HTC Smart - their first "dumb" phone

HTC has never, ever let anything out of its doors that could wear the "smart you-name-it" tag. Their range of "smart" phones boasted devices of all colors and shapes, including Windows Mobile and Android, however feature phones were nowhere to be found. Why? A proprietary OS requires a totally different kind of investment, and making it not go in vain is a totally different story - it makes no sense to keep such a project going just for the sake of one or two models. And if you decide to churn out a handful of solutions, naturally, you'll need to distribute them somehow, which brings us back to our first point.

That's why back in August 2009, when I was having a chat with HTC's CEO, Peter Chou, the question that was number one on my agenda sounded like this: "How do you plan to enter the feature phone market, what OS will you employ and how will you protect your investment?". Naturally, I couldn't get a straight answer, but I remember writing the following back then:

"Our conversation contained no hints that would be worth mentioning here whatsoever. I bombarded Mr. Chou with other questions related to HTC' strategy, but to no avail. However, based on the speed of his answers and his integrity (the bits of it that I managed to recognize), I came to one conclusion. Everything that's going to follow is nothing but my own opinion, and has nothing to do with, nor was it suggested by any of Mr. Chou's open statements or answers.

HTC will release not only smartphones, but also some feature phones down the line. The only question is when. And my guess is that we'll see first solutions of this kind in their line-up in 2-3 years' time. Their transition to the lifestyle concept is only the first step towards this market. And I'm positive that the current market volume will allow for one more company out there with a fair share, that will guarantee a reasonable return on their investment. Again, these are just my thoughts, but judging by a couple of indicators I believe HTC are moving in this direction."

Since my words often require some clarification, I feel that I must explain what my statement about "2-3 years" - basically it's a rough estimate of the time HTC would need to get to the point when their non-smartphone solutions would occupy a stable market share, as opposed to the period of aggressive line-up inflation. In other words, I was referring to stage when their line-up would be comprised of a variety of devices (the period when they have only one model out there normally doesn't matter that much). Now that we are through with this issue, I hope you understand everything.

So, HTC set off a huge wave at the CES, codenamed "Smart" (which, by the way, is a registered trademark), following in the footsteps of Samsung with their Jet. Basically, they are saying that any feature phone can be a smartphone - it's not about what OS it carries onboard, or what its CPU's clock rate is, it's about what the end-user gets. 99% of all consumers go for very specific functions and features (be it an 8 MP camera or a mobile Twitter widget), rather than hardware - the latter is adored only by a very small group of geeks.

Samsung knew that, and the release of Bad was a step in this direction. Many journalists keep dreaming about it being some sophisticated OS, maybe Linux or something. But I've got a couple of Bada-powered phones on my hands and I can't say they are vastly different from TouchWiz II UI-wise, they still run on Samsung's proprietary OS and that's about it. It's got a better user interface, but it's not a Linux-based phone by any stretch of imagination (but we will see them down the line, as you might remember, Samsung put their TouchWiz on top of all OS they've got at their disposal).

So, what did Samsung view as their forte? User interface, so they banked on it. What does HTC consider as its trump? Surprisingly, user interface too, at this point in time it's Sense. The OS their phone is running on is BREW MP (as far as I understand third-party apps aren't supported at this time). In a nutshell, it's a turn-key OS that got Sense tacked on it, along with a touch-sensitive display. Just like what Samsung did.

HTC have entered the feature phone market as a smartphone manufacturer, hence the codename "Smart" and its design that looks very similar to their real smartphones. And to be honest, it does look pretty. Spec-wise, the Smart is nothing out of the ordinary - 300 Mhz CPU, no 3D accelerator onboard, not much RAM. So there is no chance geeks will fall for it. However all menus are blazing fast, which is what really matters to the ordinary consumer. He'll also be happy to see a 2.8-inch resistive display with both a standard keypad and QWERTY keybpard (in the landscape mode). Interestingly enough, it'll sport only 240x320 resolution, which isn't much by today's standard, but will do just fine in its target price bracket. Plus there will be a 3 MP camera, a microSD memory card slot, a mobile Twitter widget and a 1100 mAh battery.

The HTC Smart is set to hit the shelves in May at the price point of 200 Euro, which will put it right up against Samsung's and LG's phones, even Nokia will have to take this bold newcomer into consideration too. Their first efforts in this field won't change the landscape of the feature phone market, but as far as HTC are concerned, they have made themselves secure against the decline of Windows Mobile - now they've got a great pillow to fall on, should anything happen. A right step in the right direction that jeopardizes Nokia's strategy even more, since now they'll have an even tougher time explaining why an S60-based smartphone is better than a feature phone to their mid-range audience.

Eldar Murtazin ([email protected])
Twitter    Livejournal
Published on — March 18, 2010

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