Home > Reviews > Manufacturer > Verizon SMT5800 Cell Phone Review

Verizon SMT5800 Cell Phone Review

Mark Brezinski Published on March 17, 2008 Comment on this

Intro Making/Receiving Calls Software Other Features

Tour & Design Messaging Battery Life Value & Comparisons

Audio Quality Organizer Connectivity Conclusion

Imaging Multimedia Hardware Ratings & Specs

The SMT5800 looks like a typical Windows Mobile candybar phone at first glance, but it hides a slide-out keyboard for those who love to text or email. In all other respects the SMT5800 will bring all the good, and bad, that you would expect from Windows Mobile Standard, which is the non-touchscreen version. We liked the phone's looks and durability, and if professional good looks were everything the SMT5800 would be ahead of the game. Unfortunately a very limited battery life should cause anyone looking at this device some pause.

As a Windows Mobile Standard phone, the SMT5800 manages to deliver a good suite of software. The platform is also very extensible, so if you don't like some aspect of the phone, or want functionality that isn't included initially, chances are there are tons of solutions out there for you. The only low points are how the software is limited compared to Windows Mobile Professional phones. For example, users can't create new Word or Excel documents, but they can edit existing ones; the easy work-around for this is to always keep a blank file on your memory card.

Really, the SMT5800 would be a very intriguing option for a higher-end-looking Windows Mobile Standard device if it weren't for its battery life. We tested two different versions of this phone, and neither set of results was good. Not only were the battery scores low in general, they simply weren't congruous with the needs of typical smart phone users. Chances are, if you're buying a smart phone, you need a phone plus a PDA with internet access. These devices are supposed to be built for heavy use, but the SMT5800 simply doesn't have the endurance necessary for a phone of its class.

Section	The Good	The Bad
Tour & Design	The phone certainly looks sharp and professional.	Those who aren't looking for professional will think this phone looks bland.
Audio Quality	Everything.	It makes many other phones insecure.
Imaging	It can take both pictures and videos.	It can't do either particularly well.
Making/Receiving Calls	The phone keeps the call log organized and its call and data timers are plentiful.	The phone is slow to dial, won't accept custom ringtones, and the non-audio alerts are weak.
Messaging	The email and texting client should be great for most users.	Professionals will wish they could manage multiple messages easier.
Organizer	The organizer is definitely better than average.	But, it's not as good as the organizer in Series 60 phones and has no notes application.
Multimedia	Windows Media Player is really easy to use.	Windows Media Player doesn't give as many organizational tools as some other media players we've seen.
Software	Windows Mobile Standard is very extensible and a relatively easy to use platform.	Compared to Windows Mobile Professional and other higher-end OSs, Standard is crippled.
Battery Life	Sadly, there really isn't much the SMT5800 does right in this category.	The horrendous battery life basically condmens users to charging the phone every single night.
Connectivity	The phone has Bluetooth.	It has a limited selection of Bluetooth profiles and no wi-fi support.
Hardware	The slide-out QWERTY is good, and the phone supports microSD cards up to 8GB.	The screen is average and the on-board memory is barely there.
Other Features	It can be used as a tethered modem.	No GPS or other features, need to buy a plan for tethered modem use, or risk overages.
Value & Comparisons	Really, the only thing holding the phone back is its terrible battery life.	The battery life really is bad enough to nullify most other boons.

[page title="Tour & Design"]

Front Closed

The closed SMT5800 is about 60% screen, with a small keypad/d-pad array at the bottom. The typical 12-key array is surrounded by two soft keys, a send and end key, and a home and back key. The buttons themselves are typical, just arranged slightly differently. The speaker on top of the screen is also a bit different than usual: it's equipped with two blinking LEDs. The left is green, the right is red.

Front Open

Sliding open the SMT5800 will uncover a full QWERTY keyboard. Above the keyboard are two soft keys and two LEDs to denote an active shift or function key. The keyboard itself also features a few shortcuts to commonly-used features, such as the messaging application and volume control.

Left

The left side is where the SMT5800 keeps its power button and volume switch. Towards the bottom is also a microSD card slot, which is strangely without a cover.

Top

There's really not much to see on the top of the phone.

Bottom

The first in the zig-zag of features along the bottom is a little switch which pushes the battery cover off. The tiny dot apostrophe after the switch is the microphone hole. After this is a standard Mini USB data/charging port, even though it does look slightly different than usual. The final feature is a lanyard loop. Again, if you're the sort of person who actually uses the lanyard loop, you'll be profoundly disappointed in the loop's location. Your phone will hang unevenly, creating a frustratingly lop-sided lanyard experience.

Right

The right side of the phone has a shutter button that will also behave as a camera application shortcut. Towards the bottom is the other end of the lanyard loop discussed above.

Back

The back side of the phone is one big expanse of a battery cover. Towards the top are two features: the speakerphone and the 2.0-Megapixel camera lens.

Battery Out

Since this is a Verizon phone, there will be no SIM card waiting underneath the battery. All that you'll find is a boring, blank, plastic wall.

In the Box (3.0)
In addition to the phone and standard stack of manuals, the SMT5800 doesn't come with many extras. There's a wall charger, a Mini USB cable, and a strange dual-headed adaptor that expands the semi-proprietary Mini USB slot into a "more standard" Mini USB slot as well as a 2.5mm headphone jack. This is only really useful for when you want to be charging or synchronizing your device at the same time that you are listening to music, which should be fairly rare.

Handling (5.0)
At 4.1" by 2.0" with a 0.7" depth, the SMT5800 is a bit on the husky side. Relative to other sliding QWERTY handsets, however, it's about par for the course. The SMT5800 fits naturally in the hand, with all the pertinent buttons falling close by the thumb and index fingers. The only issue users might run into is the semi-sharp edge created by the battery cover.

Portability (6.0)
Though not as portable as some of the super-thin phones out there, the SMT5800 is certainly not a heavy burden. It might give your pocket a bit of a belly but it won't be very noticeable. It'll also have no problem sliding into a purse or bag, in the world of smart phones the SMT5800 is in the more portable range, although it's not as small as a Razr or Chocolate.

Aesthetics (6.0)
Though not a flashy or particularly sleek headset, the SMT5800 makes up for it in understated, classy professionalism. This is a phone you won't feel embarassed about taking out in front of clients, and its slide-out design and larger-than-average screen puts it into the realm of good-looking. If you want a hip, quirky, neon yellow phone that has an elkin bottle-style flip design, the SMT5800 will make you yawn. Amongst business users, the SMT5800's target audience, this phone will get a few impressed nods.

