The Vodafone Smart 2 costs just $105
and comes in grey or white. The company has upped the dreadful screen
resolution of its predecessor and raised the specs.
Price: $105
Website: www.vodafone.com
Ratings: 2/5
Vodafone
Smart II
It comes packing a 3.2-inch 480 x 320 pixel
screen, replacing the old, pretty dire 2.8-inch 240 x 320 display of the
original, and a 3-megapixel camera also represents an upgrade as well. There’s
also 802.lln support that wasn’t there before, a slight raise on internal
storage from 130MB to 150MB, and an 832MHz Broadcom processor in place of the
old 528MHz model. It isn’t a great set of general specs, but it is a step
forward.
The Vodafone Smart 2 is a small handset,
although the chassis is a bit thick, at 12.35mm, but it is easy to reach across
the 58mm of width for full screen usage one-handed. You probably won’t notice
the 120g weight either.
The build is really solid - we couldn’t
flex the phone at all in our hands. Its rounded edges look quite smart, though
there’s nothing particularly different or alluring about the general design.
Vodafone seems to have made all the right choices with regards to button
placement on the phone. The headset connector is on the top alongside the main
power switch, while the USB connector is on the bottom edge. The left edge is
clear, while the right edge houses a volume rocker and a camera button.
The
small screen can get busy, though
With Android 2.3.5 running the show and
this being a budget smartphone, you might expect the Vodafone Smart 2 to look
quite familiar. But Vodafone has done a bit of skinning and provided a fair few
widgets to help owners feel they’ve got something quite personal going on here.
The small screen can get busy, though.
Right out of the box the main screen - one of five - is peppered with widgets,
and as you scroll left and right there are more. We like the way Vodafone has
made an effort to enhance Android in this way.
On the small screen
Screen size and quality is a bit of an
issue. The screen is fairly small at 3.2 inches and, due to the low resolution,
it can be tricky to see detail, and outdoors the panel is quite hard to read.
But the touch responsiveness is good, with
the handset happy to move swiftly between screens and respond to taps. You
might find if your hands are larger than a child’s that it can be difficult to
hit smaller icons, though.
Baby
steps: The Smart 2 is just a tiny step on from its predecessor
We weren’t fans of the original Vodafone
Smart, and we can’t say the Vodafone Smart 2 does a lot to bring us on side.
Yes it is small, yes it isn’t all that expensive, but we don’t think it is very
good value. If we compare it to the slightly more expensive Orange San
Francisco 2, which we thought wasn’t quite such a giant leap forward as its
predecessor, the Vodafone Smart 2 falls down as being a less giant leap forward
than its own predecessor.
If we were recommending a budget handset,
we’d probably advise spending a little more if you possibly can and buying
something like the HTC Wildfire S instead.
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Pros
·
Cheap
·
Slight improvement on its predecessor
Cons
·
Gingerbread
·
Poor screen
·
Not very good value all-round
Dimensions
·
Height: 109mm
·
Width: 58mm
·
Depth: 12.4mm
·
Screen size: 13.2-inch
·
Weight: 120g
Specification
·
Supplier: www.vodafone.com
·
OS: Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
·
Processor: Broadcom
832MHz
·
RAM: 512MB
·
Storage: 150MB
·
Expansion: microSD
·
Rear camera: 3.15MP
·
Front camera: No
·
Screen type: TFT
·
Screen resolution: 480x320
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