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HTC Smart early review: Won't you think of the children?

The HTC Sense aims to bring a slightly smarter phone to the kids, with a user interface similar to the HTC Legend, but lacking Android's smart phone features

Flora Graham
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HTC has come up with two of the most exciting phones of Mobile World Congress -- the HTC Legend and the HTC Desire. But for those of us with nothing but a linty sweet in our pockets, there's also HTC's new budget phone, the HTC Smart.

Instead of Android or Windows, the Sense runs Qualcomm's Brew platform, which has been given a facelift with HTC's Sense user interface. That means Smart users get widgets and home screens that look like the pricier Legend, but with a much simpler and more basic user interface. Y'know, for kids.

The Smart is coming exclusively to O2 in the UK, and although prices haven't been confirmed, we expect it'll be even cheaper than the HTC Tattoo.

Like the Tattoo, the Smart has a resistive touchscreen, which means you'll need fingernails or the firm pressure of a finger to get it to work. We don't think it's as fast and responsive as the capacitive type on the Legend, but it does keep costs down.

There's 3.2Mbps HSPA to keep you connected, but no Wi-Fi on board. But with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and room for a microSD memory card, HTC hasn't skimped too much on features.

Watch our video below, then click 'Continue' to check out the smartie-pants.

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The Smart apes its more expensive siblings, such as the HTC Legend, with widgets on the home screen that show you live updates from your social networks, for example.
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The Smart's lock screen unlocks with the swipe of a fingernail on the phone's 71mm (2.8-inch) resistive touchscreen.
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The back of the Smart sports a 3-megapixel camera with an LED photo light.
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Simple menus aim to make features easy for people who have stayed away from smart phones in the past.

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