14 DAY TRIAL // Nec, the Japanese multinational company, recently unveiled one of the slimmest clamshell phones ever produced, Nec N705i?, a handset that comes at only 9.8 millimeters in thickness and emphasizes the company's ambition to bring unique products (remember the Flask Fuel Cell concept?).
Together with Panasonic P905i, N705i? is among the first mobile phones that run on the LiMo open source mobile platform. The handset has a simple and futuristic look, a stainless steel case and a very cool keypad - at least in terms of design (since we didn't get the chance to test it, we can't know if it is user friendly or if it's better than a normal keypad). It weighs 98 grams and its full dimensions, when closed, are 105 x 49 x 9.8 millimeters.
The new Nec phone packs a 3.0 inch TFT 262k main screen with an unusual 240 x 427 pixel resolution and a 2 Megapixel camera with video recording. Another unusual thing about the phone is its external display, a pseudo-display actually, made from 119 (7 x 17) tiny leds. The device offers GSM and 3G connectivity with HSDPA for data transfer speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps, Web browsing capabilities, email, Music Player, Bluetooth and microSD card support for up to 2 GB of extended memory. With a full-charged battery, the phone can provide a talk-time of more than 3 hours and a stand-by time of up to 520 hours.
Unlike most of the recent Japanese phones, Nec N705i? doesn't offer Mobile TV features, but it would be difficult at its dimensions.
Nec N705i? is available under the name of FOMA N705iì, in three colors (white silver, red and black), via NTT DoCoMo, the leading mobile carrier in Japan. There are no details about the price yet, nor about the availability in other countries.
