So does this phone live up to expectations? Almost.

You see, while someone at manufacturer ZTE has clearly made a Faustian pact with the devil in order to procure components, put them together and then sell them on at such a low price and still make a profit, the sheer size of the handset creates assumptions about what you should get from a smartphone of that size – and it doesn’t quite fulfil all of them. Let’s take a look.

Build

You are going to have to get used to the fact that the Orange Monte Carlo looks every bit as cheap as it is. What do you expect? At some point, years down the line, an executive at ZTE is going to get a tap on the shoulder to find Lucifer himself grinning down at him, knife in hand to take his pound of soul.

Anyway, from a distance the 10.4×125.9×67.8mm phone could pass for a HTC Desire HD – it shares its 4.3-inch screen size, as well as that curved top edge flush with speaker grille.

Up close though, it’s a plasticky mess. The three buttons below the screen (no search key, sadly) are physical buttons that clack down, requiring a real prod, and the back panel is a sheer fingerprint magnet blemished with an Orange logo. face down, it looks like a piece of Duplo.

But you know what? That’s OK. It has most of the ports you need – micro USB on the side, 3.5mm audio on the top, though no means of TV-out, sadly – and weighs just 120g, and feels capable of taking lots of drops, because obviously Pay As You Go owners are more clumsy.

Oh, and because it costs one hundred and fifty bleeding pounds. That’s the best deal this side of an HP Pre 3.

Display

Part of the reason the first batch of Orange San Francisco handsets were so impressive was the fact that their capacitive touch screens were AMOLED rather than boring old LCD-TFT, which is much more vivid, and the Samsung Galaxy S 2 phone’s secret sauce.

AMOLED screens are however extremely hard to come by these days – just ask HTC. Samsung basically uses every single one it makes, and it’s only really Nokia that’s still capable of getting dibs on any.

What we have here with the Orange Monte Carlo is a TFT screen that’s just as responsive, and much larger, with 800×480 pixels stuffed into a 4.3-inch display. Considering the price, it’s frankly superb – we’d take it over the bobbins display on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play anyway, and viewing angles are impressive, even if colours don’t burst.

If you’ve ever used an iPhone 4 or a smartphone with an AMOLED screen, you won’t want to downgrade, but for everyone else, it’s a fine display for watching videos on the go. Take this with you next time you’re on a long haul flight – it beats staring at those cruddy screens built into the headrests.

Software

Android 2.3 itself is excellent. We know this, hopefully you do by now as well. “Gingerbread” is powerful and feature packed, and the best thing outside of iOS, with hundreds of thousands of apps to download.

Our problem with the Orange Monte Carlo however is the network’s nasty bloatware that comes pre-installed. Its email client isn’t as good as Gmail. Its contact backup option is superfluous because ANDROID DOES THIS ANYWAY. Those games that come pre-loaded? Just downloads to trials of them.

And then there’s the nasty Orange launcher. Orange makes a big deal of this, jazzing it up with custom live wallpapers and whatnot, but bottom line is that it’s far too slow. Hit the home button and you can sometimes have a several second wait for it to appear. Don’t bother: download the free LauncherPro ASAP for a much smoother experience, as well as a new keyboard too.

In fact, we’d go so far as to say Orange has loaded the Monte Carlo with malware. It’s true that you don’t have to use any of these services if you don’t want to, but Orange is doing customers a disservice nonetheless. Not everyone will know that you can download different home screens or keyboard, or that Google Maps is vastly superior to its crummy offering with exactly the same name.

Stop it, Orange, and concentrate on selling phones at stupidly cheap prices other operators can’t match. Like you’re already doing.

Performance

It’s here where the Orange Monte Carlo loses a star. The 800MHz processor inside, paired with 512MB of RAM is fast enough for most apps, (so long as you remove Orange’s garbage). In our benchmarking, the Monte Carlo regularly clocked just shy of 800 on Quadrant Standard, putting it slightly below last year’s Samsung Galaxy S model – which is still an impressive performer. The 1400mAh battery easily cleared a day’s use with sync and all connections on too.

But don’t go in expecting Flash on this – while technically lower power ARMv6 processors like the one used here can run it, ZTE hasn’t brokered a deal with Adobe to get it here. As such, you can’t watch some online video phones such as the Desire HD or Samsung Galaxy S series models can.

That large screen will also trick you into thinking you can indulge in all the latest games. Some, but not all. While we managed to get both Pocket Legends and Dungeon Defenders up and running, other more intensive games, such as Gun Bros, crashed, while others simply aren’t available for download on the Android Market – because of its lower specifications.

The thing is, this horsepower bottleneck means there’s not a great deal more you can do with a Monte Carlo as you can with the even cheaper San Francisco. That also means it’s for more undemanding users, and as such, the smaller San Francisco is still seriously worth considering.

Camera

Nothing much to see here. The five megapixel camera on the back of the Orange Monte Carlo is the sort of five megapixel camera that will make your friends on Facebook hate you for repeatedly posting blurry pics of people with their arms round each other in nightclubs.

Want a good camera phone? Go get the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.

Verdict

Let’s be clear: the Orange Monte Carlo is an absolutely stunning deal. For £149.99 upfront on Pay As You Go, you can’t get anything as powerful, with as large a screen and as a large eco-system.

But last year’s San Francisco, running at just 200MHz slower, will still be enough for many users. And a quick search online shows it selling now for just £75. Pocket money.

Let’s hope the extremely enterprising Android hacker community can change that pronto. We can’t wait to see what undercutting insanity ZTE comes up with next.

Build

With a 3-inch screen and a 92x53x18mm profile, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro is a wee bit bigger than its predecessor, but it’s all for the better. In your hand, you don’t notice the difference, and it’s not too heavy at 13g. Everything seems reasonably placed, from the headphone jack and micro USB port on the top to the volume rocker and camera shutter button on the right hand side.

It’s not going to win any wards for design anytime soon (it still reminds us ever so slightly of a stubby toe), but we’re big fans of the fingerprint resistant rubber backing, and it’s nice to see an LED notification on the front, alongside a front facing camera for video chats.

Our one real gripe? There’s no search button below the screen, and the home button in the middle isn’t capacitive like the menu and back keys, which creates some tactile confusion. We’ll live, and we think you will too.

Keyboard

Pop that slider open though, and you’re presented with a full, four line keyboard which hasn’t changed much since the X10 Mini Pro – to be honest, it didn’t need to. While landscape keyboards are traditionally slower than portrait ones on mobile for typing with two thumbs, the Mini Pro is small enough to make this a non-issue, and the buttons are well defined, with a nice give.

It could still be better though. That dedicated language change button by the cursor keys seems like a waste of space, and would have been better put to use had it acted as a search key or shortcut button instead. Sony Ericsson’s auto-correct software isn’t quite up to scratch either: where as a BlackBerry will automatically insert apostrophes correctly for you in most words, it won’t. For grammar obsessives, it’s a minor annoyance, but HTC ChaCha aside, this is the best Android keyboard we’ve used yet regardless.