Durability (7.0)
Even when slid open, the SMT5800 feels really durable. We were pulling and twisting it around, and never once did we get we get the feeling that we could easily break it. Solid construction aside, there were a few issues where wear and tear could negatively impact the phone. The first is the sliding mechanism. With the external keypad, the QWERTY won't get slid out as much as a phone without one, but moving parts are still cause for concern. The screen is exposed, which means it's a likely candidate to pick up some scratches. Lastly, the microSD card slot isn't covered by a panel, which could allow junk to get inside the phone. These smaller issues aside, however, the SMT5800 seems to be really sturdy.

[page title="Audio Quality"]
General Audio
Since a cell phone is primarily used to make calls, it's important that it has good audio quality. A great calendar application and web browsing can't compensate for the inability to carry on a coherent conversation because of poor audio. Since this is an important test, we invested in HATS, a head and torso simulator that doesn't do a bad job of simulating the human ear either. Once HATS uses its perfect ears to hear the sounds output by the phone, we run the result through an electro-acoustic analysis program, SoundCheck. This, in the end, lets us know how well the phone performed according to industry standards. If this interests you and you'd like to learn more, feel free to peruse this article.

Summary
We didn't have any problems with the SMT5800 in terms of audio quality. Its imperfections are very minor, to the point where they wouldn't be noticeable. 

Sound Receive Frequency Response (7.92)

The SMT5800 does a good job handling received sounds. There are a few points on the graph where it crosses the limits a bit, but these strays are minimal at most. The worst you'll get from this phone is slightly overemphasized mid-range sounds, or slightly muted higher-frequency sounds. 

Cell Phone	HTC SMT5800	HTC Tilt (on AT&T)	Pantech Duo (on AT&T)
Score	7.92	7.44	7.62
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Cell Phone	Nokia N82 (Unlocked)	Motorola Q 9m (on Verizon)	Palm Centro (on Sprint)
Score	7.60	7.90	6.24
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Sound Send Frequency Response (8.00)

It initially appears that, like many phones before it, the SMT5800 is a bit more careless with your voice than it is with an incoming caller's. Its frequency performance starts out scraping the bottom of the limit, then jumps up and hits its head on the upper limit. Despite what looks like more fluctuation, the SMT5800's performance here is actually slightly better than in the prior test. Though not as consistent as the received frequency response, the amount it strayed from dead center was less overall. 
                    

Cell Phone	HTC SMT5800	HTC Tilt (on AT&T)	Pantech Duo (on AT&T)
Score	8.00	6.56	4.94
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Cell Phone	Nokia N82 (Unlocked)	Motorola Q 9m (on Verizon)	Palm Centro (on Sprint)
Score	6.50	8.73	7.82
Received Sound Frequency Response Graph (click to view)

Handset Side Tone (9.45)

Side tone is the amount of your own voice the phone plays back, or how loud your own voice sounds over the speaker. Side tone helps us regulate the volume of our voice; if we can't hear ourselves talking on the line, we raise our voices, etc. The ideal measurement is -18 decibels. The SMT5800 clocked in at -17.45 decibels, which is just a hair louder than ideal. This could cause you to talk slightly lower than you normally would, but not to any extent that you or your conversation partner would notice.


[page title="Imaging"]
Summary
Video capture on the SMT5800 is bad, even for a cell phone. Its still capture capabilities aren't bad, however. While it'd still make a profoundly terrible digital camera, its pictures will find their way onto many a Facebook or MySpace without anyone being the wiser. Add in the phone's handful of picture editing tools, and the SMT5800 is slightly above average in imaging.

Resolution (4.93)
The all-seeing eye of scientific testing found that the camera on the SMT5800 isn't that bad for a cell phone camera. We found it had 1053 lw/ph horizontally and 836.7 lw/ph vertically. The first score is a solid line width per pixel height result, but the second was lacking a bit. Overall, however, not a bad capturing tool for a phone, especially one on a business device with no pretensions of being a camera phone.

The lw/ph results were found using Imatest, our picture analysis software. What we do to test resolution is snap some pictures of a chart, which come out looking like the above picture. We then run the pictures through Imatest, which counts how many individual lines the camera was capable of capturing. The finer and closer together the lines get, the more likely it is for a camera to smudge them to gray.

Cell Phone	HTC SMT5800	HTC Tilt	Pantech Duo
Score	4.93	3.56	1.09
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1053/836.7	895/1082	512/457
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	Nokia N82	Motorola Q 9m	Palm Centro
Score	7.59	2.24	1.41
lw/ph horizontal/vertical	1307/1288	733/740	581/596
Image of Resolution Chart (click to view)

Color (2.48)
To test color representation, we again take pictures and ask Imatest what it thinks. In the case of color accuracy, Imatest was none too impressed with the SMT5800. Virtually everything was shifted towards yellow in some respect. Such a uniform shift, even amongst blues, is quite an interesting result. The shift isn't so much that all of your pictures will look completely jaundiced, but it is enough so you'd notice the colors look a bit off.

 

Cell Phone	HTC SMT5800	HTC Tilt	Pantech Duo
Score	2.48	2.23	2.34
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Cell Phone	Nokia N82	Motorola Q 9m	Palm Centro
Score	5.45	3.41	8.08
Color Checker Chart (click to view)

Noise (1.40)
First of all, no phone handles noise well: our average score in this section is a 1.08. Given this, the SMT5800 performs relatively well. As you can see in the below chart, it beat out its competitors. Does this mean your pictures will be noise free? Far from it. We're just saying that it sucks a little less than the average phone out there. Noise in cell phone pictures is just something we'll all have to deal with for a while given how small the imaging chips are.


Live Preview (4.0)
Many people will think the live preview is really blurry, but in reality it's not that far off from the final capture. Panning or motion will create moderate blurring, but the image doesn't lag too far behind the the action. Colors should also be portrayed accurately. The live preview also uses the whole 2.4-inch screen, which is certainly more ideal than phones that plaster toolbars over potential viewfinding real estate. Overall, the live preview feature on the SMT5800 is just shy of mediocre.

Unlocked Standby to First Shot (12.20)
Starting with the phone closed and unlocked, we were able to capture a picture in 1.64 seconds. This is ridiculously fast, and due mainly to the phone's insane shutter to shot speed. There is a bit of a catch, however: you will only be able to achieve this time with picture preview on. If picture preview is off, the process will take about 2.11 seconds. We know, it doesn't make sens, but there it is. If you'd like more info on how we conduct this test, see this article.


