Sony Ericsson G705 is a new midrange mobile phone with a quite surprising bunch of features.
Introduction:
Sony Ericsson G705 has many features which up to now had been characteristic of the upper range of cell phones and smartphones. The Sony Ericsson G705 features GPS with A-GPS, excellent connectivity, 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash, very good Web browsing functionality and, of course, music and video player. Additionally Sony Ericsson G705 has some built-in memory and a 1GB M2 memory card included in the box, youtube client and FM radio with RDS and track ID, so as you can see the list of features is indeed quite long.
Sony Ericsson G705 pros:
+ Built-in GPS with A-GPS function, Wayfinder Navigator software, geotagging
+ Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
+ Wi-Fi b/g with DLNA and SIP support, Bluetooth, USB v2.0
+ 2.4″ 256K-color TFT display
+ 3.2 MP camera with LED flash,
+ Illuminated Web shortcut keys
+ YouTube client
+ 120 MB built-in memory, M2 card support, 1GB included
Sony Ericsson G705 cons:
- Cheapish looks
- Video recording limited to QVGA resolution at 15fps
- No office document viewer
The design:
Sony Ericsson G705 measures 95 x 47 x 14.3 mm and weighs 98 grams. Unfortunately, when you look at the Sony Ericsson G705 you cannot help thinking that the phone looks a bit cheap, but considering its price range and specifications it is no surprise that the manufacturer had to make some compromises. The phone has quite minimalist design without too many labels like 3G, Wi-Fi and so on. The phone is made entirely of plastic and the front is glossy so it may attract fingerprints, but the back is more fingerprint resistant. Too bad it is not the other way round. The front of Sony Ericsson G705 is dominated by the 2.4-inch TFT display with 256-K colors. The screen had good resolution and is legible also in direct sunlight. Below the display id the D-pad with blocks of buttons on its sides. After sliding the Sony Ericsson G705 you will see the keyboard and what I liked about it is the fact that the uppermost row of keys is nice to use which is rare in sliders. All the keys are comfortable and tactile, thus pleasant to use. On the right side of Sony Ericsson G705 you will see volume rocker and dedicated camera button, whereas on the left only Fast Port. The top houses a small button used for playing or stopping music music from any point in the interface. The bottom houses the rear cover, and so you might ask where is the memory card slot. Well, the memory card sits under the battery but I don’t think it is such a bad idea as most probably you will never take it out. The back of Sony Ericsson G705 features the 3.2 megapixel fixed focus camera lens with a LED flash which can also work as a torch. The loudspeaker grill is also there.
Performance:
Sony Ericsson G705 has no troubles with reception or the in-call voice quality. According to the manufacturer the battery will work for 400 hours of standby or 10 hours of talking. But as you will most probably use the Sony Ericsson G705 also for listening to music and taking photos it will vary. The Sony Ericsson G705 has a flash-based Media Center supporting plenty of file formats. It has a few equalizer presets and Stereo Widening to improve the sound quality which is quite good as long as you use some headphones and not the built-in speaker.
The 3.2 megapixel camera has fixed focus and a LED flash. You can take photos in up to 2048 x 1536 resolution and use a fe scene modes, some effects and self timer. In fact the camera offers quite nice customization thanks to which the images taken with the Sony Ericsson G705 look really nice. However, the video quality is rather poor. The Sony Ericsson G705 can record clips in QVGA resolution at 15 fps which is not even close to satisfactory.
The web browsing is quite pleasant with Sony Ericsson G705. The phone renders even elaborate pages quite nice and you get functions such as Pan, Zoom in and out, Find on page and a virtual pointer all of which make it easy to find desired information.
The built-in GPS features A-GPS thanks to which is works quite fast. The phone has preinstalled Google Maps and a Wayfinder Navigator 7 thanks to which you can easily plan your route. You can also choose optimal route for distance, or time and get traffic information.
Menus / ease of use:
Sony Ericsson G705 has the traditional 3 x4 grid, but you can also change it and use a rotating or single icon views. Sony Ericsson G705 suports Flash Lite themes so you can easily change the wallpaper, or the color scheme. The phone has four themes pre-installed so you can adjust the phone to your needs.
The phonebook in Sony Ericsson G705 can store up to 1000 contacts with multiple fields. Of course, you can assign a ringtone and a photo to a contact, or a group of contacts. If you add a birthday date to a contact the phone will remind you about it in advance.
The call log saves your most recent calls, but if one contact called you few times only the last one will be indicated. Thanks to the Manage Messages application you can easily move your messages around, group them, or arrange according to a category. The message editor is simple to use and will tell you if you’ve written more than 160 characters and in how many messages your information will be sent. The e-mail client is easy to set-up and works really fine, although due to the lack of office document viewer you will not be also to read some attachments.
The phone also comes with a bunch of time-saving features such as file manager, calendar, tasks, notes, timer and so on and so on. The only thing it lacks, in fact, is the document viewer.
To get you entertained the Sony Ericsson G705 comes with three funny games.
All in all, the Sony Ericsson G705 is a really good phone for its price range offering a lof more features than the competition, and with good functionality too.
Selected Sony Ericsson G705 features and specifications:
Network (2G)
GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900 / GSM 850
Network (3G)
HSDPA 2100
Form factor
Slider
Antenna type
Internal
SAR Value
1.050 W/Kg
Display
Type
Graphical
Coloured
Yes, TFT, 262K colors
Size
240 x 320 pixels
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Wallpapers, screensavers
Memory
Numbers in phone
2000
Received calls
30
Outgoing calls
30
Lost calls
30
Shared memory
120 MB
- Photocall
- Memory Stick Micro (M2), 1 GB card included
Ringtones
Polyphonic ringtones, Ringtone profiles, MP3
Networking
HSDPA speed
3.6 Mbps
GPRS
Yes, Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
EDGE
Yes, Class 10, 236.8 kbps
WLAN
Yes, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, DLNA
USB
Yes, 2.0
Bluetooth
Yes, 2.0 with A2DP
WAP
Yes
Browser
Yes, WAP 2.0/HTML, Web shortcut keys, RSS
Email client
Yes
- Push Email
- Instant Messaging
- Built-in GPS receiver
- A-GPS function
Features
Vibration
SMS
Send / Receive
MMS
Send / Receive
Camera
Builtin, 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, video, flash; secondary videocall camera
Java
Yes, MIDP 2.0
Games, Clock, Alarm, Calculator, Calendar, To-do list, Voice memo, T9, Handsfree, Headset jack, FM Radio
- Camera images geo-tagging
- MP3/AAC/MPEG4 player
- TrackID music recognition
- Picture editor/blogging
- Organiser
Standard Battery
Type
Li-Po
Standby time
GSM: 400h
Talk time
GSM: 10h
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Samsung M8800 Pixon, Samsung M3200 Beat s, Samsung B2700, Samsung i900 Omnia, Samsung U800, Samsung G400 Soul.