Nokia 7705 Twist review – nice and sturdy swivel design
For:
Admirable call quality, comfortable keyboard, and a good range of features
Against:
Poor picture quality; small frame size of streaming video content; low volume during calls; polarizing design with small display
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
The Nokia 7705 Twist is based on the CDMA2000 1X technology that supports dual-band of CDMA2000 1X 900/1900. It has 256MB internal memory and its micro-SD expansion slot can accept up to 119MB cards. The supported wireless interfaces are Bluetooth 2.1 EDR.
2.4 inches LCD display has 320×240 pixels resolution that supports 18-bit (262,000) colors. The 3-megapixel features flash/flashlight, 4x digital zoom, self timer, and auto-focus. The messaging features are voice mail, email text, picture, instant, and multimedia messages. The Twist phone has XHTML browser and supports WAP Push 2.0.
The connector set includes 1×micro-USB, and 1×2.5mm headset jack – sub mini-phone. The 860mAH lithium ion battery has a life of 270 minutes talk time and 312 hours idle standby time. Accessories supplied inside the package are Xpress-on covers, power adapter, battery, wired headset, and user manual.
Razzle Dazzle:
The Nokia 7705 Twist has swivel design and weighs 3.5 ounces. It is 2.7 inches wide, 0.6 inch deep and 2.7 inches tall. The front cover is basic black and you can customize the back with included black and purple battery covers. The phone easily fits in the pocket when closed.
Inside Dope:
The Nokia 7705 Twist has a strange swivel design. The Sony Ericsson W600i also had swivel design that remained fine for some time and then flew apart after continuous usage in one month. However, Nokia had improved the design for its 7705 Twist handset. You can open and close it using one hand and move it from center to a corner. This mechanism feels sturdy, but the long-term durability is on doubt. The Twist has minimalist and clean profile, but is a bit new wave. It will get appearance on the streets. The 7705 Twist offers comfortable keyboard and a good range of features. You can buy it for $99.99 with Verizon Wireless agreement after a $50 mail-in-rebate. However, the volume remains low during call and the captured photo quality is poor. The overall design looks polarizing with small display and 2.5mm headset jack. We will prefer the Nokia to include a 3.5mm headset jack and universal standard charger jack in further models. The new addition is contact ring on the pivot point that blinks with multicolored lights on an incoming call from stored contact in the phonebook.
Design
The camera lens with flash sits on the back. You have to open the Nokia 7705 Twist phone for using the camera. The back of swivel side works as a self-portrait mirror. You will find the micro-SD card slot, a volume rocker, and micro-USB/charger port.
Display
2.4-inch display of the Nokia 7705 Twist has 320×240 pixels resolution that supports 262,144 colors. It is enough bright to exhibit sharp graphics and color. The display rotates into landscape mode, but still shows some vertical text lines. You can adjust the dialing and font size, the home screen font color, and backlight time. The menu interface is mixed and the browser remains grouped under Media Center submenu.
Navigation Array
The navigation array is located beneath the display and consists of two soft keys, square toggle with middle OK button, and clear button. We appreciate that these buttons are spacious and touch-sensitive. The Nokia 7705 Twist allows adjusting the sensitivity of array buttons, vibration feedback pattern and its intensity.
QWERTY Keyboard
You can flip open the Nokia 7705 Twist phone to use the full QWERTY keyboard of five rows including first for shortcuts. The top row under the swivel face has dedicated keys for Send, messaging app, music player, Web browser, voice-dialing, speakerphone, camera, and End/Power. We will prefer to have the Talk and End/Power keys on the front face.
The letters share the space with symbols and numbers. The keyboard is spacious and provides tactile feedback. The space bar is located conveniently in the center of bottom row. You will find the return control, function key for typing numbers, back button and shift key near the space bar.
Phonebook and PIM features
The Nokia 7705 Twist can store 1000 contacts in its phonebook. Each contact can save five phone numbers, notes, one street address, and two email addresses. The Twist cell phone also allows saving a dedicated emergency phone number. You can organize the contacts into caller groups and pair them with one ring-tone and a photo for caller ID.