Shot to Shot Time (5.94)
The SMT5800 has a Sports Mode, which is like a normal burst mode but sounds slightly less explosive. There are three speed settings to choose from. Typically this would mean the faster settings take pictures at a lower resolution, but this doesn't seem to be the case. On the fastest setting, were able to take a series of five pictures in 2.53 seconds, which is about 1.98 frames per second. This is fast, even for a burst Sports Mode. With this mode, it's hard to blame the camera for a missed moment. To learn more about this amazing test, read this.

Shutter to Shot Time (22.22)
Again, whether or not picture preview is on can change your shutter to shot time substantially. If it's on, the shutter to shot time should be a blistering 0.09 seconds; when it's off, you should see a more modest, but still impressive, 0.31 seconds. To learn more about this test, read this.


Interface (4.5)
Taking pictures is simple enough. You can use the select key or shutter button to take a picture. The shutter key is placed a bit awkwardly, requiring you to press it with your left index finger instead of your right. We found ourselves favoring the select key, even though it doesn't provide as much of a "I'm using a digital camera" experience.

The software is simple, but the menu is needlessly confusing to navigate. The menu itself consists of a horizontal line of different icons. Highlighting an icon will display its options, listed vertically, in the main portion of the screen. As some menus only contain a few options, we felt the tendency to take up the entire screen was a bit unnecessary. Moving from menu item to menu item is unintuitive. Up and down will scroll through the vertical lists of options, which makes sense. Scrolling through the horizontal list, however, uses the left soft key as opposed to left and right. Right is akin to clicking on an item, opening any subfolders or sub-options onscreen; left will back you out of these subfolders/options. We tend to like the visual style of this interface, but the method of controlling it is difficult to grasp. 

Photo Album Software Internal (3.0)

The photo album software will display nine thumbnails at a time. You can create your own folder structure, but since you can't manage multiple pictures at once, organization is a bit of a chore. The album can construct very basic slide shows that cycle through pictures in a given folder, but there aren't many options for customizing the show. Though basic, this is the typical Windows Mobile Standard picture album.

Manual Control (0.0)
The SMT5800 doesn't have any manual controls.

Zoom (1.0)
There is a limited digital zoom, but since picture resolution is already so low, we wouldn't recommend using it. All a digital zoom does is crop the picture and enlarge the result so it appears to have zoomed in. Optical zoom can enlarge an object without sacrificing resolution.

Focus (0.0)
The SMT5800 has a fixed focus for which we don't award points.

Flash (0.0)
There is no flash.

Metering (2.0)
The only metering option the SMT5800 offers is the choice between center or average metering. Typical phones will also offer brightness settings, but the SMT5800 has never been one to follow the crowd, although most phones also don't offer any metering options.

White Balance (2.0)

There are four white balance settings beyond the default automatic mode: daylight, night, incandescent, and fluorescent.

Image Handling (6.0)

As a Windows Mobile phone, the SMT5800 has pretty solid image handling software. You can rotate, crop, or correct the color. Though three options might not look like much, most phones don't have any image handling features.

Video

Overall Video Score (4.0)

The SMT5800 is bad at video capture in terms of resolution and overall interface, but it does have some nice options available. There are a ton of potential capture formats, a specific mode to film MMS video, and a bevy of other options for limiting video. You can even adjust the flicker rate at your leisure. Overall, it's a nice video capture program for a cell phone camera, but it isn't going to take great videos.

Video Resolution (1.61)
The camera on the SMT5800 is just not very good. Though cell phone video is typically terrible, our tests found the resolution to be 125.6 lw/ph horizontally and 127.9 lw/ph vertically (again, lw/ph means line widths per pixel height, and is how our tests measure resolution; an average score would be around 250 lw/ph for each, and an incredible score would be around 400). The video certainly won't be a high quality, but it should be good for viewing on the small screen of a cell phone.

Cell Phone	lw/ph horizontal/vertical	Score
HTC SMT5800	125.6/127.9	1.61
HTC Tilt	895/1082	4.51
Pantech Duo	247/215	5.31
Nokia N82	434/461	20.01
Motorola Q 9m	139/129	1.79
Palm Centro	581/596	6.82

Video Compression (8.0)
The SMT5800 has some good compression options: H.263, 3GPP2, MPEG4, or Motion JPEG.

Interface (4.5)

The interface is very similar to the camera's. A few menu items have been removed or added, but overall it's the same visually impressive interface that's cumbersome to navigate.

Manual Control (0.0)
There is one control we'd consider manual, and that's the flicker adjustment. Basically, lights tend to either flicker at 50 Hz or 60 Hz, depeding on whether you live in the UK or US. Therefore, this option will allow you to compensate for this difference. The result is nothing you'd really notice; it's just to avoid the odd frame that'd get taken between fluorescent blinks. This is a ridiculously minor feature, however, and not really worthy of awarding points for.

Zoom (1.0)
Again, digital zoom is your only option here. Digital zoom essentially lowers the resolution of the capture, and since the video is such a low resolution to begin with, we'd advise against using this feature.

Editing (0.0)
There are no video editing options.

Modes (4.0)
Videos can either be limited for MMS messaging, or limited by time or resolution.

[page title="Making/Receiving Calls"]
Summary
Really, the best we can say of the SMT5800 here is that it's a good bookkeeper. Its call logs are easy to sort and very long, and it keeps extensive timers, both for data and calls. Most of the other areas are either mediocre or negative. Users can't set their music as a ringtone, which is just absurd nowadays. The vibration feature is relatively weak. Pop-up reminders feature a picture of a blue phone on a white background, so you'd have to be staring at the screen in order to catch it. If you stripped away all its other features and judged the SMT5800 solely on its abilities as a phone, it would be mediocre at best.

Dialing Speed (4.60)

We were able to establish an outgoing call in an average of 4.35 seconds. This is pretty slow, and an area where the OS responsiveness really isn't up to snuff. You can enter in the digits in a quarter of a second, but the numbers will show up on screen at their own pace. This was especially annoying to see in a higher-end smart phone when many lower-end devices are far faster. Dialing a number should be a phone's first priority; additional software should not impinge on this functionality. To learn more about this complicated test, click here.


Talk and End Buttons (5.0)
The talk and end buttons on the SMT5800 are mediocre. They have an ok click to them, and are raised enough so you should be able to find them by touch. They aren't, however, differentiated enough given their odd positioning. Running your finger up the key, you'll only recognize your finger is on the key towards its center. Again, they aren't bad keys, just not particularly good.

Call Management (6.0)

    

Call history is located in the Start menu in the Calls folder, but you can also use the right soft key on the home screen. Calls are listed by number or name (if saved as a contact), and can be filtered by missed, incoming, or outgoing. If you click on a call, Your call history with that particular number will pop up, stating the date, time, and duration of the conversations you've had. There are also extensive timers for both calls and data.

