With some networks offering the HTC Explorer on tariffs at the lower end of the spectrum for light users (it's currently available for as low as £10 per month), the HTC Sense 3.5 overlay and the functionality of the phone make this a brilliant budget choice for first time smartphone owners who don't need unlimited texts and the like.

For more intensive users who do want more minutes, texts and data included in their monthly contracts, it's sandwiched in the mid-range pricing of the current HTCs, so there it may suffer the same fate of the Wildfire S and be just a little bit too expensive to make it worth opting for such specs.

We liked

We like that the HTC Explorer includes most of the intuitive HTC Sense features that we admire so much in higher-specced HTC phones, such as the deep social networking integration and fully customisable home screens.

We also like that it has Wi-Fi capabilities, that the capacitive touchscreen isn't over-sensitive and that the display is bright. We also like that, while none of the specs are high-end, everything does its job well. There's no 'wow', but it does work, and that's important.

We disliked

However, the hint of cheap that hangs around certain bits of the phone – the rubberised casing, the pixelation of fast moving graphics such as the lock screen ring pull and the occasional lag in the system - let it down.

With its mid-range pricing, the specs are too low to pull first-time smartphone users to this particular HTC handset as opposed to bigger-screened HTC Desire S.

Final verdict

With its intuitive operating system skin, the HTC Explorer would make an excellent first smartphone. But it may not be as much of a treasure as first thought as it's not quite hitting the budget heights we thought it would - it needs to drop a few pounds per month to be a truly cheap-cheap handset.

Thanks toExpansys for our HTC Explorerreview handset.