Screen

On the one hand, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro’s 320×480 resolution 3-inch capacitive touchscreen is a blessed relief. Its predecessor, the X10 Mini Pro, was largely undone by its 320×240 resolution, which many Android apps didn’t support. The HVGA resolution now means almost everything works just fine – save for high-end games, which really are hit and miss (Gun Bros for instance gets as far as the level load screen before crashing.) It’s sharp enough on 3-inch screen to make reading long web articles near enough to pleasant too.

But as with the Xperia Play, the quality of the screen really is disappointing. This is no “Reality Display”: even with brightness cranked to the max, it’s really dim, and whites are closer to beige than anything. It’s visible in daylight, just, but it leaves something to be desired compared against the best Samsung and even LG have to offer.

Android 2.3

At its core, there really aren’t too many surprises here: to all intents and purposes, Android 2.3.3 on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini offers the same feature set as it does on the Xperia Arc and Neo – the helpful Facebook photo gallery syncing, the not so helpful Timescape widget and media curation app. In other words, you’ve got countless apps to tuck into, and plenty of flexibility with Android. If iOS doesn’t float your boat, it is the best thing out there today, period.

Instead, we’re focusing here on the changes to Android required by the small screen and lower resolution.

By default, the Xperia Mini Pro’s home screen is a bit unusual: you get a 9×9 grid for shortcuts and widgets, with four persistent corner pockets that can hold up to four icons in a tray. This is rather convenient, but the trade off is that tiny grid only really allows for one widget per home screen, in practice.

When the keyboard is shut meanwhile, the on-screen QWERTY that pops up is a slightly frustrating 0-9 predictive numberpad, as Sony Ericsson thinks this screen size is too small for a full QWERTY. Having tried out a few, we disagree.

The good news is that you can get rid of almost all of this if you don’t like it though: installing LauncherPro gives you back a normal 4×4 grid homescreen, and you can pick and choose virtual keyboards from the Android Market. The only real issue we suffered with Android on a small screen is that Gmail really isn’t optimised for it: you can’t see much of a message at one time, which may lead you to try out the other Email client that comes preloaded instead.

That aside, we have no real gripes with the software on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro: for once this is a tiny Android phone with few compromises.

Camera

Ho hum five megapixel shots – if a decent mobile snapper is what you’re after, you’d be better off with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc instead. More surprising is the pleasant 720p HD video it grabs – we’re pretty sure this makes it the world’s smallest HD phone, until the Xperia Mini comes along in a few weeks anyway.

Speed and peformance

1300 score in Quadrant? Smooth Flash video performance? Damn. The Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro truly is first in class for a phone of its size. The 1GHz processor paired with Adreno graphics might not be cutting edge on a phone the size of the Xperia Play, but powering a small 480×360 screen, it’s more than enough. Every console emulator we’ve managed to get up and running on a powerful Google Nexus S works almost as well here, including *gasp* PlayStation emulators. If you know where to look, it’s a proper little retro games machine, only really inhibited by high-end Android games’ lack of support for the HVGA resolution, rather than anything else.

Call quality was reasonable, but battery life naturally wasn’t quite as impressive as that of some Android rivals running Qualcomm’s 7227 600MHz processor, such as the INQ Cloud Touch. It will still get you through a day of use with syncing on, however, and for most, that should be just fine.

Verdict

In the absence of a new iPhone so far in 2011, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro is quite possibly our second favourite smartphone of the year so far (after the Samsung Galaxy S 2). This is a corking little messaging phone, with powerful innards that put most other mid-range Android phones to shame. If you’re not fussed about playing the latest HD Gameloft titles, snap this up pronto.

Build

The HTC Evo 3D falls into that unusual category of “the occasional HTC phone which doesn’t look like a bloody HD2″, along with the excellent HTC Incredible S.

Like that strange eco-skeleton smartphone, this goes for a curious plastic back cover, which will definitely prove divisive: we like its ridged diagonal lines and smudge resistance, and while the twin sensors of the 3D camera bulge out, they’re placed right in the middle so the phone doesn’t rock when placed down on a flat surface. The circular capacitive buttons on the front of the phone are subjective too: they work, but they look, well, different.

We’re definitely not however, fans of the fingernail thin lock/power button on the top of the phone, or the massive camera button on the side of the HTC Evo 3D, complete with 2D/3D toggle which requires a serious shove. It’s a bit superfluous, since you can toggle this on the screen whenever you launch the camera app.

As for the build and weight – it’s tough, and its 170g weight and 11.3mm depth won’t be for everyone, but those with larger hands will appreciate it still.

Display

In 2D terms, the 4.3-inch display on the HTC Evo 3D is identical to that of the mighty HTC Sensation. It’s an LCD, pixel-packed 960×540 capacitive number, that’s crisp, and stuffs tons on screen at once. It’s a joy to be able to see more emails in your Gmail at one time (Yes, we’re geeks, we know).

Most people will be satisfied with this crispness and colour quality, but once it’s again, for purists, it’s still not on the same level as Samsung’s insane Super AMOLED Plus screen on the Galaxy S 2. Purple, bright blacks are still its undoing, and visibility outdoors in sunlight is pretty poor still. But it’s still a top screen, and video viewers will enjoy the 16:9 aspect ratio.

3D or not 3D

Of course, the twist with the HTC Evo 3D is that it is, you know 3D. Sensibly, HTC hasn’t made the home screen interface 3D just for the sake of it – you’ll only see the parallax barrier kick in when you fire up the camera or 3D video and images in the gallery.

There’s still that unfortunate graininess in 3D mode, an inevitable side effect of current auto-stereoscopic technology, but the picture quality is slightly better than that of the LG Optimus 3D, the handset’s main rival. There’s a crisp edge to objects in 3D, giving you a slightly greater sense of depth – if you’ve got a 3D screen to hand, you can see for yourself in the clips below.

HTC Evo 3D video

LG Optimus 3D video

So far, so reasonable, but there are a few major problems. While you can adjust the alignment of left and right images after taking a still 3D photo, you can’t change the resolution of 3D videos at all. Which is odd.

Worse, you can only take 3D images in landscape (the sensors actually stop the shutter from working if held vertically), which wouldn’t be so bad, were it not for the fact that the 3D images are then only displayed in portrait mode, resulting in massive black bars across the screen. Zoom in, and the 3D effect is lost. Thus, unless you’re looking at 3D pictures on another display, taking them with the HTC Evo 3D is next to pointless.

Videos looks rather good, but essentially, you’re left with the ones you film as the only means of 3D entertainment. HTC Watch does not appear to have any 3D films yet (though HTC says these are coming), and there are no pre-loaded games, as the LG Optimus 3D offers.

If 3D really is a selling point for you (and we don’t think it should be – it’s still a gimmick lacking content, if a cute one), we’d still plump for LG’s effort, despite its out of date OS.

Android Gingerbread

As we were the first to report earlier this year, the British version of the HTC Evo 3D actually comes with a slightly newer software build – Android 2.3.4, which allows for video chat via the Google Talk app. Otherwise, the smartphone experience is almost identical to the HTC Sensation – you’ve got the same whizzy effects when you flick between home screens, and the same bespoke HTC apps.