When a call comes in, a screen will pop up that gives you a choice to answer or ignore it. If you deign the caller worthy of your time, the soft keys will let you either mute the call or access the menu. The menu contains shortcuts to various applications, like the calendar or the messaging application and will also let you set up conference calls with ease. The only option we missed was an option to record the call.

Startup to Call (2.14)
Starting with the phone off, we weren't able to get a call out for 46.69 seconds. Though this is a really long time to have to wait, it's the unfortunate side-effect of having a smart phone. Relative to other smart phones, the SMT4800 is about an average wait and as you can see below it could be much worse. If you have burning questions about our testing procedure, feel free to ask this link.


Ring Volume (10.31)
To test the phone's ring volume, we place its speaker two inches away from an instrument that measures sound pressure. We then cycle through the built-in ringtones, noting the highest decibel output. The SMT5800 was capable of outputting 103.1 decibels, which is slightly above average. It should be enough to catch your attention from your pocket, purse, or bag, depending on how noisy the world around you is.


Ringtone Customizability (0.0)
You can't set your music files to be ringtones, which is a ridiculous omission. This feature should not be omitted on a modern smart phone. 

Non Audio Alerts (3.0)
Non-audio alerts on the SMT5800 aren't good. The vibration feature is weak and it'd be easy to miss it if it were in your pocked and you were walking. The pop-up screens that notify you of calendar appointments or calls are predominantly white. We'd recommend you keep your volume on if you don't want to miss an alert.

[page title="Messaging"]
Summary
Windows Mobile Standard offers a good set of both email and texting software. BlackBerry users will argue that nothing matches RIM's email interface but Windows Mobile does a solid job for most users. The only area where it falls annoyingly short is in regards to managing multiple messages at once. The phone can only select one message at a time, so mass organization or deletion is simply not possible. Given that the SMT5800 has a QWERTY keyboard with shift keys, it seems a bit ridiculous that the phone can't highlight multiple files.

Supported Email Services (8.0)
Windows Mobile is as understanding as always about email services. In addition to IMAP and POP accounts, it will also automatically look up settings for popular email services like Gmail, Yahoo!, or AOL.

Push Email (3.0)
If you meet the prerequisite of having access to an Exchange server, then the SMT5800 will allow you to use Direct Push. This is the only service it supports out of the box. There is always the option to install other services later, however. 

Multiple Email Accounts (10.0)
The SMT5800 will support at least five email accounts.

HTML and Attachements (7.0)
A somewhat annoying, somewhat useful feature on Windows Mobile Standard phones is how it handles HTML in emails. Initially, HTML will not be shown, which is a good security precuation. If you wish to view the HTML, you'll have to answer "yes" to a few pop-up questions first. If you frequently get newsletters, this feature will be annoying, but of course most phones don't do HTML email at all. In terms of attachments, you can just click on a Word, Excel, or PDF file and it'll open in the appropriate program. 

Email Customizations (5.0)
Most of the email client customizations involve how the inbox is setup. You can choose to show the date and time an email was received, alter the sort method, or make other small changes to the interface. The email client gives you a few options or customizing your inbox. You can set a priority for email, opt to show the date and time, alter how messages are sorted, and sundry tweaks to the interface. You can also create signatures and rules for when a signature should be included. You can't change fonts or increase the number of emails that fit on-screen (only 5 will display at a time). Those serious about email won't like the 5 emails per screen limit, as there aren't any quick ways to scroll through them.

Time to a New Message (5.51)
We were able to browse to a blank email form in 3.63 seconds. Without a shortcut key, this is pretty quick. There is a bit of menu work to get from start to finish but everything was very responsive. Click the link in this sentence if you'd like to learn more about our testing.


Email Usability (5.0)

Windows Mobile Standard's email client is solid. It'll provide the average user with enough tools to write, send, and manage their emails, but a power user might find it a bit lacking. It's hard to manage multiple emails easily, and the only customization option available is your signature. Though not as powerful as the options on a BlackBerry, the SMT5800 should get most users get through their emailing day.

Supported IM Services (0.0)
There are actually no IM services built in to the SMT5800, for some reason the Windows Live instant messaging client that comes standard on most Windows Mobile devices has been removed here.

MMS Support (5.0)
MMS messaging receives basic support. You can send MMS messages straight from an album or the camera/video capture application directly. SMS and MMS messages are kept separate, however, and do not even share an inbox. The SMT5800's main saving grace in this area is both the MMS and SMS messages have easy to use interfaces for creating and manging messages.

SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
As a lifeless machine, the SMT5800 sees only sequential ASCII characters. It will never know the simple joys a smiling, yellow face can bring. 

SMS/MMS Ease of Use (5.0)

The SMS and MMS interface is basically the same as the email interface. If you can use that interface, you can use this one. Also, all the same grievances we had with email we also have with SMS/MMS, mainly that managing multiple messages at once is a pain. There's also no support for advanced features like threaded text messaging as found on Palm devices.

Time to a New SMS Message (2.12)
We were able to open up a blank text message entry form in 4.72 seconds. This is a slow time. Navigation was bogged down a bit by the herd of menus standing between you and your texts. The messaging application shortcut is located in the Start menu, in the center of the first screen. Once in the messaging application, you'll need to select either Text Messages or MMS. This will bring you to either's inbox, where you can bring up a blank text message from the menu.
[page title="Organizer"]
Summary
Like its messaging software, the SMT5800 has some great organizational tools that are second only to the upper echelon of smart phones. Also like messaging, there is really only one aggravation that drags it down. In this case, it's the lack of a notes application. Most carriers or manufacturers address this silly deficiency of Windows Mobile by adding a third party notes application in, but neither HTC or Verizon saw fit to do that in this case.

Synchronization (6.67)

As is typical for Windows Mobile phones, you can synchronize your SMT5800 with ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Manager (on XP and Vista respectively). You will need to install the included software, but that's the extent of setting everything up. Virtually everything can be synchronized: Contacts (with photos), calendar entries, tasks, and any file. PIM information will be synchronized via Outlook or, if available, Windows basic PIM management programs. The SMT5800 doesn't support synchronization with Mac out of the box, you'll have to go looking for some third party software like The Missing Sync.

Over the Air PIM Sync (2.0)
You can perform an over-the-air PIM synchronization with Exchange. This, of course, means you'll need access to an Exchange server. Assuming you do, you'll be able to sync up your contacts, tasks and calendar information. 