The basic feature set includes a speakerphone, a currency and unit converter, a tip calculator, a notepad, a world clock, a stopwatch, an alarm clock, a calendar, and a calculator. After selecting urban or jungle display theme, the Habitat mode of shows the avatar representation of the contacts sorted in order of the last person called. You can click on any avatar to view recent calls and message history.
Advanced Highlights
The advanced highlights EV-DO Rev. 0 network support, GPS support with VZ Navigator, text-to-speech, USB mass storage, PC synchronization, Bluetooth, and speaker-independent voice dialing. The Nokia 7705 Twist has XHTML browser that displays pages in their respective full form. You can also use the pointer with toggle.
Messaging Features
The messaging features of the Nokia 7705 Twist are threaded text and multimedia messaging; Verizon Visual Voice mail service; Web-based access for POP3/IMAP4 accounts including AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo; and RemoteSync service for accessing push-email delivery with synchronization of contacts, notes, and calendar through corporate accounts. However, you will have to pay additionally $9.99 per month for RemoteSync and $2.99 per month of Visual Voice mail. The addition of these extra costs will turn into an expensive monthly plan. So, we will recommend you to buy a smartphone with comprehensive data plan.
Camera
The Nokia 7705 Twist has 3-megapixel camera that features 4x digital zoom, flash, auto-focus, self-timer and the video recording. The still capture options are three shutter sounds with one silent options, brightness control, portrait and landscape modes, four-white balance effects, three color tones, three quality settings, and five resolutions. The video recording options include 176×144 pixels resolution and other similar to that of still capture. You can use the flash as light while video recording, but the digital zoom does not work at the highest resolution. You can record 30 seconds video for MMS and longer in standard mode.
We captured some pictures and recorded the video clips for testing. The overall picture quality was only average. The shots looked blurry with dull colors. The video quality was mediocre with unsatisfactory sound. You can transfer the pictures and videos via email, memory card, USB, and Bluetooth.
Verizon services
Verizon Wireless has also included its services within the Nokia 7705 Twist such as V Cast Music with Rhapsody for the streaming audio content, VZ Navigator for the GPS, and V Cast Video for streaming video content.
Music Player
The music player interface of the Nokia 7705 Twist is similar to other Verizon cell phones. Its options include play-lists, airplane mode, shuffle and repeat modes.
Games and Personalization
The Nokia 7705 Twist comes with two games: Tetris and Ms. Pac Man. It can be personalized with banner, clock formats, wallpaper, and themes. You can download the more options and Java Brew game titles from the Verizon store.
Call Quality
We made few calls through the dual-band based Nokia 7705 Twist via Verizon Wireless service for testing. The overall call quality was average. At our end, we received natural song with strong signal strength, but the volume was low and there was a bit static. The callers received low volume at their end with little background noise. However, they could note tell we were calling through a mobile handset. The speakerphone call quality was below average. The volume was loud, while the audio was a bit distorted. The Bluetooth headsets calls were fine.
Performance Testing
We tried to load some Web pages in the browser and buffered some clips from V Cast Video. The GSMcellulars.com loaded in 20 seconds and a Google search for “cell phone reviews” took 5 seconds to complete. The video clips buffered swiftly through V Cast and then it did not pause or freeze while playing. The frame size did not use the full width of display, especially in landscape mode. The video looked a bit pixelated and audio was not synchronized with the video. A 3MB song downloaded in two minutes and it played back fine on the speakers with a bit harsh sound. We will recommend you to use the headphones for better listening experience.
Battery Life
The Nokia 7705 Twist has a battery life of 13 days idle standby time and 4.5 hours of talk time. Its digital SAR is 0.70 watts per kg in accordance with the FCC radiation tests.
Verdict:
The Twist cell phone is not an actual multimedia or Internet device. However, it offers passable call quality and good mid-range features with swivel design. You can buy the Nokia 7705 Twist if you need a unique cell phone with QWERTY keyboard.