As ever, these are hit and miss. We just don’t understand the appeal of Stocks, but we love the lock screen, which you can auto-launch various apps from, the Facebook/Twitter contact connecting and HTC Locations will get you out of a GPS jam when you’re outside of a 3G connection and Google Maps has failed you. HTC Watch, too, is a great option to have, though we’re a few months in now, and we’d hoped to see more TV series available (only 10 shows, at the time of writing, and some are a few seasons behind).

Our other usual reservations apply: the HTC keyboard isn’t very intelligent or responsive (download another here) and HTC’s DLNA media streaming app, Connected media, isn’t very intuitive. We still struggle to connect it to our PS3, where Samsung and Sony Ericsson Android phones have no problems.

Android itself isn’t in question at this point however. It’s firmly established itself as one of, if not the defacto best smartphone operating systems, with countless apps and games to prove that claim. If you wanted to know more about the intricacies of Android 2.3 itself, check out our Google Nexus S review here. In short though, you’re in for a treat, so long as you aren’t tired of HTC’s Sense interface already.

Speed and performance

So here’s a puzzler. The HTC Evo 3D uses the same dual-core 1.2GHz processor as the HTC Sensation, and packs in more memory (1GB of RAM as opposed to 768MB). Yet it consistently turns in lower scores on Quadrant Standard than the Sensation – around 1,600, rather than 2,000. Technically, it’s slower.

Truth be told though, you’re not going to notice the difference – it’s still bloody fast, and will run any power-hungry game you care to throw at it. It’ll easily last a day of heavy use too, thanks to a capacious 1730mAh battery (HTC, could you use these more often please?). We had no problems with call quality, and speakerphone quality proved to be of a more reasonable standard than the disappointing HTC 7 Pro.

Camera

Just the five megapixel camera here, not the 8MP sensor on the HTC Sensation. As usual with HTC, it’s not very interesting. Mediocre shots ensue in 2D, with mottling and a distinct lack of clarity. The front camera is actually sharper than the Sensation’s, at 1.3MP, but really, that’s still not enough for anything other than blurry peep shows with your other half.

HD video isn’t the full 1080p of the Sensation, but 720p – though that’s not a bad thing by any means, and it looks just grand.

Verdict

There’s certainly something to be said for picking up a HTC Evo 3D as a slightly more rugged Sensation. But as a 3D phone? It’s not as compelling a proposition as the LG Optimus 3D, and even then that’s relative: the Optimus isn’t compelling either.

Can Symbian’s touted Anna update and a sharper screen help it stand out for the crowd in 2011? We take a look in our Nokia E6 review.

Build

We’re not going to lie. Nokia’s phoned this one in: you’re looking at an almost identical model to the Nokia E72, bar a few superficial tweaks, right down to the VGA front camera on the front. A few keys have been moved about, and the home, calendar, messages and contacts buttons have been pushed inside the call and reject buttons (but are still easy to trigger). It’s reasonably thin at 10.6mm deep, but doesn’t feel remotely brittle thanks to a solid metal backplate.

On the plus side, the screen has been given a much needed refresh, and we have no complains here. The 2.46-inch display is super sharp at 640×480 resolution – to put it in persepctive, that’s almost twice as many dots as RIM has squeezed inside the much bigger BlackBerry Torch. It’s also bright and visible in daylight, and the Gorilla Glass overlay will shrug off scratches.

Did we mention it’s touchscreen too? Hello smooth pinch to zoom web browsing. Make no mistake, this is a class-leading display. The upcoming BlackBerry Bold 9900 might be able to match it, but otherwise there’s no other portrait QWERTY phone that can touch it.

‘Board

The keyboard layout is a standard Nokia has used for some time now, with the same rows of buttons and individual key shapes as the QWERTY pads found on the cut-price Nokia C3 dumbphone. That in itself is no bad thing: we’re quite happy that most punctuation marks have their own dedicated button, and the space bar has been “embiggened” from the tiny key on the E72.

Unfortunately, Nokia’s usual robust quality control has slipped here: this keyboard is inferior to ones we’ve previously used from Nokia. While the keys are all neatly outlined and defined, the material and support underneath have a nasty habit of dumping your thumbs onto adjacent keys unless you hit them in the exact centre – a particular problem with the large space bar.

Don’t get us wrong: you can still hit a typing speed unachievable on any touchscreen-only phone (especially Symbian ones). But when a QWERTY keyboard is a phone’s USP, then there’s a problem. If you need to send properly formatted emails at speed, and it’s this or a BlackBerry, we choose RIM.

Symbian

It’s the mediocre keyboard combined with the software that lops two whole stars off the Nokia E6′s review score. Symbian Anna is a reasonable improvement on the original Symbian (Formerly Symbian 3) software on other recent Nokia phones, such as the Nokia N8 and E7 (And indeed, we look forward to the update arriving on these handsets in the UK).

But that’s working from a bad starting point. Symbian is a mess, with a baffling user interface that still feels 2007-clunky. Could we stop calling Wi-Fi WLAN guys so that regular joes know what the hell you’re talking about? Could we make it more obvious to turn it on? Could we make the Ovi Store less awful?

The answer, of course, is no. Nokia’s washing its hands of Symbian updates pronto, so you’ll have to make do with what you have here.

That’s hardly all bad news of course. Holding down the home button allows you to easily multitask, while Nokia’s phonebook does a good job of joining up usernames on social networks with your contacts. Nokia Maps keeps it classy as ever (free satnav, hello), while the pre-loaded JoikuSpot lets you turn your phone into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot for nada.

And the good news is that beyond the pretty icons, Symbian Anna does add one really useful feature: an overhauled browser. This is a massive improvement on the browser on the Nokia E71/E72, lightning fast and responsive to pinch-to-zoom gestures.

But looking further afield than rival business phones, when there are Android phones around the corner with QWERTY keyboards, 1GHz processors, similar sized screens and even Flash support (Hello Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro), there’s a problem. Nokia still lags far behind the front runners when it comes to smooth, sensible and savvy smartphone software. The trouble is of course, its main competitor in this area, RIM, does too.

There’s not much of an incentive to pull your finger out if nobody is trying, so it’s perhaps not a surprise. We do wonder though just what Nokia could do with this if Microsoft ever allowed a Windows Phone 7 chassis of this design. Use your “special relationship”, guys, and make it happen.

Camera skills

Nokia’s always come through with solid cameras, and the Nokia E6′s eight megapixel on the back doesn’t disappoint. In fact, compared to the shooters on rival BlackBerry models, it’s in another league, grabbing sharp, detail packed stills. The only issue is the fixed focus – as with the Nokia C7 (It’s possible it is in fact the exact same sensor), get too close and things goes awry. Macro is a no go. On the plus side, there are plenty of editing options for you to fiddle with in ‘post.

HD video meanwhile is a delight: 720p video is just not something we’re used to on a phone of this size. Sadly the effect of this is largely lost unless you dump it on a computer: there’s no HDMI connection, only TV-out by Nokia’s old-school AV connector.

