The HTC Smart is the cheapest new phone HTC’s served up in a long time, but it’s by no means the smallest: it’s almost identical in size and weight to the Android HTC Tattoo and Windows Mobile HTC Touch2. Does it improve on their plasticky feel, and does Brew OS make for better battery life than either smartphone operating system? Read on and find out in this section of our HTC Smart review.
Read the rest of our HTC Smart review
HTC Smart review
HTC Smart review: HTC Sense simplified?
HTC Smart review: Media skills
If you’ve read the HTC Sense section of our HTC Smart review, you’ll know that we’re disappointed with the lack of flexibility in Brew OS on the HTC Smart. Thankfully though, HTC’s made some serious design improvements so it doesn’t feel like a lame version of the Tattoo.
Firstly, the casing on the HTC Smart is vastly superior. At 12.8mm thick, it’s not too chubby, and it feels much sturdier than the malleable plastic of the Tattoo, while retaining its smudge resistant ability on the side and back panels. The huge and hideous select button has also been vanquished, for a more eye pleasing row of physical buttons. They don’t always make sense while navigating the menus of the HTC Smart (The back buttons’ huge and central position compared to the Menu button is puzzling) but they’re infinitely more eye pleasing.
The screen too is a step up. Although it’s the same size and 320×240 resolution as the Tattoo and Touch2 (And equally difficult to see in the sunlight), it’s much more responsive, rarely failing to register a prod or swipe. Unfortunately, HTC’s curious decision to leave autofill out of the landscape on screen QWERTY keyboard means texts and messages will be left riddled with typos unless you have truly dainty fingers: on a 2.8-inch screen, the keys are just too small. But those with slender paws will be able to fly: we genuinely thought at first that the display was capacitive like an iPhone or flagship HTC touchscreen phone like the HTC Desire.
In fact, just about everything is as sensibly placed as it could be on the HTC Smart. The 3.5mm audio port is on the top of the phone, while the microSD slot doesn’t require you to pop the battery to get to it, and there’s even a camera button on the bottom right hand side of the phone – not an innovation, no, but not something on many recent HTC phones. The only exterior disappointment is the fiddly ExtUSB slot on the bottom used to load and charge the phone: we’d prefer to be able to use an micro USB cord lying around as most phones are moving to, but that’s not possible here.
The grumbles we do have are much more to do with what’s under the bonnet of the HTC Smart – and what’s not. The battery life is agreeable: you can expect two to three days of solid use out of the HTC Smart before it needs topping up again. And we can cope without Wi-Fi: the only thing you’ll ever need the included 3G support for is downloading web pages quickly. But the combination of 256MB RAM and a 300MHz processor occasionally leaves to niggling freezes, particularly when music is playing. It’s just not fast enough.
We’re also saddened by the lack of GPS, which has started to creep into phones of the same price, such as the INQ Chat 3G and T-Mobile Pulse Mini, and the complete lack of Google Maps is just salt in the wound, especially when the weather widget is so fast at locking onto your rough location.
If you know a kid clamouring for a touchscreen phone, the HTC Smart may well satisfy them: it’s great fun to play with, will go for a good few days between charges and is a slick bit of eye candy. It’s just a shame it’s missing the brains to go with the beauty.
Read the rest of our HTC Smart review
HTC Smart review
HTC Smart review: HTC Sense simplified?
HTC Smart review: Media skills
