When I first got this phone, my first instinct was to try very hard to pry it open. I couldn’t see any keypad or screen so they must be inside, right? After much poking, I managed to uncover the slot for the sim card at one of the long sides, but I still didn’t know how to turn it on.

Making calls is a great challenge. Without the user manual, anyone less than a genius may not figure out how exactly to dial a number the first time. Actually, what you need to do is to press and hold the orange button for all the numbers to appear on screen in a row. Then, you scroll through them and key in your selections one by one. Of course, there are easier ways, like choosing an entry from you phonebook and recent dial list, and even voice dialling using the computerised voice tags that makes awfully funny pronunciations.

The phonebook can store 6 fields for each entry, including postal address, email address, web address, and an image file. But the hassle of keying them in will render these features pretty much useless, especially since this phone doesn’t come with an email system.

It’s very sensible of course. You won’t ever want to type an email on this phone, when typing an sms is enough of a torture as it is. You have to scroll left and right through 26 alphabets and key them in one by one. The dictionary function helps to put the letters you are most likely to use next in front, and this really saves the phone from being smashed up in frustration. If you want to move the cursor around, you got to first select the arrows-icon to activate this function. Similarly, special characters, rare punctuations and numbers are separate lists that need to be brought up in place of the normal alphabets. It’s surely a minus point for this phone, but once you get used to the system, you find yourself churning out messages with surprising speed. The phone also supports MMS and up to 3:09 minutes of audio messaging.

The phone comes with a wide selection of themes, screensavers and wallpapers for customisation. You can also choose to turn “light effects” on (or off), which causes the orange button to give off a slow amber glow every now and then. The ring tones come quite as weird as the phone itself. There’s an applause, a door knock, and even the call of a bull frog. Other than these are groovy club tunes. If these don’t suit your tastes, you can import your own ringtones in the usual mp3, acc and 64-channel polyphonic formats.
 
You can’t find any games on this phone, because none has been programmed yet to work with the dial. If you’re used to turning to your phone for silly games to amuse
yourself while travelling, you’ll find yourself staring dismally at your 7380 very often.

Connectivity is limited to bluetooth, and even though it is the latest and fastest v2.0 with EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), the lack of IrDa and a USB port isolates the phone from many devices. Older phones and computers without bluetooth will have a problem exchanging files with the 7380. 

But on a bluetooth-enabled device like our laptop, file transfer is a breeze as 7380 is compatible with the PC Suite which allows you to see your phone like a regular folder. The PC suite also lets you pick up the data in your phonebook and messaging folders with a single click. The phone is also compatible with a similar Macintosh programme called the Nokia Collector v1.0.

The phone comes with GPRS and a WAP 2.0 xHTML browser, but the small screen makes surfing quite a chore. You would rather be doing your downloading with a PC and then transfer the files via bluetooth.

It seems like 7380 is proof that getting a very small phone equals getting less of a deal, because very regular Nokia applications like the stopwatch and currency converter are absent. All you get is a basic alarm clock, calendar and to-do list.

If by now you have decided that you want a 7380, you can expect it to come in an elegant tin box embossed and etched with floral designs. The package comes with a golden pouch made like a cheongsam and a silver strap.

All the constraints of 7380 makes it a phone suitable only for a tiny fraction of people. The feminine floral design further discourages half the population from using it. But those who dare to take on the 7380 will enter a whole new dimension of mobile phone experience and want to gush to the world about it. But it will not last, one day you will suddenly feel stupid when typing an sms, and decide that your thumb is going to drop if you had to turn the dial once more. And yet, when you make the inevitable switch back to a “normal” phone, you will miss all of it, and never find another phone that can satisfy in quite the same way.

See next page for more photos and camera samples.