Wednesday, June 30, 2010

HTC Smart Review


Recently I got my hands on a brand new HTC Smart phone, and here is the review.


HTC Smart comes in a very small box. Great form factor.


The way the phone is packed seemed pretty efficient, you get the battery (in the phone) a charger, headphone and data transfer cable, and some instruction manuals.


This way of packing saves space!! You need to remove the plastic, and the battery can be used!


After inserting in the SIM card, here is the review!


The phone powers on, and the intro screen seemed pretty simple. The phone looks very basic and neat.


The back of the phone shows a neat 3.15MP Camera and flashlight...

The following are the specifications of the phone:


GENERAL2G NetworkGSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G NetworkHSDPA 2100



SIZEDimensions104 x 55 x 12.8 mm
Weight108 g
DISPLAYTypeTFT resistive touchscreen, 256K colors
Size240 x 320 pixels, 2.8 inches
- Sense UI
SOUNDAlert typesVibration, MP3, WAV ringtones
SpeakerphoneYes
- 3.5 mm audio jack
MEMORYPhonebook1000 entries, Photocall
Call recordsYes
Internal256 MB RAM, 256 MB ROM
Card slotmicroSD, up to 16GB, buy memory
DATAGPRSClass 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
EDGEClass 10, 236.8 kbps
3GHSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
WLANNo
BluetoothYes v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared portNo
USBYes, miniUSB v2.0
CAMERAPrimary3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels, LED flash
VideoYes
SecondaryNo
FEATURESOSBrew Mobile
CPU300 MHz processor
MessagingSMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
BrowserHTML
RadioStereo FM radio with RDS
GamesYes
ColorsBlack
GPSNo
JavaYes, MIDP 2.1
- MP3/eAAC+/WAV/WMA9 player
- MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV9 player
- Organizer
- T9
BATTERYStandard battery, Li-Ion 1100 mAh
Stand-byUp to 450 h (2G) / Up to 600 h (3G)
Talk timeUp to 7 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 6 h 10 min (3G)



Here are a few points to note:

1) This phone runs on Brew MP (A Qualcomm OS)
2) It comes in 3 colors
3) This phone is cheap, even without a contract
4) On Brew MP, apps are hard to find and install.
5) The micro-SD slot is pretty nice to have, and allows songs, movies and photos to be stored easily.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In terms of looks, size and feel of the phone, this phone looks pretty good from all angles, has a great form factor, and is relatively light.

The talk time and standby time is descent, and even when I am listening to music (the 3.5mm headphone jack comes in handy) the phone could easily last more than a day.

The phone functions are pretty basic. With 4 buttons below the screen, Call, back, cancel and menu, it is not very hard to use, and yet is enough to perform most tasks. Anyway, its a touch screen, and you use the screen to input other information.

The display is pretty sharp, even in bright daylight, you can view it. The HTC sense, is quite intuitive, however, without multitouch and finger gestures found in iPhone and WM 6.5, this phone functions as just a basic phone with a touch screen with nothing more.

The Smart supports 256MB ROM and 256MB RAM, but there's a microSD card slot for increasing storage space up to a maximum of 32GB. A nice touch is that the card slot is accessible without having to remove the battery.

It takes descent photos, though the camera does seem a little slow on the shutter, and the video mode is pretty bad.

With a dataplan, you can access friend feeds (Facebook and Twitter), Gmail and surf the web, though it is pretty slow. Still, for something basic, its not too bad.

Pros:
Flashlight mode
Good battery life
Cheap for a new handset
Stylish design
Compact form factor

Cons:
No Wi-Fi
No Exchange support
Poor browser
Slow data performance
No GPS or map application
No app store for adding functionality
Terrible shutter lag on camera
Low quality video recording

Basically, this is a low end smart phone. If you are just getting into using a smart phone, this is very much an entry level which can help you get used to the different features, and access some emails, and browsing.

Rating 5/10

-- Robin Low

1 comment:

Iron Bowl said...

My HTC Smart is officially broken 1 week after unwrapping.. Good job HTC