Nokia takes one more big plunge into fashion with the release of its 8800 Arte and Sapphire Arte phones. They will come at some huge prices that will be mostly driven by the stylish design of the mobiles and less by their performances.

Nokia 8800 Arte and Sapphire Arte are actually the follow-ups of the Luna phone and feature a highly similar design to that. It's the same elegant slider, with a metal case and glass body. The special fashionable features that the Sapphire Arte handset have to bring come in the form of a genuine sapphire gem stone and a touch of soft leather, which do look gorgeous.

"The high-end materials and seamless surfaces are pleasing to touch while the sophisticated, minimalistic design is equally satisfying to the eyes. An obsessive attention to detail means that the Nokia 8800 Arte and Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte are engineered to last", commented Heikki Norta, Senior Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia.

Wow! It sounds like those guys at Nokia really take their products' design seriously and put a great deal of passion. It's only left to see how many fashion victims will be convinced that the phone is elegant enough as to choose it over equally and even more capable devices that come at much cheaper prices.

The 2-inch display might feel rather small and not all that suitable for watching video or handling large personal files. Nokia 8800 Arte and Sapphire Arte are both 3G enabled, which should bring some high data transfer speeds and make it possible to download a song in a matter of just a few seconds. There is also a 3.2 megapixel camera included, which should manage to bring pretty great quality captures and a 1 GB of built in space for storing them all.

Both handsets come with matching accessories that follow the same design line. Nokia 8800 Arte will start shipping towards the end of this year, making it just in time for the holidays for an estimated retail price of 1000 EUR before taxes and subsidies. Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte will follow in the first quarter of 2008 and come at about 1150 EUR.