"Quietly Brilliant" – that's HTC's latest marketing slogan. And although we're not generally won over by such rhetoric, in this particular case, it rings pretty true.
While Apple has been busy trying to convince the world that the launch of the iPad is akin to the second coming of Christ, HTC has spent its time in a less ostentatious manner, launching some of the best mobile phones we've ever seen.
The new HTC Smart has a lot to live up to when you consider the company's recent track record. In the past few months we've seen the beautifully crafted HTC Legend, which was quickly followed up with the HTC Desire – arguably the best mobile phone money can buy right now.
Even a Windows Phone operating system couldn't stop the HTC HD Mini from being a great handset for anyone who's resistant to buy into Google's Android platform.
But the Smart is a very different proposition to those feature-packed handsets. Although it clearly falls into the smartphone category, it's not aimed at the kind of power user who would want an HTC Desire or Apple iPhone.
The Smart is aimed clearly at the average consumer who would like a few smartphone features, but doesn't care about lightning fast processors or app stores. Oh, and they want it to be affordable too, even without a contract.
You can usually spot a budget phone at 20 paces, but that's simply not the case with the HTC Smart. Put simply, it looks and feels every bit as good as the Desire, which is pretty impressive for a brand new handset that can be had for free on a £15 per month contract, or £100 on prepay.
With dimensions of 104 x 55 x 12.8mm the Smart is very comfortable to hold, while at 108g, it won't weigh you down either. That makes it roughly the same size and weight as the HTC HD Mini, which is no bad thing.
O2 offers the Smart in either black or white, but HTC sent us a pink version. Even in pink this is a good-looking phone, with the chrome accents around the edges breaking things up a little.
The front of the Smart is dominated by the 2.8-inch screen, which is surprisingly bright and vibrant for a budget phone.
The 320 x 240 QVGA resolution gives the game away slightly, but it doesn't spoil the party for the most part. The one area where the resolution really is a limitation is when you're using the web browser, but more about that later.
Below the screen are four buttons, the largest being (by some margin) the Back button. This is something of multi-function button, though, since it doubles as the phone's Home button, too.
Pressing the Back button once will generally take you to the previous page/menu, while pressing and holding it will take you to the main Home screen. Pressing the Back button while on the main Home screen will then open up the Programs menu.
Either side of the Back button are Call and Hang-up buttons, while the final front fascia control is a Menu button located just below the screen.
Along the bottom you'll find an older style mini-USB port, rather than the newer micro USB connector. The only other connector is a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is always good to see on any phone, especially a budget model.
The Smart sports 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.
There's a relatively modest 300MHz Qualcomm CPU beating at the heart of the Smart, although there didn't seem to be any issues when it came to general speed of operation.
HSDPA speeds are limited to 3.6mbps, rather than the 7.2mbps theoretical maximum seen on higher end phones. Obviously real world data speeds are limited by your network, but in use the Smart did feel a little sluggish in the data department.
That slightly disappointing cellular data performance is compounded by the fact that the Smart doesn't have Wi-Fi, so even when you're at home or in the office, you can't make use of a fast connection.
You do get Bluetooth with A2DP though, so the Smart will happily work with a hands-free kit, while also pumping music to your car stereo.
Another major departure from the recent trend of HTC phones is the use of Qualcomm's Brew mobile platform. In a world stuffed full of cutting edge mobile platforms like Android, WebOS and iPhone OS, can Brew offer enough to make even a budget handset attractive? That's the question we're about to answer.
Your comments (6) Click to add a new comment
keebsuk
March 4th 2011
6. I really enjoyed your post.
There is a huge battle going on at the moment between the various manufacturers. There is no room for "adequate" products because there are so many great smartphones about.
Maybe HTC should look into "quality not quantity"?
http://andykeeblesblog.blogspot.com/
Alert a moderator
tylerama
December 14th 2010
5. @tomhalpin - When you delete them it doesn't delete them completely, it stores them in a recycle bin, so you have to go in and manually empty it. It took me about 5 days of doing one at a time because it will only delete allat once when you have say less than 200 texts to delete. Above that you have to it one by fricking one..
Alert a moderator
crazy_coyote
December 12th 2010
4. This is the worst phone i ever had! I have a lot of problems with them, two major problems are related to sound alarms (ringtones and sms tone). The phone continue to ring when someone cancel call, for 1 of 7 mesaages phone make a sound.
Alert a moderator
tomhalpin
December 7th 2010
3. This phone is not good. For the first few days, you'll think, yeah, £100 for a bright touch-screen phone, not bad.
Soon though, you'll accumulate text messages (which are displayed as 'conversations'), and the whole thing will grind to a halt. But surely you can just delete them to speed the phone back up again? Nope. Tried that, tried factory reset, tried software updates.
This phone is appauling. The still and video camera qualities are terrible.
If you live in an area where signal is not 100% perfect, this phone cannot cope.
If you ring an automated number (where you have to press numbers to reach someone etc.), don't expect this to work all the time using the HTC Smart.
This phone is NOT a Smart move. If you're going to spend £100 on a pre-pay mobile phone, seriously, buy one with buttons.
Alert a moderator
vibs
June 23rd 2010
2. I had purchased this handset a month ago and ever since has been lying at the service centre bcos of Network failure
and Battery malfunction. I got a replacement and I was happy . The company people said that there was a problem
with the earlier handset- I had already got the software update done for it atleast 3 times . But again the new
handset also had the same problems .As advised by the service centre - I got my SIM changed but to no avail. So
Beware . It is a cheap Smartphone with features that would make u feel that u should instead have purchased some
other phone- each time u handle it. The FM sound is so low - u have to b in a soundproof room to hear it well . The
phone takes ever so long to boot- more than 2 minutes.
Alert a moderator
bradavon
May 21st 2010
1. The T-Mobile Pulse Mini or forthcoming HTC Wildfire are much better alternatives. If you're going to get a Smartphone, make sure it's actually Smart.
Alert a moderator
Tell us what you think
You need to Log in or register to post comments