HTC Smart review

A smartphone look and feel at a lower price

The HTC Smart is intended to be a less costly and less complex handset than other smartphones on the market, yet still offers the touch-screen user interface, internet and social media functions seen on such devices.

In other words, it is an attempt to create a more mass-market smartphone, targeting users who would not otherwise consider buying one.

Available now on O2 and soon via resellers such as Expansys, the Smart does a fairly good job of living up to these objectives. It is rather like a less feature-rich version of HTC's Android-based phones, but retains the Sense user environment that keeps a familiar look and feel across many of the company's devices.

The handset is available free on all O2 monthly tariffs, or for £100 on Pay & Go. SIM-free it costs from about £178 from various resellers.

However, there are some downsides. The Smart has no Wi-Fi for speedier browsing, and no built-in GPS for navigation. It also feels less responsive than HTC's high-end devices, with the touch-screen in particular seeming to require a forceful swipe before it reacts.

Unlike the iPhone or handsets based on Android, there is also no built-in application store facility from which users can download new applications.

The Smart's browser also gives a less satisfactory experience than on full smartphones, while the email client lacks support for Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol for connecting to Exchange mail servers.

These criticisms aside, the HTC Smart is actually a fairly decent phone, and one that should appeal to those who want a touch-based handset but not the complexity of the high-end smartphones.

Specs
Compared to HTC handsets like the Desire, the Smart has fairly modest specifications, with a 300MHz processor and 256MB memory. It has quad-band GSM capability for voice calls, which means it should work in many countries worldwide, but it supports only the European 3G/HSPA standard for high-speed data up to 3.6Mbit/s.

Although the device is an O2 exclusive in the UK, our sample came from HTC so our review was carried out using a test SIM provided by Vodafone. This worked perfectly fine in our tests, providing an HSPA connection in central London, dropping back to 3G outside the capital.

At 108g, the Smart is lighter than almost any other smartphone, save perhaps for RIM's BlackBerry Pearl models. It features a 2.8in screen with 240 x 320 pixels, which is also smaller than most touch-screen devices, but this does not affect usability too much, as there are fewer icons and other on-screen furniture to show.

A slight retro touch is the presence of green and red 'call' and 'hang up' buttons for voice calls, common on conventional handsets but often replaced by on-screen controls in smartphones. Other controls include a menu button just underneath the screen, plus a large back button that, rather bizarrely, also provides access to a list of applications if pressed when the home screen is displayed.

A volume up/down control on the left of the case and a camera button on the right complete the external controls. A 3.5mm jack socket is on top of the case, while a mini USB connector for charging and connection to a computer is on the bottom.

The software powering the Smart is Qualcomm's Brew Mobile Platform, rather than a full-blown smartphone operating system such as Android or Windows Mobile. However, this is effectively hidden under HTC's own Sense user environment, giving it a similar look and feel to those devices.

For example, the home screen shows the familiar animated clock and local weather, plus a strip of icons for applications at the bottom. These can be customised via the menu button.

HTC Smart review

A smartphone look and feel at a lower price

There are six other screens with dedicated applications, three on each side of the home screen, accessed by a left or right swipe gesture on the screen.

The nearest two display text messages and a configurable list of favourite contacts. The others show HTC's Mail application, weather, photos, and HTC's Friend Stream social networking application.

Social networking
Friend Stream combines updates from Twitter and Facebook accounts. It is found on HTC's high-end smartphones, but these also have separate Facebook and Twitter applications. On Twitter, Friend Stream lets you tweet and send direct messages as well as see the latest updates, but you cannot click through to someone's profile page.

The Smart's web browser application is supplied by Obigo, and does a reasonable job of showing web pages on such a small screen. There is no Flash support for sites such as V3.co.uk, however, and some sites such as the BBC automatically serve up a mobile version.

While you can scroll up and down web pages using a fingertip, you cannot 'stretch' the page to zoom out, as on Android phones and Apple's iPhone. Instead, a sliding zoom bar pops up when you touch the screen.

In use, the browser felt fairly responsive, but a continual bugbear we encountered was accidentally triggering a link when attempting to scroll the page. This is a common drawback to touch-screen phones, however.

Throughout the Smart's user interface, the handset seems to require firm pressure before it reacts to a gesture on the touch screen, but this is not necessarily a bad thing once you get used to it.

As with most other touch-screen phones, keying in text is a pain. HTC has tried to make this easier by allowing users to manually switch the display to landscape mode and show a Qwerty keypad whenever you need to type, such as when entering URLs in the browser or tapping out text messages. However, the on-screen keys are still tiny on the 2.8in screen, and we found it a slow process.

HTC's Mail application supports webmail accounts such as Google or AOL, plus the standard POP3 or Imap mailboxes. The application attempts to configure email based on your address and password, but is otherwise a fairly basic mail client. The lack of support for Microsoft ActiveSync makes it less attractive as a business handset.

Other applications available on the Smart include a calendar tool, photo album, music player, calculator, FM radio (which requires the supplied headset to work), three games, and a Flashlight function that turns the camera's flash into a torch.

While smartphones typically have an app store that lets users download extra applications, the Smart disappointingly has no such facility, despite the fact that the Brew platform in the US is backed by a developer ecosystem. In fact, HTC told us it is not possible to install any applications other than Java on this handset.

While the built-in Java J2ME support allows users to run Java applications (called Midlets) designed for mobile phones, it is still left to the user to find and download these from the web.

We found the Smart's 3.0 megapixel camera to be a little disappointing, producing somewhat blurry images unless you can hold the handset rock steady when pressing the shutter button.

Battery life
The Smart's 1100mAh battery provides a talk time of up to 450 minutes and up to 600 hours on standby, according to HTC. This is accessed by snapping off the entire back cover of the handset, where users will also find a slot for a micro SD flash card. The network SIM fits behind the battery itself.

User manuals are not included with the Smart, and must be downloaded in PDF format from HTC's web site. Also available here is an HTC Sync tool that enables Windows users to synchronise their calendar and contacts from Outlook with the Smart via a USB connection.