Vodafone Smart II

The Smart II is tiny, even compared to other phones in our August 2012 roundup, but it’s surprisingly attractive. The screen resolution is better than any of the other ‘budget’ smartphones I tested for the roundup, and only the Xperia U has better overall, though the Ideos X3, Defy Mini and Samsung Galaxy Gio are its equal.

The Smart II’s setup wizard was buggy for me, and I couldn’t get it to connect to my hidden Wi-Fi network (it found it fine once I made it visible). Despite its HSDPA/HSUPA, connection was at times slow, too. The keyboard is mostly accurate, although it highlights pressed keys rather than showing them enlarged, meaning that sometimes mistyping is inevitable. Having said that, the autocorrect is good and it has Swype providing a handy alternative to hunting and pecking on the tiny keys.

Don’t let these gripes worry you: this is an excellent phone with a few hiccups, rather than a phone with serious flaws. In fact, its nimble speed and responsiveness to navigation made it the nicest of the phones I looked at, despite it being the cheapest. That’s probably thanks its fast processor and large RAM combination.

To give you some idea of the impressiveness of the phone, it was able to run Monsters Ate My Condo, although each action was a firm press-and-flick, rather than the deft light flick of something like the Samsung Galaxy S3. For a phone that costs 20% of the price, though, that’s nothing short of astonishing.

The screen is bright, crisp and immensely readable – using Facebook or email is a pleasure, and games look fleshed out. This was the last phone we received in August, and It’s hard to put into words just how much of a breath of fresh air using this phone was after everything else.

There’s even a dedicated camera button and LED flash for the 3MP camera.
The only other downside worth noting is that the battery depletes quite rapidly when you’re performing intensive tasks. Given that this is one of the few phones here capable of those types of tasks, it’s worth noting. You likely won’t notice if you’re one of the Facebook, web, YouTube crowd.

It’s neck and neck between the Y100 and this phone for supremacy at the lower price point, but the Smart II just wins out for its bigger screen and Swype.