Nokia's latest innovation is the 3G-capable 5700 XpressMusic, a phone featuring a twisting design enabling you to switch from a phone to a music player with a simple twist. Want to take a photo or record video? Twist halfway and the camera application opens. Want to listen to music? Twist again to reveal dedicated music controls and automatically open the music player. Do you just want to make a phone call? Then twist back around to reveal a standard keypad.
The 5700 XpressMusic's twist design is definitely its most attractive feature. The implementation is excellent, and the design is practical for everyday use. The rotation isn't smooth though and the interface does lag a little when rotating. The large, dedicated music buttons are a nice touch, as is the twist doubling as a desktop stand for watching videos. The only downside to the twist design is that the handset is quite chunky and a little heavy at 115g, but on a positive note, its white, black and silver design doesn't tend to pick up excess fingerprints.
In terms of sound quality, the 5700's music player is fair, offering a good level of detail and clear balanced sound. It has shuffle and repeat play modes, five equaliser presets, bass boost, as well as balance, stereo widening and loudness settings. The included headphones (sporting an external remote control and allowing you to handle calls) are serviceable, but a better quality pair can be used thanks to the 5700's 3.5mm headphone. File formats supported include MP3, eAAC+, AAC+, M4A, MIDI, RealPlayer and WMA, and there is playlists available as well. The best feature though is drag-and-drop file support - simply plug the phone into your PC via the included USB cable and the 5700 appears as a mass storage device. Nokia includes a 512MB microSD card in the sales package, while Bluetooth and USB connectivity are both included along with SMS, MMS and e-mail messaging with T9 predictive text input.
Twisting the 5700 45 degrees activates the 2-megapixel camera and video recorder. A great feature of the twist design is the fact that the screen faces you with the lens facing outwards - much like a regular digital camera. The volume keys run along the top and act as shutter and zoom controls while the flash works reasonably well for night-time photography.
The 5700 runs the popular Series 60 Symbian interface, and it's a little slow to open basic menu items and applications. Regular Nokia users will be pleased with the standard grid of labelled icons, along with a stylish list format for most submenus. Navigating the menu is annoying thanks to the stubborn five-way navigational joystick though; it's surprisingly easy to accidentally bump it the wrong way and its short, flat design isn't ideal. The soft, rubberised menu and clear buttons squashed into each side of the controls don't do this handset any favours either. On a positive note, the keypad is laid out nicely and its slightly raised keys are comfortable for messaging. The large 2.2in display is bright and clear.
Nokia quote the battery life at up to 3.5 hours talk time on a standard GSM network, and 2.5 hours on a 3G network, while standby time is up to 270 hours.
