HTC Smart review: First grader

Modest retail package

The tiny retail box is not exactly full of stuff but it has the essentials: a charger and a miniUSB cable to use with the charger or to transfer data.

HTC Smart unpacked

In the box you'll also find a one-piece headset which isn't your only option though since the HTC Smart is kind enough to offer a 3.5 mm jack. There are no extras obviously, not even a small memory card.

HTC Smart 360-degree spin

The friendly size is a key asset of the HTC Smart. It’s a neat and friendly, and feels surprisingly solid for an all-plastic phone. Standing at 104 x 55 x 12.8 mm Smart is no hassle to handle and carry around. At 108 g of weight it’s a stout little handset, almost matching the measurements of the smallish HTC Tattoo.

Design and construction

In terms of design, it’s really hard to call HTC Smart unique or innovative. There isn’t much room for designer imagination when making a touch-controlled device and that’s exactly the case with this Smart fella.

The 2.8” QVGA resistive touchscreen is on the small side and its sunlight legibility is very poor. Unfortunately, that’s not all. The screen brightness is rather disappointing and despite it’s capable of displaying 256K colors, image quality is poor. There is prominent color banding in the Sense UI wallpapers and gallery, which doesn’t suit the fancy interface at all.

HTC Smart disappoints with its display quality

HTC Smart is compact and solid and the rounded edges make for a friendlier look and feel.

The front panel does look like it could've accommodated a larger screen but the hardware buttons didn't leave much room for growth. Again, a 2.8" QVGA resistive touchscreen is nothing to write home about really, but it might have been the only choice in this price bracket.

The HTC Smart doesn’t have a stylus so the only upside is that you can operate the resistive screen with your gloves on. Resistive units don’t have the sensitivity of capacitive displays and require a stronger push to register the tap. Still HTC Sense UI is quite thumbable and you won’t miss the stylus.

Above the display we only find the earpiece. The phone has no ambient light sensor or a dedicated camera for video calls.

Four hardware keys share the space below the screen. A trio of the call keys and menu/back button takes almost the whole place, leaving a very small and inconvenient Option key.

The earpiece • the four buttons

Both receiver keys and the middle Menu/Back one are well defined and solid to press. The smallish Option key is quite unhandy and you’ve gotta use your fingernail. It opens lots of context menus and it would have been nice a better and user friendly design.

There’s a lonely volume rocker on the left side of the Smart, while the right side houses the camera shutter key. Both keys are plastic.

The volume rocker is on the left • the right side houses the camera key

At the top of the HTC Smart you can find the standard 3.5mm audio jack. There is no protective cover on the audio jack.

The 3.5mm audio jack is on top

The bottom features the miniUSB port for connecting the data cable and the charger. Right next to it is the mouthpiece, while the far left corner is occupied by the lanyard eyelet.

The miniUSB port and the lanyard eyelet at the bottom

HTC Smart back panel features the 3-megapixel fixed focus camera lens, the LED flash and the loudspeaker grill.

The camera has LED flash, but no autofocus

Opening the battery cover reveals the 1100 mAh Li-ion battery that powers the whole thing. The talk time of Smart is quoted at 7.5 hours, while standby sits at 450h. Unfortunately we couldn’t measure a realistic real-life battery performance due to our heavy reviewing routine.

Back to the stuff under the HTC Smart hood, next to the battery you'll also find the microSD card slot. It’s hot-swappable, but you’ll still need to remove the battery cover every time.

A 1100 mAh Li-Ion battery and the SIM bed • the microSD slot

The build quality is really impressive, we give it that. HTC Smart is quite comfortable to use too – compact and pocket-friendly and we have no complains about the overall design.

The HTC Smart is compact and friendly