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:

GENERAL	2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
	3G Network	HSDPA 2100

SIZE	Dimensions	104 x 55 x 12.8 mm
	Weight	108 g

DISPLAY	Type	TFT resistive touchscreen, 256K colors
	Size	240 x 320 pixels, 2.8 inches
		- Sense UI

SOUND	Alert types	Vibration, MP3, WAV ringtones
	Speakerphone	Yes
		- 3.5 mm audio jack

MEMORY	Phonebook	1000 entries, Photocall
	Call records	Yes
	Internal	256 MB RAM, 256 MB ROM
	Card slot	microSD, up to 16GB, buy memory

DATA	GPRS	Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
	EDGE	Class 10, 236.8 kbps
	3G	HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
	WLAN	No
	Bluetooth	Yes v2.0 with A2DP
	Infrared port	No
	USB	Yes, miniUSB v2.0

CAMERA	Primary	3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels, LED flash
	Video	Yes
	Secondary	No

FEATURES	OS	Brew Mobile
	CPU	300 MHz processor
	Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
	Browser	HTML
	Radio	Stereo FM radio with RDS
	Games	Yes
	Colors	Black
	GPS	No
	Java	Yes, MIDP 2.1
		- MP3/eAAC+/WAV/WMA9 player - MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV9 player - Organizer - T9

BATTERY		Standard battery, Li-Ion 1100 mAh
	Stand-by	Up to 450 h (2G) / Up to 600 h (3G)
	Talk time	Up 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