Alerts (2.0)
Alerts have never really been Windows Mobile Standard's strong suit. The reminder that pops up that has a gray background with no animation, so it's not very eye-catching. The alarm sound will only chirp once before giving up. We expect our phones to try just a bit harder to remind us of our appointments.

Address Book

Adding Contacts (5.71)
It took 17.52 seconds for us to add a contact, which is an average speed for a smart phone. The quickest way to store a contact with the SMT5800 is to dial the number first, then opt to save it as a contact. Given how slow the SMT5800 is to dial, we were surprised it was able to score as well as it did. For more info on how we conduct this test, see this article.


Looking/Sorting/Search (6.0)

Users are provided with a few ways to search or sort through contacts. You could use either the QWERTY or keypad with T9 to type out names, either first or last. You can also scroll around with the d-pad if that's more your thing. If you wish to filter your contacts, you can choose either name or company as your filtration criteria. 

Fields (8.5)

Contacts will have 43 different fields for users to customize (or ignore). If you've always had a hard time remembering someone's radio phone number, or their Government ID, the SMT5800 is happy to remind you. Though a comprehensive series of fields, true obsessive-compulsives should know that Series 60 Symbian handsets also allow users to create custom fields, which you can't on the SMT5800 and other Windows Mobile devices. 

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (6.0)
There are 99 potential potential speed dial assignments, minus a few pre-assigned functions like voicemail. You can assign any contact or application to a speed dial, which is a great way of extending the functionality of speed dials. There are no voice tags, but the voice command software was able to recognize every one of our diverse test names. 

Calendar

Adding Calendar Items (8.51)
The SMT5800 was able to add items faster than average, but compared to other smart phones it was a bit slow. This is partially because we used the QWERTY to type out the subject line, and holding the phone in this position makes navigating with the d-pad a bit awkward. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.


Calendar Views (4.67)
If you've used any Windows Mobile device before, either Standard or Professional, you can go ahead and skip this section. The SMT5800 fails to make any sort of change to the typical design and functionality of the calendar. If you're still reading, then you might be interested to learn that there are three views: month, week, and agenda.

This month view is like most cell phone month views: uninformative. You can tell what days have at least one appointment on them -- they get a colored dog-ear in their top right corner -- but beyond this superficial knowledge the month view offers nothing. It's actually less functional than a paper calendar, because holidays and other days of interest aren't labeled. If you want to learn more about a specific day, you can click to check out the agenda view.

The week view is virtually a constant amongst all cell phones: hours down the left side, days across the top, the resulting grid shows appointments in purple. Unlike month view, highlighting a busy time will display a few tidbits of information, such as its title, start, and end time.

Some of you may be disappointed to find out that agenda view is actually a mislabeled day view. Agenda views display all scheduled items, past, present, and future. This agenda view only displays items on a given day. Granted, it's a great day view: it has a timeline at the top that blocks out your free and busy time. This innovation doesn't, however, make it an agenda view. 

Fields (10.0)

Calendar appointments receive 13 fields. All the basic fields are present and accounted for. More uncommon fields, such as an all-day-event, recurrence, and the ability to invite people are all present on the SMT5800. There are a few other fields as well, such as status and sensitivity. One field that is both important and missing is category. Not being able to assign categories means that appointments can't be filtered based on whether they are business or personal (or anything else). Given that both tasks and contacts can be categorized, this omission is about twice as disappointing.

ToDo/Tasks

Adding ToDo/Task (6.41)
We were able to add a task in 15.6 seconds, which is about average. The task application is filed under "Applications" in the Start menu, which is a bit of a pain to navigate to. Once you've opened it, however, it's not hard to plug in all your info. For more info on this timing test, read this article.


ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (7.0)

Tasks can be given a priority of low, normal, or high. They can also be assigned a category which they can later be filtered by. are a few options for prioritizing and sorting tasks. You can assign one of three priorities to your tasks: low, normal, or high. Categories can also be assigned, which a user can filter by. Finally, users can opt to sort their tasks by status, priority, subject, start date, or due date.

Fields (10.0)

The SMT5800 has all the fields we look for in tasks. Until task functionality is revolutionized by some incredible scientific breakthrough, this phone shouldn't disappoint anyone.

Notes

Adding Notes (0.0)
The SMT5800 gets a giant zero here, which is really disappointing. First of all, such functionality should simply be part of the Windows Mobile Standard OS. Secondly, when HTC and Verizon were tweaking the device, either one of them could've easily dropped in a notepad. The absence of a note application is only exacerbated by Windows Mobile Standard's horribly crippled version of Word: you can only edit document files, not make new ones. Therefore, unless you toss a blank document file onto your memory card, it can't be used as an ad-hoc notepad. 

Note Interface (0.0)
N/A: no notes application.

Note Formatting (0.0)
N/A: no notes application.

Voice Memo (8.0)

The voice memo application is the typical, incredibly basic Windows Mobile affair. Recording a message will show a giant timer on the screen in 00:00 format. There is no obvious cap on message length; we're assuming the only limits you'd have to abide by are available memory and the timer's inability to count to more than 99:59.

Recordings can be renamed, deleted, or set as ringtones, but there are no sorting options. They will be stored in the order they were recorded.

[page title="Multimedia"]
Summary
As a Windows Mobile phone, the SMT5800 relies heavily on Windows Media Player (WMP) for its media playback. As fortune would have it, WMP is a solid little program, so the SMT5800 could've been far worse off. The phone doesn't have any dedicated media controls, however, and can't control music playback from the home screen. There's a plugin that essentially puts a tiny media player on the home screen, but it wasn't included. Even so, controlling music without dedicated keys is simply a pain. The SMT5800, while a more gifted media device that other business handsets, still can't compete with dedicated devices.

Accessing Music Software (2.91)
With the SMT5800, a song is always about 6.87 seconds away, which is a bit of a pain. This is actually slower than typical smart phones, due mainly to the lack of a ready music shortcut. Some versions of Windows Mobile have home screen plugins that will allow you to play music very easily. The SMT5800 does not, so we were forced to browse the old-fashioned way. Learn more about this test by clicking here.


Dedicated Music Controls (0.0)
The SMT5800 does not have any dedicated music controls. Everything is software-based; even the volume control -- which is handled by the volume rocker on most phones -- has to be managed through the software.

What we mean by "dedicated music controls" are hardware keys/buttons/etc. that perform media control functions. We also count keys that may have other funcitons, but change to perform media-specific functions when a song is playing in the background. As a general rule, we start music playing, then browse to the home screen or close the phone; if a button still controls the music, then we award it points here. To further clarify, if left and right on the d-pad skip between songs when the music player is open, but cease to do so when music is playing the in the background no points are awarded.