Battery life and call quality

Nokia’s always been proud to make phones that, you know, let you talk to other people. With that in mind, the Nokia E6 runs like the clappers. You can easily get three days use out of the phone with brightness cranked up to max and all systems go. Call quality too is impeccable – a little raspy on speakerphone calls perhaps, but we’d expect that from a tinny little contraption like this.

Verdict

The Nokia E6 might be a great phone when judged by the criteria of talking to people through the medium of sound, but it’s hard to consider it when business folk are as much in need of a portable computer in their pocket as a telephone – especially when there are just so many stunning phones on sale these days. If you’re an avid emailer you’d be far better off with a BlackBerry or a HTC 7 Pro, and even if you must have a Nokia E7, it should be the E7. This phone should have happened a year ago, not now.

The Nokia Oro is subtle in the same way that Lady Gaga is understated. The box it ships in kind of reminds us of that giant egg Gaga presented herself in a short while back, it that it’s all theatre, all about making an entrance. Okay, so the box isn’t egg-shaped but the gold and black design and attention to detail makes the same impact, peel back the layers and you’re presented with a glorified Nokia C7 and a matching white and gold-plated Bluetooth headset.

There are two versions of the Nokia Oro available, Dark and Light Editions, of which we were sent the latter to check out. Nokia has taken the basic mid-level Nokia C7 and instead of upping the tech-spec, it’s decided that a makeover is in order. So we get 18-carat gold plating on the bezel, camera housing and function buttons, with a sapphire on the Menu button and the leather from some exclusive Scottish cow on the back plate. Lil Jon would be all over this.

All about body image

All this extra trim makes it slightly fatter than the original version (132g compared to 130g) but the Nokia Oro is still nice and slim and feels pretty good in the hand. The leather back cover we may not visually like but it but does mean the Oro doesn’t slip in your hands, a failing the Nokia N8 and Nokia E7 have both suffered from of late.

The 3.5-inch AMOLED screen has the standard 360 x 640-pixel resolution and images look bright and clear. There is a screenlock on the side, gold-plated of course, or you can simply press the Sapphire pimped Menu button and then press the onscreen Unlock icon.

To remind you you’re using an exclusive phone, there is a special Light Gold theme pack installed that changes the icons to a uniform gold colour, which we like. Such a pity then that any apps you install are still in colour, which spoils the effect Nokia is clearly trying to get over.

Symbian Anna

Nokia has been slow to get with smartphone program and while Windows Phone is coming down the line later this year, for now we have to contend with the same old Symbian platform. Things are slightly better, as the latest Symbian Anna update comes preloaded on the Nokia Oro.

The phone feels faster and slicker than the original Nokia C7, for example, but it’s still nowhere near matching the latest Android phones, or iOS. While the UI feels more stable and obvious than before (though the baffling array of settings for Wi-Fi, rather than On/Off, will leave most of the Russian popstars likely to buy this phone scratching their heads), we’re still left with the same under-pinning OS, which is clunky and out-dated and clearly seems to be on its last legs.

Of the new features, the web browser is the most impressive, as it actually means you can search and surf without throwing the phone away in frustration and blemishing that “veautiful” finish. Then there’s the Pportrait QWERTY onscreen keyboard, which works well enough, but reminds you that it should have been there from the start!

Feature set

When it comes to features, you’ll find Nokia plays for the mainstream market. The 8-megapixel camera is fairly standard these days and being EDoF based delivers decent snaps, once you get used to the rather awkward fixed lens nature of it all, and the inability to nab decent macro shots.

Multimedia aspects of the Nokia Oro seem to be pretty much what you’d expect: they work well once you’ve got them loaded but with too many taps needed to pull up your music or videos in the first place, if feels like a chore.

Like the Nokia C7, you’ll also find NFC built-in, which hasn’t really gone mainstream enough for people owning the Oro to consider using. Plus if you can afford this phone, you can probably have asssistans buy stuff for you anyway. On top of this you have WiFi, HSDPA and Bluetooth, so connectivity and staying in touch is well catered for.

Verdict

If you’re looking for something technologically advanced you can buy two Nokia N8s for the price of the Nokia Oro but that’s not what this smartphone is about. It’s aimed at people who don’t see the price tag, just the lifestyle and while taste is a fickle beast it may sell well on looks alone.

Word on the street is the Sony Ericsson Xperia Duo is viscous. According to pocketnow.com, the Xperia Duo touts a dual-core Cortex A9 processor “aided by the Mali-400 GPU, under the name of NovaThor A9500 chipset.” Now for the drumroll. The clock speed of this dual-core chip will be 1.4 GHz, leaving the upgraded Galaxy S II in its wake.

Keeping in mind these specs are still rumors, a second source has hinted the Xperia Duo will instead use the Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon chipset similar to the HTC Sensation. Whether Sony Ericsson decides to play ball with ARM or Qualcomm is anyone’s guess, but the chip will certainly be dual-core and ship with a blistering-fast clock speed.

Outside of the processing power, the second most captivating feature of Xperia Duo is the display. Measuring 4.5-inches diagonally, this qHD display comes equipped with Sony Ericsson’s own Mobile Bravia engine. On the rear is a 12-megapixel camera with Exmor R backlit sensor and providing the juice to deliver the goods is a massive 2500 mAh battery. How a battery of such enormous capacity is able to fit inside a thin form factor remains to be seen.

The combination of cutting-edge processing power, a beautiful high-resolution display, top of the line optics and the largest standard battery we’ve seen on a smartphone make the Sony Ericsson Xperia Duo the Android flagship to beat. Whether or not the device succeeds or fails will depend on several key factors: price, release date and availability of Android updates. The latter of these three factors may be addressed by an unlocked bootloader, but shipping with the latest build of Android will still be essential.

We did not have high hopes for the LG Optimus 3D, or the LG Optimus 3D P920, to give it its full name. Back at Mobile World Congress in February, the twin cameras and parallax barrier covered display seemed like features for the sake of feature, especially since nobody wants to play Asphalt Bloody 6 any more, in 3D or not. But you know what? There’s something to be said for a big beefcake phone like this. Let’s take a look.

See the best LG Optimus 3D deals now

Big, fat and fully functional

If the Samsung Galaxy S 2 were a Milky Bar, the LG Optimus 3D would be a Kit Kat Chunky. At 11.9mm deep, it isn’t that thick, but it feels massive. The screen width is actually the same size as the HTC Sensation (4.3-inches), but the whole phone feels much bigger, largely due to the less slender screen aspect ratio, and there’s something very Motorola Droid X about it, another muscle mobile with a big lip at the back caused by the camera module’s girth.

Best Android apps of all time: Top 100

And yet, we rather like it. Granted, we have the largest handspan of anyone we’ve met, but the LG Optimus 3D feels functional, easy to use, and very much present. It’s not going to snap in half like a Jacob’s Cream Cracker as you might think the Galaxy S 2 could, and it feels like it could take a big old tumble down concrete stairs, and the smooth rubber back and metal strip holding the camera sensors feel premium.

