Nokia 7705 Twist [Twisty Design, Full QWERTY Keypad, 2.4-inch, 262K TFT QVGA Screen, 3.0MP Camera, Web Browsing, V CAST Music with Rhapsody]

As we brought to you last month, Verizon has been working feverishly behind the scenes to bring its uses even more options when it comes to QWERTY cell phones. Along with their newly-released HTC TouchPro2 Verizon has formally announced today the launch of their latest full-QWERTY keypad phone, the Nokia 7705 Twist, and it’s off-the-wall industrial design is definitely for the sick and twisted.

Before we get into all of the pretty standard (and fairly boring) features of the new Verizon Nokia Twist, we need to address the 800-lb gorilla in the room. In what amounts to the only truly unique feature of the Nokia 7705, it twists open. Yeah, it doesn’t flip and it doesn’t slide. They’ve actually designed the handset to swing open on a corner-mounted swivel hinge. Finally, something different. OK, now that we’ve covered that, we can move on.

The Nokia Twist is compatible with a host of services including VZ NavigatorSM, V CAST Music with Rhapsody,V CAST Video, Visual Voice Mail, Mobile Broadband Connect and Corporate Email. This makes it a fairly robust offering within its category and should prove a nicely apportioned addition to the Verizon QWERTY messaging phone line. Along with a 2.4-inch, 262K TFT QVGA screen, the Nokia Twist includes an integrated, fixed-focus 3MP digital camera with some pretty nifty effect functions as well as pan, zoom, and rotate functions for instant editing. You can also record video, but the release doesn’t go into detail on the quality.

For the multimedia mavens, the Nokia 7705 Twist is media-capable and comes with it’s own web browser so you can download games, ringtones, and other time wasters. It also offers a Post to Blogs feature so users can send their pics and other personal updates directly to social media sites like FaceBook and Twitter. Other features include support for mobile email, mobile web mail, chat and blogs, Bluetooth connectivity, EV-DO Rev. 0, and a 2.5-mm headphone jack. According to Nokia, you should expect about 270 minutes of talk time and just over 300 minutes of stand-by.

While I wouldn’t necessarily say that the Nokia Twist has anything on its smartphone competition, it’s clear that Verizon aren’t really looking at that market anyway. The Nokia 7705 is basically your average messaging phone with a twist. Looks like the tweens will dig it. The Nokia Twist will be available for $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate (this comes along with a new two-year customer agreement, of course). Additional information about the Nokia Twist will be available at www.verizonwireless.com/twist on Friday.