Music Software Functionality and Organization (6.8)

Those with Windows-based PCs are probably familiar with how Windows Media Player works. WMP for PCs is a capable media player, and the mobile version -- which graces the SMT5800 -- is very similar.

The mobile version of Windows Media Player (WMP) is simple to use. It still won't automatically add songs to your library, however, which was a bit annoying. It will perform a scan when prompted, however saving you a drag and drop job. WMP will support playlists, but only if they were created or previously imported into your PC's Windows Media Player. You can also create a playlist on the device, which is fairly simple to do.  You can sort your music by title (all music), artist, album and genre. There is no active search. Your files do inherit their ratings, as given by a PC version of Windows Media Player and you can rate music on the device and have those ratings sync back to your PC.

There is no equalizer or visualization, though these are uncommon features even amongst music-oriented handsets. One interesting feature is the ability to map or remap shortcut keys for many different functions. You can play music in the background, however this isn't the default. You'll need to go into the player's settings and uncheck the "pause playback while using another program" box. While a nice option to include, we really disagree with the choice to make it the default. We can see many beginner-level users not finding this setting right away and wondering why their music goes away when they go off to check email.

Online Song Downloading (0.0)
Despite being a Verizon handset there is no support for Verizon's VCast music store.

Streaming (2.0)
As a Windows Mobile Standard handset, the only streaming audio format you can listen to is WMA (windows media audio). Streaming MP3 and all other formats will result in an error message.

Podcast Support (0.0)
Podcasts find themselves again neglected.

Music Sync with PC (7.0)
Synchronizing music with the PC can be done two different ways. The ubiquitous method is connecting the phone and using Windows Media Player to sync. You can also use the included software, but we believe you're better off just sticking with WMP.

Music Formats and DRM (4.0)
The SMT5800 is capable of playing WMA files, with or without DRM, as well as MP3 and AAC files.

Music Interruption (10.0)
If you get a call while listening to music, the playback will pause for the duration of the call, then automatically resume. This is exactly what it should do. The only way the phone could've garnered more points in this area is if it also had fade-in options.

Video

Video Software Access (3.26)
It took about 6.14 seconds for us to get a video up. Surprisingly, it was a bit faster to get the video to play than it was to get the song. Overall, this score isn't bad. Typically videos have a long load time, but the SMT5800 started playback fairly quickly (for a Windows Mobile smartphone, at least). Compared to our running average of all the phones we review, as of this article's publication, the SMT5800 was actually about a third of a second faster. More info on this test is here.


Video Controls (5.0)
The video player is also Windows Media Player, so the controls for video playback are identical to those of musc playback. Left and right skip around, up and down control the volume, and select will alternate between play and pause. The "Now Playing" list can be accessed via the left soft key, and the right soft key will pull up the menu. The menu will let you stop the playback, open the library, or fool around with shuffle and repeat settings, amongst a few other, minor options.

Video Software & Organization (4.0)

Both music and video use Windows Media Player, but videos aren't organized nearly as well. Videos are only differentiated by title and genre. This is disappointing, since the videos do retain their tags, so the potential for additional search/sort criteria is definitely present.

Video Sync with PC (7.0)
As with music, Windows Media Player will worry about synchronization so you don't have to.

Video Formats (3.0)
The SMT5800's copy of Windows Media Player will allow you to watch 3GPP, MP4, and Windows Media files. Flash, Real, or other, more obscure video files.

Video DRM (5.0)
As a Windows Mobile handset, it should be no surprise that the only supported DRM is for Windows Media Video files. Of course most phones don't support any form of video DRM so this is a bonus. You can purchase DRM protected videos from places like Amazon's Unboxed Store.

Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
We were able to play back all our test files with no issue. Each test file, which different bitrates up to 768 kbps, played without any stuttering, slowdown, or crashes. 

Online Video Downloading (0.0)
Currently there aren't any handsets that offer a software-based client for video downloads. The SMT5800 is just another face in the crowd.

Video Streaming unscored
We don't score video streaming because there is no standard for us to judge it against. As such we just browse to a few popular sites and see if they work. Youtube and Zoovision were both beyond the scope of the SMT5800. In a shocking turn of events, however, the phone was able to play videos streaming from WindowsMedia.com.

[page title="Software"]
Summary
Windows Mobile Standard is basically a slightly crippled version of Windows Mobile Professional. It's limitations are annoying, but it's still a very capable software suite. It's ridiculously extensible, so any feature you're missing is probably just a download away. The downside is that the phone is pretty bare bones out of the box, so chances are you'll need to make use of the phone's extensibility right off the bat.

OS (8.0)

As a Windows Mobile Standard phone, the SMT5800 gets eight points. Windows Mobile Standard is a powerful operating system that's very flexible. Its downside is it tends to need a lot of hardware to back it up or else it'll run very slowly.

Home Screen Score (6.0)

The SMT5800 comes with the typical Windows Mobile Standard home screen. Recently used applications will line up across the top, just underneath the signal and battery indicators. Under that is the time, along with a reminder that you're using Verizon Wireless. Next down is where upcoming appointments will be listed. The final few home screen items are the current profile, voicemail and text inboxes, and a Verizon-added "Get Applications" link that no one should never use. The botom has soft key shortcuts for the Start menu and contacts list. Some versions of Windows Mobile also have a media player plugin on the home screen for managing your music, but the SMT5800 doesn't come with this feature.

Extensibility (7.0)
Windows Mobile Standard is as extensible as always. If you feel some application isn't quite up to snuff, or you want something that doesn't come built-in, then a solution is just a quick Google search away.

Customizability (4.0)
Though the extensibility makes the phone very customizable, out of the box there's not much to do. The home screen layout can be changed, as can the wallpaper and color scheme. The phone supports profiles, and it has some specific power settings. You can't change the global font, or reorganize the main menu, however. We did like you could set any application to a speed dial.

OS Responsivness (5.0)
The SMT5800 is sporadically responsive, which makes the times it lags all the more frustrating. Windows Mobile Standard is generally slower than most other smart phone operating systems. In the SMT5800's case, however, it's quick to navigate and open most applications. Some menus and applications take longer than others, and dialing is really frustrating. The screen is also slow to respond to the QWERTY keyboard being slid out, which is typical for Windows Mobile sliders. The SMT5800 is very responsive compared to other Windows Mobile phones, however; if you're looking for an upgrade, chances are the SMT5800 will seem speedy by comparison to something like the original Motorola Q. 