All the prerequisite ports are on hand too. There’s a 3.5mm audio port and a power/lock button on the top, while the left side houses micro USB and HDMI sockets behind closed plastic doors, and the right stores the volume rocker and a dedicated 3D button. But more on that in a second.

The screen sans stereoscopy

We tackle 3D performance in another section, and you’ll be using the phone in 2D for the most part, unless there’s something deeply wrong with your priorities in life, so we’re looking at that first, if you don’t mind.

The IPS display on the LG Optimus 3D is first class. Blacks are only bettered by AMOLED-screen smartphones (simply because they can actually turn off individual pixels), and colours are vivid, with broad viewing angles and decent visibility in direct sunlight.

It’s true that its 800×480 resolution isn’t the sharpest, but you’d be pretty hard pressed to spot the pixels so we wouldn’t let this bother you. More troublesome is that LG hasn’t fixed one of our big gripes with its Optimus 2X jumbo phone: the capacitive buttons below the screen (menu, home, back and search) don’t remain lit up when the screen is active. In fact, it seems quite arbitrary as to when they elect to kick into go, which can be annoying if you’re using your phone at night or in a dark environment.

Android 2.2 for far too long

LG has been absurdly slow to adopt new builds of Android, so it’s no surprise to find the LG Optimus 3D shipping with Android 2.2, a version of the smartphone operating system released more than a year ago.

Now, there aren’t that many new user features in Android 2.3 “Gingerbread”, but there’s more at stake here than a touchscreen keyboard that phone manufacturers strip out anyway. Eventually, you’ll see apps that only support Gingerbread and up and where does that leave the LG Optimus 3D? A company spokesperson told us that a 2.3 update is due later in the Summer, but considering we’ve never seen LG roll out an Android update in the UK before, we wouldn’t hold our breath. As we’ve said before, never buy a smartphone for what it’ll do in the future, rather than what it can do now.

That said, Android 2.2 is still a superb operating system, with all sorts of tricks up its sleeves, from Flash support to the ability to turn into a Wi-Fi hotspot for free. And many, many apps, including a couple of exclusive ones, such as LG’s easy to use DLNA streaming app, SmartShare.

LG’s interpretation of 2.2 “Froyo” is a little odd however. Its keyboard, stretched across such a large display is perfectly usable, but the South Korean company has done some funny things with the menu showing all your installed apps.

Open your menu, and instead of a list of apps in alphabetical order, you get these separated by folders. 3D apps come first, then LG’s pre-installed apps come second (confusingly just labelled “applications”), and only then do the ones you’ve downloaded appear. You can move these categories around and add your own, but you can’t delete them and just have one long list – and regardless, many customers won’t realise how to do this.

South Korean (and Japanese) mobile manufacturers have a notorious reputation for impenetrable user interface software, and while Samsung seems to have upped its game lately, it’s touches like this that suggest LG isn’t thinking as globally as it ought to. This is a world in which video editing is not only possible on phones, but simple. If you own an iPhone anyway.

On the plus side, LG has relegated its absurd custom Facebook and Twitter “for LG” apps to a mere widget on your homescreen showing your friends’ updates, so it’s a lot less confusing than on the Optimus 2X and Optimus Black. Baby steps, but LG needs to figure this UI thing out pronto since everyone else got the memo ages ago.

Also, LG, get rid of the LG World app. If you want to have people like your exclusive content, find some that matters – HTC’s Watch movie streaming service is a good start. Hell on the HTC Evo 3D, you can even rent 3D movies. Speaking of which.

3D – the main event?

After handling a HTC Evo 3D prototype last week, we did not have high hopes for the LG Optimus 3D’s glassed-free 3D abilities. But LG has actually done a better job as far as we can tell, with much less crosstalk and ghosting evident – so long as you look at it in just the righty way.

You see, in order to display different images to your left and right eyes simultaneously, there’s only a small viewing range in which the effect can work. Otherwise you’d need more even more images for all the angles. The sweetspot on the LG Optimus 3D is very small (Horizontally, anyway), but so long as you’re not on a bumpy train journey, you won’t break from it.

3D kicks into action with a press of the button on the side, or the app’s shortcut icon. Pop either, and you’ll fire up the 3D launcher with access to 3D content (press it in the camera app in 2D mode and you’ll switch to 3D shooting).

The effect is very similar to that on the Nintendo 3DS (Though we would say that the vertical striping appears more obvious: you can see the texture of the barrier when 3D is on): games and movies look like little puppet shows. Sometimes, it’s quite nifty, especially in games, but other times it just feels pointless. We’re not convinced that 3D movies are better than 2D ones on the silver screen, never mind screens that can be measured in centimetres.

LG has provided some other content though. There’s a shortcut to the 3D YouTube channel, which works splendidly in landscape mode, but of more interest are the preloaded games. They’re all from Gameloft, and some, particularly NOVA 3D and Let’s Golf 2, look ace. If you want to buy more, the’s a homescreen shortcut to Gameloft’s web portal – they’re going for 99p at the moment, which seems like a bargain.

It’s a fun experience (for a burst of a few minutes at a time anyway), akin to a 21st century version of those reflective rulers with holograms in that you used to have at school. It’s one you can even have on the big screen. The LG Optimus 3D can output 3D imagery to a TV through HDMI, but it needs to be a 3D TV, naturally: try it on an ordinary telly and you just get squished, side by side images like so:

Having slagged off 3D movies, we still feel LG needs to provide some as HTC plans to. And not just trailers. The company tells us it’s in talks, but well, HTC’s executed already. LG should take a leaf out of their book and just buy a movie streaming start up.

Killer cameras

We have to admit, the LG Optimus 3D has one of the best five megapixel cameras we’ve tested in a good long while. Stills are really crisp and detailed, and macro performance was top notch, though we’d say colour accuracy is a bit off, and unusually for a smarpthone under-saturated, rather than over-saturated. See for yourself in the shots below (click to enlarge), taken on a bright Summer day in South-East London.

Sterling stuff though, and the 1080p 2D video looks just as good:

Of course, it actually has two cameras.

3D images depict a vivid sense of depth, though naturally quite a dim one (since you only get half the light you normally would, split between the two images for each eye) and while most people will probably only be able to view these on the handset themselves, you can take the .jps files and do as you will with them.

Naturally, they’re a lot better than the low resolution stills a Nintendo 3Ds can grab, but there’s honestly not much use for them. One thing we noticed the LG Optimus 3D doesn’t offer is the ability to adjust 3D images after the fact, as the HTC Evo 3D does. But since it’s better at minimising ghosting anyway, it’s not such a big deal.

3D video meanwhile is nabbed at a maximum 720p resolution, and it looks swell. You can upload it on YouTube, as we have below, but be warned that there doesn’t seem to be any obvious way to do this directly from the phone.

(You may have to click through to YouTube to view in 3D)

Performance, battery and call quality

The LG Optimus 3D is a monster of a performer, and in practice, we found its dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4 processor proved much swifter than the LG Optimus 2X’s Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset. Add to that the dual-channel 512MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage (Faster than a microSD card, though you can insert one of these as well), and you have a stellar smartphone for speed, only bested by the Samsung Galaxy S 2.

