Best Smart Phones in Market

The HTC Tattoo represents the budget version of the company’s high-profile Android handsets. Literally bringing the exciting new OS to the masses, it offers plenty of upside over other budget smartphones.

Geared towards the low-end of the market, it’s not unusual to expect shabby performance from the phone. Once you use it, though, any apprehensions should be laid to rest: it’s a powerful smartphone despite the budget price.

Physically, it brings a more conservative aesthetic to the table, a tad removed from the more stylish lines of both the HTC Magic and the HTC Hero. The looks aren’t half-bad, though, and overall build remains sturdy. Despite the positives, HTC naturally had to cut some corners to keep the price down.

In this case, they outfitted the phone with a smaller 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen. While the size is acceptable given the value, the choice of a resistive panel is a bit hard to swallow. The implementation isn’t as good as Samsung’s efforts on their resistive touchscreens, either, so you’ll either have to push hard with your fingers or pull out the stylus to use the Tattoo.

As a phone, it manages above average in-call quality, with natural-sounding and clear voice conversations. Operation relies on a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM 7225 processor, performing fast even with multiple applications running in the background. It houses a slim battery panel with a rated talk time of 6.5 hours, making it handy for up to three days or more of regular use.

The Tattoo comes with all the power of Android, boasting an impressive suite of preinstalled applications (e.g. Google Maps, YouTube and a Twitter app). It comes running HTC’s excellent Sense UI, the same one found on the Hero. Like HTC’s other Android phones, it supports a full range of messaging options, including email, MMS and more. Pretty much every Android capability is available, so you won’t be shortchanged on that end.

A full range of connectivity options are supported, including 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Web browsing is fast, but the challenges of using a resistive panel makes touch gestures quite difficult. The 3.0 megapixel camera doesn’t include many complementary features and quality is largely average. Multimedia UI is exactly the same as with HTC’s last Android device before it.

Overall, the HTC Tattoo is an excellent entry-level smartphone. Everything about it, in fact, can ably match up to more expensive handsets, save for the occasionally annoying resistive touchscreen. If you can live with that (and, at this price, it’s not a difficult choice), this should prove more enticing than any mid-range smartphone currently around.