Browser Features (7.0)
Mobile Internet Explorer is the browser the SMT5800 is packaged with. It can handle both WAP and HTML. Javascript is supported, but the browser had problems with our test page. We had no such issues with cookies or encryption; in fact, there are a ton of encryption settings.

Browsing Interface (6.0)

Mobile IE's interface isn't complicated, especially if you've used regular IE before. The left soft key will bring up bookmarks, the right soft key is the menu. In the menu you'll find typical browsing tools and view options. 

The different views are one column, fit to screen, and desktop. True to their names, one column will squeeze everything into a single screen width, fit to screen will shrink down the page so it's visible in its entirety, and desktop is a traditional browser view (albiet limited by the non-monitor-sized display). Unlike more advanced mobile browsers such as the one on Series 60 devices or Safari, IE doesn't have a page overview, which displays a miniature map of what you're viewing in relation to the entire page.

IE's implementation of web history is poor. Opening up your history will literally display a list of URLs without any description, organization options, or dates. Favorites receive better support, since you can create folders and manage them, so we'd recommend using them instead of trusting your site's fate to web history.

Browser Access (5.00)
It takes eight steps to browse to a specific web page with the SMT5800, which is about average. The first step is to open up the Start menu (1). From here you'll have to browse to (2) and click on (3) the IE shortcut. After the browser launches, you have to hit the menu key (4), then hit 2 on the keypad (5) to select the "Go to address" option. From here you'll have to erase whatever URL begins in the address box (6) and type in your own (7). At this point you're just a soft key's click (8) away from browsing to the site you desire.

We choose to measure browser access in steps rather than by time. When browser access time is thrown into the equation, arbitrary variables like geographic location can suddenly sway the result dramatically. Typically time is a good indicator of hassle since it either implies an overly-complicated sequence or slow responsiveness. In this instance, however, counting the number of steps is the most consistent way to measure phones against each other.


Gaming (3.0)

The SMT5800 isn't made for gaming. The d-pad is really squat, making it hard to use the up and down arrows. Also, the rest of the externals keys are so crammed together you'd either need small fingers or ridiculous coordination to get a great gaming experience. Regardless, the SMT5800's two built-in, full-version games aren't particularly taxing on reflexes. The first is Bubble Breaker, which is like a less interactive version of Bejeweled. The second game is Solitaire, a game who everyone who owned Windows 3.1 is familiar with. The SMT5800's gaming options are good for passing by the time quietly, but not much more than that.

Calculator (6.0)

The calculator application on the STM5800 has a very simple interface. The d-pad is set to the four basic operations, with the center key set to the equals sign. Some advanced operations, such as square roots, inverse fraction, and memory functions, are located in the menu.

Alarm (2.5)
The SMT5800 is cursed with the basic Windows Mobile alarm functionality. Only one alarm can be set at a time. Like the calendar recurrence options, you can set the alarm to sound every day, every day except Saturday, or every day except Sunday. Again, we're not sure why you can't sleep in the whole weekend, but we're sure Windows Mobile has its reasons. The snooz timer has some good options available for customization

You can set the snooz timer, tone, and even jot a note to remind you why your phone wakes you up every day except Sunday. While this is more robust than the older Windows Mobile Standard alarm functionality -- whose only fields are set time and alarm on/off -- it still isn't good.

Document Software (4.5)

The SMT5800 has interesting versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel. In an effort to keep Windows Mobile Professional different from Windows Mobile Standard, certain things have been disabled. Regardless of anyone's opinions on the practice of crippling software, we think everyone has to agree that Windows Mobile Standard's approach to this is laughably bad. These programs have been crippled so they can only edit -- not create -- documents. Of course, the easy work-around for this is to simply keep a blank Word, Excel, or Powerpoint document saved somewhere. That way you can keep "editing" the blank file, and save your progress as a new one. This "feature" isn't so much a cripple as it is a pointless detour. With such an easy solution, we have to ask ourselves why anyone thought this would be a good idea.

Other Software (0.0)

The SMT5800 has a file browser, which typically deserves a point or so. Unfortunately, the included file browser is absolutely abysmal. You can't easily manage multiple files, which is one of the main purposes of a file browser. There is also an interesting communications manager, but it doesn't offer enough functionality to merit any points.

[page title="Battery Life"]
Summary
A smart phone is usually meant to be a two-in-one device, mixing a PDA and a cell phone. Throw in media player functionality, and smart phones are destined to have a life of constant use ahead of them. As this is the case, the SMT5800's abysmal battery life really kills its appeal. This is, by far, the worst aspect of the phone, and ruins an otherwise solid device.

Call Time (2.76)
We test call time by calling the phone on Skype and playing a never-ending conversation over both ends of the line. We leave the call going until the phone's battery dies. Typically phones last from 4-6 hours, with many smart phones lasting 8 or more. The SMT5800 died after 2 hours, 18 minutes, which is shockingly fast. We actually ordered a second test phone because we thought our first loan had a busted battery. While we've determined that yes, it did have some battery issue, this second, higher score wasn't much better. This talk time is simply not excusable on a phone that costs $200. If you're a heavy talker, you'll have to carry the charger around with you or invest in a slew of backup batteries.


Music Playback (3.59)
Testing music playback is as simple as putting an album on repeat, and then recording the decibel output. The point at which the oscilloscope flatlines is when the battery dies.

The SMT5800 lasted for 4 hours, 59 minutes in this test. Good, solid music playback battery life will fall somewhere betwen seven and eight hours, and a select few break the ten-hour mark. At 4 hours, 59 minutes, the phone will last you through the majority of a coast-to-coast flight, but don't expect to make a call when you land.




Web Browsing (3.94)
Our test for web browsing seems self-sufficient enough: we browse to a sequence of sites that automatically redirect to each other every ten seconds. Generally we can leave this test going in front of a camera, then come back later to check on it. This was not the case with the SMT5800, however. This phone would browse for 10-15 minutes at a time, then quit back to the home screen. There was no error message, and the application didn't really close. We're guessing it was a battery-saving feature that couldn't be turned off, but this is only conjecture. In any case, it was annoying as we had to sit and watch the phone, manually restarting Internet Explorer every 10-15.

The test limped on in this way for 3 hours and 17 minutes, 1-2 hours shy of average. If you're a big fan of the internet, you'll have to monitor your usage carefully, lest you render your phone incapable of placing phone calls.

Idle Time unscored
We don't score idle time, because it'd take months to get data sets. Verizon states that the SMT5800's idle time is 163 hours.

[page title="Connectivity"]
Summary
As a CDMA phone, the SMT5800 will only work in a handful of countries. Its Bluetooth is lacking for a smart phone. It also doesn't support wi-fi or, to a less important extent, infrared. The SMT5800 is not the most well connected phone on the market.