We regularly topped 2,600 on the Quadrant Standard benchmark, where the Optimus 2X barely scraped 2,000. Replace the Optimus 3D’s launcher with the free LauncherPro app, and things get even faster.

This does come at the cost of battery life alas: in practice, we found the LG Optimus 3D didn’t quite scrape through a day of use with all connections on and brightness cranked to the max. The 1500mAh cell still makes it better at lasting away from the mains than an HTC Desire HD, but then that’s true of every phone ever made (and plenty of laptops as well).

We had no trouble making calls meanwhile, though we wouldn’t say that audio quality was outstanding – the same is true of the slightly fuzzy loudspeaker.

Verdict

If you’ve ever picked up a smartphone, even an oversized one like the HTC Incredible S, and thought, “You know what? This is still too small”, the LG Optimus 3D might just be for you. Sure it’s bloated, but it’s also bloody fast, and it’s one meaty mobile. You can’t really go wrong with Android these days (Unless you’re Acer, in which case God help you) and a decent camera thrown in the mix is something few would balk at.

However, while it doesn’t exactly fail at 3D, the LG Optimus 3D doesn’t convince us that it’s a necessity. We’re glad LG is pushing to get 3D games rolling out on Android (HTC’s Evo 3D won’t ship with any, we’ve confirmed) and we’re intrigued to see where it goes, but right now, we’re simply not seized by the urge to watch a 3D YouTube clip rather than peruse Facebook in an idle moment.

What could change that? Games of Nintendo calibre perhaps, but even then, it’s a big ask.

Thanks to Carphone Warehouse for providing the LG Optimus 3D review unit.

Honestly? We’re still not sure. Let’s take a look, in our full Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo review.

Dull design

Sony Ericsson has never turned heads with its smartphone aesthetics. Smudgy black plastic does not an attractive mobile make, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc’s only saving grace was its intervention-skinny profile. The Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo, while sporting a smaller screen, is not any less cumbersome. In fact, at 116x57x13mm and 126g, it’s actually substantially thicker and heavier than the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.

Still, other than its rather fat profile, there’s nothing especially wrong with it. There’s a front facing camera, a dedicated camera shutter button on the right, and on the top, micro USB and HDMI ports hidden behind closed doors, with a centrally and sensibly placed 3.5mm audio port sitting in between them.

See the best Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo deals now

The only real problem is the lack of a physical search button to go with the clicky back, home and menu keys below the screen. That, and it doesn’t sit flush when placed on a tablet due to its sloping back, a bit like the Sony Ericsson Vivaz. No biggies. But compared to other mid-range smartphones such as the HTC Salsa, this is not a looker.

Reality Display, really?

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo’s 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen is exceedingly sharp, at 854×480. In fact, when it comes to pixel density, this is just about as crisp as Android phones get. Web pages, emails and text look sharp. Sony’s Mobile Bravia engine kicks in on videos, and we must admit, they look damn fine.

Check out our best Android phone Top 5 right here

Whether this LCD screen really deserves the title of “Reality Display”, as Sony Ericsson claims, is another matter entirely. It’s bright (Unlike the Xperia Play‘s panel), but the colours aren’t quite up to the vibrancy of Samsung’s smartphones with AMOLED screens, and viewing angles are surprisingly shallow. Still, it’s better than most of the competition.

Facebook and Android fused

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo, as you’d expect at this point, runs the latest version of Android for mobiles, 2.3 “Gingerbread”. We’ll skirt over the basics of this: fast performance, Flash support, mobile Wi-Fi hotspot skills. All awesome, but all available in many other phones.

Instead, we’ll look at how Sony Ericsson has modified Android. Our boxed, final retail unit was running Android 2.3.3, a version that just rolled out on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, and brings with it the same Facebook Inside Xperia integration.

Longtime readers will know that we’re rarely a fan of manufacturers trying to add their own Facebook contact syncing and integration to Android phones. LG and Motorola particularly try to emulate what the Android Facebook app already does, to no real purpose.

The best Android apps of all time: Top 100

Sony Ericsson however, is being a bit more sensible about things, only trying to fill the (plenty of) feature gaps which Facebook itself has yet to fill. Some of these, such as the ability to share download links of tracks your listening to with your friends, are rather pointless. Sharing “Buy It” links with your friends is called spamming. Sony Ericsson’s Media Discovery app too hasn’t been entirely thought through: it will pick out friends’ Facebook updates where they link to videos that won’t load in the YouTube app (as they haven’t been optimised for mobile).

On the other hand, the ability to automatically cache your Facebook photos in the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo’s gallery is awesome, letting you see these at any time, even without a signal. You can also swipe through to friends’ interests and photos from your phonebook contact cards, similar to the way you can on HTC Sense Android phones.

You also get a few custom Sony Ericsson apps, including a DLNA Media server app that works pretty flawlessly, and TrackID for tune recognition, Shazam style. Our favourite flourish however is Sony Ericsson’s homescreen dock, which lets you place four different shortcuts or even folders into it – these remain persistent on every homescreen.

Of course, there’s no getting around the fact that these things are all good because it’s a similar experience to the Xperia Arc. In fact, it’s identical, leaving us wondering what the point of a slightly smaller Xperia Arc really is. It’s just as powerful under the hood, but more frustrating: Sony Ericsson’s custom touchscreen keyboard doesn’t work particularly well on a smaller 3.7-inch display.

Best Android keyboard apps: every QWERTY tested!

Camera and HDMI

The Exmor R mobile sensor helped make the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc the best Android camera phone yet, and second only to the Nokia N8 when it comes to lowlight performance. That 8.1 megapixel shooter is no less impressive here, grabbing smooth stills with lots of detail, and a welcome lack of noise. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a physical camera button either.

As for video: it’s pretty smooth 720p footage, although this isn’t quite as impressive any more, with 1080p shooting dual-core phones on the block that can even edit video, such as the HTC Sensation. You can see some footage we grabbed in the clip below:

A quick note about the HDMI connection: it’s great for playing games like Angry Birds on the big screen, and even streaming video from the internet. You get the cable in the box, we’ve confirmed, so don’t have to buy it separately, but we had problems with the supposed HDMI-CEC support. It’s supposed to allow you to use your remote control to navigate the phone, but it just didn’t work (odd, since we have no problems using our TV’s remote to control a PS3).

Performance and call quality

For a phone of this size, the 1GHz Qualcomm processor humming away inside is zippy indeed, delivering watchable Flash video and 3D games. If this was a larger phone, we’d have reservations about how future proofed it was (As we do with the Xperia Play), but it’s not such an issue here – this will keep you in apps for a long time to come. We don’t have any real issues with the battery either, which delivered around a day’s heavy use, as on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc.

To our surprise though, sound quality through the speaker was rather poor. You don’t notice it on regular phone calls, but on speakerphone chats and playing music without headphones, you notice how raspy it gets, very quickly indeed.

