Some companies will do anything to get noticed and Nokia is well known for thinking outside the box when it comes to mobile phone design.

The company can do the standard 'candy bar' thing par excellence, but there have also been round dials (the 3650), flip out keypads (the 6800) and the games-centric N-Gage to name but a few of the phones that spice things up a bit. The 7600 is in another league, though, as a 3G phone and also as the company's first, well, almost square-shaped phone.

In fact the 7600 doesn't support all that 3G offers: you can't make video calls with the phone. But you can access some of the video mobile services provided by mobile provider 3 including weather and sports services.

You can also use the built-in camera to capture movies for video messaging to other 3 subscribers. Bluetooth is built in for wireless communications, and there are the usual add-ons of a speaker and voice dialling.

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The built-in MP3 player will appeal to some, as will the ability to use MP3s as ringtones, but just like the 3G compatibility this feature is lacking in one rather important respect: there is no memory card slot in the hardware, so songs have to be squeezed into the on-board memory, of which there is 29MB.

This will become rather stretched if you want to use the 7600 to the full as it has to house all your data - downloads of all kinds, snaps and videos taken with the camera, and data synchronised with Outlook on your PC (Nokia provides a data cable and software), so the chances are you won't have room for very many tunes.

Its size and weight make the 7600 pocket-friendly enough (87mm x 78mm x 18.6mm and 123g). The screen is fine - it's clear and bright. The camera button is nicely placed for one-handed shot taking, it is possible to use the menu soft keys and large square navigation button one-handed and pretty comfortably. Crucially, holding the thing to your ear isn't as weird as you might at first think, and it feels comfortable enough in the hand.

The real problem is the number keys. They might look pretty, ranged in two vertical strips to the left and right of the screen, but it is very difficult to tap out an SMS one handed, and pretty hard to tap a phone number without resorting to two hands. As anyone who travels on public transport will tell you, using both hands to work your phone leaves you with no way of hanging onto a support rail.

If you are looking for a 3G phone and don't need video calling the Nokia 7600 is a world away from some of its larger and rather unwieldy competitors in terms of pocketability and engaging looks. But beware the lack of memory expansion, and only consider it after trying out the number-pad.