Cellular Bands (4.0)
The SMT5800, as a Verizon phone, runs on CDMA networks. As most of the world uses the GSM standard instead this means the SMT5800 is not a good choice for world travellers.

Data Support Score (6.0)
For data, SMT5800 users will have to rely on EVDO, which provides download speeds between 500 and 700 kbps. If you somehow fall between the EVDO network's cracks, you'll use 1x RTT, which is much slower. 

Bluetooth (4.0)
This phone runs Bluetooth 1.2, with profiles for wireless headset, handsfree, A2DP (stereo headset), and serial port. Windows Mobile is capable of supporting far more Bluetooth profiles, it looks like Verizon's history of crippling Bluetooth rears its ugly head again.

Wi-Fi (0.0)
The SMT5800 wants nothing to do with wi-fi.

Infrared (0.0)
Infrared is hardly used any more; the SMT5800 doesn't dwell on the past.

[page title="Hardware"]
Summary
The SMT5800 has a good QWERTY keyboard and is average everywhere else. Its screen is a bit larger than average, but this is true for many smart phones. The only other area that sticks out is the phone's lack of a standard headphone jack.

Keypad

Text Words Per Minute (9.56)

For the keypad timing test, we input a sample paragraph and time ourselves. In the case of phones with multiple input methods, we test out both and use the faster score. For the SMT5800, the internal pad too 20.09 seconds to finish and the external took 24.1 seconds. This works out to 47.78 and 39.83 words per minute respectively. This is really not a surprise. QWERTY keypads are usually better than standard 12-key arrays, regardless of whether or not T9 is on. To read more on this test, click here.

T9 and Auto Complete (10.0)
Both T9 and auto-complete receive support on the SMT5800. In fact, both are initially turned on as default entry methods. This will optimize entry on the external keypad, but is somewhat annoying when entering unrecognized words.

One Hand Usability (7.37)

This is the same test as the previous texting timing test, only we only use one hand. This time, the outside pad was the winner, finishing in 26.05 seconds (versus the QWERTY's 34.38 seconds) for a words per minute score of 36.85 (versus 26.05). This result follows a trend as well: though QWERTY keyboards offer a slight advantage compared to keypads, they are simply too unweildly to use with one hand. For more info on this test, check out this article.


Keypad Backlighting (6.0)
The keypad is backlit very well. The blue lights are even and bright, and even allow the letters and symbols to shine through clearly. The green and blue phones for the send and end keys are less bright, but their different colors still allow them to stand out. There is also a time-out setting in the power management screen.

Controls

D-Pad/Joystick (4.0)
The SMT5800's d-pad has problems. The up and down arrows are simply too thin to not get in your way from time to time. Moving from up to down requires your finger to hop over the really convex select key. Besides this one significant drawback, it does have a lot of redeeming qualities, like good tactile response. The high lip towards the edges make the d-pad easy to find by touch and also help corral your fingers so you don't accidentally hit surrounding keys. If the tiny up and down arrows were even slightly bigger, this would be a great d-pad.

Touch Screen (0.0)
Though it's large, touching the SMT5800's screen will only smudge it.

Jog Dial (0.0)
The SMT5800 has no jog dial. Not even the volume keys -- which sometimes allow you to scroll through lists -- lend a helping hand.

Soft Buttons (7.0)
The soft buttons are decent. They have some good snap to them, are easy to find since their relation to the d-pad is the same as most soft keys; assuming you've used a typical cell phone before, your fingers will find them easily. Even if your finger memory isn't the greatest, they have little hyphen-like bumps on them to aid in touch navigation. These are all-around solid soft buttons.

Volume Control (5.0)
The volume switch is a bit disconcerting. It slides up and down along the side of the phone, with a spring that moves it back to neutral. Since it's a switch, it doesn't have the tactile response a button would, so it can be confusing if you've accidentally done it multiple times or not at all.

Power and Standby (4.0)
The power button is on the top of the left side of the phone. It only performs its namesake action as a secondary function, but the length of time you need to hold it in for is relatively short. The button doesn't have the best tactile response, which will probably make most users squeeze the button far harder than they need to. 

Other Buttons (3.0)
There are three additional buttons not covered above. There's a home key, a back key, and a shutter button. Holding down the shutter button will open the camera application. The home and back keys do exactly what you'd expect of them.

Display

Primary Screen Gross Resolution (8.0)
Like many, many, many other phones (as is no doubt illustrated by the below table), the SMT5800 has a 320 x 240 pixel display. Since the screen is a bit larger than average, we might have expected a bit more pixels. As it is, 320 x 240 is a fine number of pixels to have, but we can't help pining for a VGA display.

Cell Phone	Resolution	Score
HTC SMT5800	320 x 240	8.0
HTC Tilt	320 x 240	8.0
Pantech Duo	320 x 240	8.0
Nokia N82	320 x 240	8.0
Motorola Q 9m	320 x 240	8.0
Palm Centro	320 x 320	8.5

Primary Screen Pixels per Inch (8.33)
The combination of an average resolution and larger than average screen size would mean the SMT5800 is a bit behind the pixel density curve, but fortunately it runs with an above average crew. Therefore, the 166.67 pixels in contains in every inch is about average for phones in its class. A low pixel density will mean blurrier lines and washed-out colors.

Screen Physical Size (6.0)
The screen is a larger-than-average 2.4 inches diagonally. This would be above average on most phones, but smart phone tend to have larger screen sizes.


Screen Brightness (9.0)
To test screen brightness, we browse to a blank white webpage, then hold the screen two inches away from a light sensor. We measured the total lux at 90, which is bright enough to use as a makeshift flashlight should the need arise.

There are different backlight time settings that apply either when the phone is plugged in or when it's runing from battery. There are also ten levels of brightness to choose from, and the ability to enable the phone's light sensor.

Screen Bright Light Performance (8.0)
The SMT5800 performed well on this test. What we did was shine 3000 lux onto the screen in order to simulate the glare effects of a sunny day. We were able to read everything and make out icons in spite of the glare.

Color Depth (6.0)
The SMT5800 can only display 65,000 colors, because that's the maximum Windows Mobile Standard currently supports. Some phones can display slightly over 16 million colors, which allows colors to be very deep. At 65,000, the colors will be fine for most use, but not very good for rendering graphic art.

Cell Phone	Colors (thousands)	Score
HTC SMT5800	65	6.0
HTC Tilt	65	6.0
Pantech Duo	65	6.0
Nokia N82	16,000	10.0