an early look at the phones in China, Nokia today officially launched its Prism Collection handsets. Each of the angular black cellphones focuses style with changing color themes; while the basic 7500 Prism (pictured) sports interchangeable border plates, the 7900 Prism includes an active lighting system that produces any one of 49 different colors and a display with a "living" background that changes subtly with the time of day. The 7900 is also one of the very first cellphones to have a 16.7 million color OLED display that guarantees a vivid picture without cutting into performance.

The 7500 is Nokia's starter, localized model with only tri-band GSM network support, dual-band EDGE Internet access, and a reliance on microSD cards for storage. Stepping up to the 7900 provides support for North America through quad-band GSM and 3G wireless support for both the US and Europe; it also builds in 1GB of memory for up to 9 hours of music playback. Either has a 2-megapixel camera with support for both video and photo capture and will ship before the end of the summer. In Europe, the 7500 will sell for 210 Euros ($289) before carrier discounts; the 7900 will be offered in the area for 400 Euros ($551) and may find similar pricing in North America.