Gigabyte G-Smart MS800

Windows Mobile handsets are ten a penny these days, so manufacturers have to go that extra mile to if they want their products to stand out. The likes of eTen and Acer go for super-sexy designs; HTC crams in as many features as they possibly can; while others opt for innovative software or control methods.

More often than not, it's a combination of these things that helps a Windows Mobile handset to be successful though, and Gigabyte has chosen an innovative software interface, a good dollop of power and plenty of features for the new the G-Smart MS800.

Fire it up and you're presented with the usual Windows Mobile Today screen, but press a large button at the top and you're whisked into Gigabyte's Smart Touch user-interface overlay, designed, like HTC's TouchFLO, to make the business of using the phone with fingers a little easier.

Rather than filling up the G-Smart MS800’s screen with buttons and information, however, Gigabyte's Smart Touch UI is minimalist. The centre portion of the screen is almost empty – there are just a few small clickable status icons line up along the top edge, and a ribbon of four finger-sized shortcut buttons run along the bottom.

Swipe your finger right to left or vice versa over the latter, however, and the screen comes to life, with more shortcuts rolling into view, complete with iPhone-style, super-smooth animation. Buttons can be added to this swipe strip and rearranging icons can be achieved by simply dragging them around. If you want to remove anything, it's just as easy – just drag it to the top of the screen and drop it on the 'X'.

This is certainly a pretty and pleasing improvement on the standard Windows Mobile Today screen, but alas, Gigabyte just hasn't gone far enough. Unlike HTC's TouchFLO, Smart Touch has no enhancements to the way the standard Windows Mobile applications are controlled and lacks useful touches like the weather display and button-sized contact shortcuts. Instead, after clicking an icon you're dumped unceremoniously back into Windows Mobile mode. More crucially, perhaps, there's no addition on the text entry front and it's crying out for something better than Microsoft's woeful stylus-centric effort.

Under the G-Smart MS800's skin beats a powerful heart and there are plenty of options for mobile data. You get Bluetooth 2.0 and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, an FM tuner, plus a GPS receiver complete with basic tracking and location display software. The 520MHz processor makes Windows Mobile run with a nip that’s absent from phones like as the Acer P320 or the slightly under-powered HTC TyTN II.

But it's not all good news. The G-Smart MS800’s processor is backed up with a miserly 64Mb of RAM and 256MB of ROM looks mean next to the 1Gb of storage provided by the MWg Atom Life. Moreover, though the G-Smart MS800 comes with a tool that allows you to put it into power saver mode, this doesn't seem help the phone achieve anything close to what you'd call acceptable battery life. The longest we managed to eke out of the Gigabyte's 1300mAh lithium polymer battery was a single day of use; that's simply not good enough.

The 2-megapixel camera on the rear is nothing to write home about – there's no flash nor portrait mirror and, as with most smartphone cameras, we found images to be poorly focussed and exposed. The fact that it has a geotagging function linked up to the GPS receiver is neither here nor there if the photos aren’t up to scratch.

Ironically, the G-Smart MS800 is recognised by Windows as a Gigabyte Swan; but we struggled to see more than an ugly duckling. It’s slim enough, but its boxy shape feels too wide in the hand and expanse of case below the screen (dedicated to just a few buttons) gives it a lopsided look.

All this means that despite a number of other useful software extras, such as a neat pop-up shortcut menu and a backup application, the G-Smart MS800 is a disappointment. The interface enhancements are nice to have and there’s a decent array of features, but that’s about all it has going for it. If you desperately want a decent Windows Mobile smartphone sans keyboard, we'd recommend you forgo the GPS and go for an MWg Atom Life or the smaller, slimmer, lighter Asus P320.