Verdict

A few months ago, we reviewed the HTC Desire S, a 3.7-inch phone with the innards of the larger HTC Desire HD and Incredible S. As we concluded then, we weren’t sure who it was for:

“Original HTC Desire owners will prefer the raw power, potential and screen size of HTC’s larger phones, while the HTC Wildfire S handles things on the affordable end.”

We have to draw a similar conclusion with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo, except that this critter doesn’t have a beautiful aluminium chassis going for it either. We’re just not sure what the point of a smaller, fatter Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc is.

If you’re after a mid-range smartphone, check out the HTC Salsa: otherwise, you’d be better off paying not-alot-more for the same experience on a larger screen.

UPDATE: Electricpig editor Tom Bailey has reviewed the HTC ChaCha on the Three blog – see what he had to say!

We’ve been calling for more Android phones with portrait QWERTY keyboards for years, and the HTC ChaCha is certainly the finest of this rare breed so far. But if it’s this or a BlackBerry, you’ve got some tough choices to make still. Let’s take a look.

Dig the design?

From the back, you could mistake the HTC ChaCha for any recent touchscreen handset from the Taiwanese phone peddler. From smudge free white to the engraved metal band, it’s packing all the traits of a modern HTC phone, including the slight “lip”. Like the Salsa, it’s not quite unibody, but the flush edges might fool you into thinking it is, and we still love the imposing speaker grille on the front.

HTC’s positioned all the ports in sensible places here, with a wide power/lock button sitting on the top along with a 3.5mm audio jack, and micro USB slot and volume rocker on the left hand side.

See the best HTC ChaCha deals now

All in all, we’ve got not complaints. While previous BlackBerry-like Android phones from Samsung and Acer felt cheap and tacky, the HTC ChaCha gives off a premium vibe.

Killer keyboard

A QWERTY keyboard really has to earn its keep if it’s going to hog so much space on a smartphone, and luckily the HTC ChaCha’s delivers.

“Each key is large and symmetrically spaced and arranged, like individual Rice Krispies lined up for execution by your thumbs.”

Each key is large and symmetrically spaced and arranged, like individual Rice Krispies lined up for execution by your thumbs. It’s nice to see the period mark, question mark and comma all have their own keys, and even more of a delight to see HTC’s squeezed in four cursor keys for easy text editing. Make no mistake, you can pick up a tremendously fast pace typing on the HTC ChaCha: in fact, the experience is only bettered by the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and 9780.

See our best Android phone Top 5 here

We’re also please to report that typing while on the homescreen automatically triggers shortcuts of names, so instead of labouring through People, you can just type your friend’s alias – something severely lacking on the Samsung Galaxy Pro. On the homescreen, the full stop key also acts as a camera shortcut with a long press, though curiously, the space bar shortcut to Settings never worked for us.

There are no real surprises with the Facebook button. It’s identical to the one on the HTC Salsa, which is welcome, since that also means it’s not remotely obtrusive. Letting the side down however are the call and hang up buttons, needlessly thin keys wasting the space around them – it would be easier to deal with calls on screen.

The best Android keyboard apps: Every QWERTY tested!

Sizzling screen?

The 480×320 resolution gives the HTC ChaCha display almost unparalleled crispness. That’s as far as the compliments go however: it’s only so sharp because it’s so damn small.

Best Android apps of all time: Top 100

While you don’t have to type on the screen, thanks to that rather obvious keyboard, it’s small enough to make zooming in and out of web pages a bit of a chore if you have man paws. As for seeing more than a couple of notifications on screen at one time in the drop down task bar? No chance.

The distressing thing is that it feels like it didn’t need to be. There’s acres of space between the screen and the keyboard, with the four capacitive Android buttons (Home, menu, back and search) hogging far too much space. Say what you will about RIM’s BlackBerry OS, the screens on its QWERTY BlackBerrys take up a much great proportion of their front face. HTC would have done well to ditch the call and reject buttons completely, and make the screen larger.

The good news is the HTC ChaCha’s screen is very visible in direct sunlight, unlike most Android phone panels, even if viewing angles are shallow.

Android Sensified

If you still don’t know about Android, really, where you have you been? Get yourself over to our Google Nexus S review for the basics on the latest version, Android 2.3 (it’s awesome), then head back here.

Like the HTC Salsa, HTC ChaCha runs a modified version of Android 2.3, with HTC’s “Sense” user interface plastered over the top. It’s been slightly adjust for the wider screen ratio, so you only get five homescreens instead of seven, but it’s plenty to be getting on with, and you can still squeeze plenty of shortcuts and widgets into each.

All your standard apps run (though not Adobe Flash in this case, we’re sorry to say), but you get extra Facebook and Twitter integration with your phonebook contacts, and HTC’s extra apps and widgets.

These aren’t gimmicks however, but tremendously useful. HTC’s Facebook Chat homescreen applet comes into its own on the HTC ChaCha: being able to see who you can talk to you from your homescreen is incredibly convenient, and combined with the keyboard makes for an instant messaging service to rival BlackBerry Messenger.

Check out our best HTC phone Top 5 here

Then there’s the Facebook button. It glows whenever you can share something, and can trigger a Facebook Places check-in with a simple long press. This is questionably useful for MP3s (it just shares Amazon links so others can purchase it), but ace for sharing web pages, images and video.

As with the HTC Salsa, the paltry 800MHz processor inside means HTC has left out some of its more taxing apps, including its Locations mapping service, and more tragically, its excellent HTC Watch movie streaming app (Most third party apps run just fine, though you’ll find they run in landscape mode while your phone is upright, because of the ChaCha’s unusual dimensions). That’s the price you pay for a Facebook button, we guess.

Camera skills

We encountered exactly the same problems with the HTC ChaCha’s camera as we did on the Salsa’s – no surprise, since they’re likely to share the same five megapixel sensor. Focusing is poor, and low light performance better described as low light fail. The same applies to the standard resolution video it shoots, which as you can see has real exposure problems:

On the plus side, there’s a front facing camera for video chats, and that Facebook button really does make sharing convenient, especially for videos.

Performance

We’ve reached the point where performance no longer seems to be an issue if you’re not paying for the latest and greatest (In this case, the HTC Sensation) – Android is a great leveller in that respect. The 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM inside the HTC ChaCha are enough to load most apps smoothly, while carrying out other tasks in the background (listening to music, IM), and your only real issues will be the lack of Flash (pity) and stalling or unsupported 3D games. We suspect however, that smooth Angry Birds support (check) to go with that QWERTY keyboard will be more than enough for most people.

Call quality was on a par with most other recent smarpthones we’ve tested: clear enough, if nothing to concern Nokia or Motorola. Battery life on the other hand wasn’t quite up to the HTC Salsa’s impressive benchmarks: the 1250mAh cell powered it through a day of use with all connections and syncing on. If battery life is a must, the 1520mAh HTC Salsa juicer is more likely to see you through twice that time.

Verdict

The HTC ChaCha is what it is: a great smartphone for its form. The Facebook button is merely an optional bonus, since you can simply choose to ignore it if you wish – though it does make sharing easy.

