2G Network :GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network :HSDPA 2100
Display Type :TFT capacitive touchscreen, 256K colors
Size :240 x 320 pixels, 2.8 inches
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Proximity sensor
OS :Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo)
CPU :528 MHz ARM 11 processor, Adreno 200 GPU, Qualcomm MSM7225 chipset
Messaging :SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM
Browser :HTML
Radio :Stereo FM radio with RDS
Games: Yes
Colors :White, Black, custom graphic designs
GPS :with A-GPS support
3.5mm jack :Yes
Phonebook :Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records :Practically unlimited
Internal :130 MB storage
Card slot :microSD, up to 32GB
GPRS :Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
EDGE :Class 10, 236.8 kbps
3G :HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Wi-Fi hotspot
Bluetooth :v2.1 with A2DP
Infrared port :No
USB :microUSB v2.0
Camera :Primary :2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels
Features :Geo-tagging
Video: Yes
Secondary :No
Java :via Java MIDP emulator
- Vodafone Music
- Digital compass
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail, Talk
- MP3/WMA/eAAC+ player
- MP4/H.263/H.264 player
- Organizer
- Photo viewer/editor
- Voice memo/dial/commands
- Predictive text input (Swype)
Battery :Standard battery
Stand-by :Up to 250 h (2G) / Up to 380 h (3G)
Talk time :Up to 4 h (2G) / Up to 4 h 30 min (3G)
Price Approx: Rs.6500
Android has found its niche, in high end smartphones, at the middle of the range, and even in the budget sector. Hardly a niche, then, more of a ubiquitous position.
But is it really an appropriate operating system for the truly budget sector? How much can you really expect to be able to exploit what it offers when you are paying less than £100 for a handset?
Orange proved you can expect a lot, actually, with its San Francisco, which, at under £100 has been made with well-chosen compromises and is a very good handset for the money. Sadly, we can’t really say the same for Vodafone’s Smart.
Available for £60 on Vodafone prepay, the Smart really does come in at a rock bottom price. But its feature are all rock bottom too. You do get the Android smartphone basics of HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. There’s 130MB of built in memory, and a 2GB microSD card to boost this. It is located under the battery, which is a bind, but at least it is included with the handset.
That’s not a bad set of starting specifications. And the Smart is not too shabbily made. The build of the chassis is good, it doesn’t bend or creak a great deal in the hands, and it is small and light at 106x56x12mm and 100g. Ideal for little hands, then.
However, to meet the low price and fit into the small chassis the screen has been severely compromised. It measures 2.8-inches which is not really large enough to allow for full enjoyment of multimedia stuff like video or web browsing. And its resolution is just 240x320 pixels so that there isn’t a great deal of detail on offer.
The screen is capacitive which is good news, and it is reasonably responsive to sweeps and presses. But there’s a big problem in that there is no pinch to zoom support. That makes some activities, like web browsing, a lot less friendly than they’d be if it were on board. You can zoom in the web browser, using on-screen tappable icons, but it’s just not the same as pinching.
While we’re talking about web browsing it is worth pointing out that there is no flash support. So video embedded in web sites like the BBC’s is not available.
There is another big problem with the screen, and that’s to do with outdoor viewing. It is very poor in bright sunlight – so much so that we found it impossible to frame photos on bright, sunny days.
The Smart comes with either a white or black chassis, and a redeeming feature is the ability to design custom backplates, which you do at a very easy to use web page. You can even incorporate your own photos into these, and at £10 each they are a great, fun way of personalising your handset.
And there’s good news in that Android 2.2 is on board and that you get five home screens to fill with widgets. The 528MHz processor might sound a little slow, and indeed it is, depending on what you want to do with it. Web pages were slow to load, for example, and sometimes we found ourselves waiting for screen presses to register. The boot process is slow, too. In general we could live with the speed of screen tap responses, but impatient types might find they get frustrated.
The small, low resolution screen makes some aspects of use feel very cramped. We’ve already mentioned this, but it does pop up again and again as an irritation. Take SMS as an example. There’s a threaded view, but when you call up the on screen keyboard to type a response to a message, you can’t see much of what’s gone before.
They Qwerty keyboard is a bit small for average sized hands, but this has been got round to some extent by offering two non qwerty options which take different approaches to key sharing. All three keyboard choices work in both wide and tall modes, and they do help deal with the squeezed screen problem to some extent.
The camera represents one of the bigger compromises made with the Vodafone Smart. Capable of shooting stills at just 2 megapixels and without a flash it doesn’t achieve much more than grainy photos at the best of times.
Even the battery life of the HTC Smart disappointed us. The 1200mAh battery ought to be good enough considering the processor and screen size, to manage a day’s life without charging, but we found we wanted to give the phone a boost mid-day just to be on the safe side.
The Vodafone Smart feels more like an old Android handset of yesteryear rehashed than one specifically created today for a budget market. This is the reverse of the feeling we had with Orange’s budget San Francisco. Even at its incredibly low price, we aren’t convinced the Smart is a viable Android handset. Sorry, Vodafone.
Source : KnowYourMobile