But while the Salsa instantly earned its spot as one of the very best mid-range smartphones on sale today, the need for the HTC ChaCha is less obvious. In truth, you’re paying for a keyboard here, nothing else, and we’re not quite convinced. That screen really is small, and Android’s only getting bigger. Is that a price you’re willing to pay?

An unusual first, to be sure. But you know what? This Android phone would get the same score, with or without it.

Handsome build with added déjà vu

If you think the HTC Salsa looks familiar, well, you’d be right. HTC has resurrected one of its best designs ever, the unibody aluminium chassis of last year’s cruelly forgotten HTC Legend, and 14 months on, it still looks fantastic. It’s sturdy, curvaceous, resistant to smudges and oh so pocketable, with a thick speaker grille at the top that oozes class.

The lock button and 3.5mm audio ports are easy to reach on the top of the phone, and the whole affair seems thinner than its actual 12.3mm depth, in part due to the ever so slightly raised lip at the bottom of the HTC Salsa.

It also means the same curious innards, and a baffling trap door contraption for keeping the battery inside, but it’s not much of an issue when the stock battery runs for so long.

There are subtle differences beyond the new blue and purple hues, however. It isn’t quite unibody, and you can see the lines where the edges of the metal meet. The screen on the HTC Salsa measures a slightly wider 3.4-inches across, while the right hand side houses something we haven’t seen from HTC in a very long time: a dedicated camera shutter button.

And did we mention that there’s a front-facing camera for video chats? As far as we know, this is the first time this tech has appeared on a mid-range Android phone, so that’s a another tick in green ink. There’s also the Facebook button, but well, more on that shortly.

Check out our best Android phone Top 5 here

Super screen?

If there’s a problem with the HTC Salsa, it’s the display. Longtime Electricpig readers will recognise this as a common problem with HTC smartphones: the company simply can’t get access to the same high quality screens as its big rival Samsung can anymore (Because, er, Samsung makes them).

It shows on the HTC Salsa, which has a respectable 480×320 resolution touchscreen capable of recognising multitouch, but rather washy colours. Viewing angles on the other hand are broad, and daylight visibility isn’t too bad, so we wouldn’t let it put you off this mid-range phone. It’s not as crushing a disappointment as it is on the HTC Sensation, and for a low price we’re just happy to have seamless pinch to zoom support.

Android, Sensified

At its core, the HTC Salsa runs Android 2.3 “Gingerbread”, the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system (2.3.3 if you must know). Atop that though, HTC has modified it with its “HTC Sense” software skin, which does a great job of making Android easier to use.

See our best HTC phone Top 5 here

We’ll focus on HTC Sense rather than Android itself, which we’ve gone into much detail on before (See our Google Nexus S review for the basics). In short, it too has changed little, and if you’ve owned a HTC Hero or HTC Legend before, the differences are almost solely cosmetic.

HTC Sense 2.1 on the HTC Salsa is still a shining example of how to merge your Facebook and phonebook contacts, and we love that when someone calls, you can see what they’ve been saying online, or even if it’s their birthday. It intelligently combines accounts of the same name (you can manually tweak everything also), and even lets you add a new number as a contact whenever you’re called by one.

There is the odd change however. The intelligent lock screen with customisable auto-launch app shortcuts that debuted on the HTC Sensation last month is in place here, as is the new lock screen call received screen, which requires you to drag down the answer or hang up icons into a bubble (unique, though not advantageous in any way).

Best Android apps of all time: Top 100

One other new addition to Sense on the HTC Salsa is a native Facebook Chat app. Now before you all point out that the Facebook Android app offers this already, allow us to point out that this version includes a homescreen widget, so you can see who’s online. It’s a thoughtful gesture and one we hope Facebook copies: it’s just a shame that your Facebook conversations don’t then appear in the People contact cards for your friends.

But few changes means HTC hasn’t addressed Sense’s pitfalls too – mainly the HTC Sense touchscreen keyboard, which simply isn’t as intelligent and responsive as Google’s own keyboard. Luckily, you can get that on the Android Market.

HTC Locations, HTC’s mapping service that’s available on more powerful phones such as the HTC Desire S and HTC Sensation, is also gone, and the swizzy menu animations and movie streaming Watch Service on the latter are nowhere to be seen here. Lastly, the HTC Sense launcher still crashes quite frequently, but restores itself very quickly.

All in all, it’s a charming Android experience for people more interested in messaging their mates than rooting and hacking their handset. So, most people then.

That blasted Facebook button

Look, let’s just say it: the Facebook button is by far the least interesting aspect of the HTC Salsa. It’s just a button that provides a couple of shortcuts.

Press it normally and you can quickly start typing a regular Facey B update, but use it in certain contexts and it pulls off other tricks. Hold it down and you can check into Facebook Places, or create a spot if one doesn’t exist where you are already.

Press it when it glows on web pages and photos and video you’ve just taken and you can quickly share these on Facebook – by far the most useful feature for most people, we think.

You can also use it to share Amazon links to what you’re listening to on the music player, but really, why would you inflict that on your friends? That’s called spam.

Now we can see how HTC thought a Facebook button would be a good idea, its appeal and how it would give a boost to its marketing efforts. In practice, unless you’re a real social network obsessive, it’ll only shave seconds off the time spent sharing on your phone already – don’t forget that Android already lets you share photos to Facebook with a touchscreen press.

But the good news is that it’s so small and unobtrusive, we wouldn’t let it sway you from picking up the HTC Salsa even if you don’t like Facebook.

Camera

In decent light, the HTC Salsa’s five megapixel camera actually turns out very pleasant, sharp results, and it’s nice to have a physical camera button for a change. The problem we noticed – on video as well as stills – is that it really struggles to adjust to changes in light, cloaking entire photos in shadows that simply aren’t there if you move too quickly.

The VGA video the HTC Salsa snaffles up is actually quite easy on the eye, and is easily uploaded to Facebook via the little button. Our only issue is the microphone doesn’t cope well with wind at all, as you can hear at the end of this clip.

Performance

Don’t go in expecting miracles, and the HTC Salsa will impress you with its performance. Call quality is clear, and the 800MHz CPU paired with 512MB of RAM mean there’s little sign of slowdown. But then, the CPU doesn’t support Adobe Flash video, so you’ll struggle to tax it anyway.

Battery life on the other hand, is nothing short of superb. After 37 hours of testing, with Wi-Fi, account syncing and GPS all on, we’re down to 16 percent. That’s right – we’re still going.

Of course, HTC stuffing a capacious 1520mAh battery inside the HTC Salsa does make you wonder who was on holiday when the much larger HTC Desire HD was being built. No matter: this is an Android phone you can use for two solid days, a very rare feat.

Verdict

Look, if you know you want a phone with a Facebook button, it’s this simple: get the HTC Salsa, or wait for the HTC ChaCha and its QWERTY keyboard (we’ll be reviewing it very soon).

For everyone else nonplussed about a dedicated button, just ignore it. It’s tiny, and the HTC Salsa is still a charming mid-range smartphone with great battery life. We’d simply choose on size: for around the same price, you can get this marvellously compact mobile, or last year’s epic and expansive Samsung Galaxy S. How big are your hands?