Dual-SIM smartphones are hard to get by. The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 is a fresh addition to that scarce product line, but doesn’t take its unique selling point as a license to empty your wallet. A well built phone, the GSmart is sturdy as a work horse – and probably as good looking. But that’s not the point – at this price you won’t look it in the mouth. It’s a straight deal: a dual SIM PocketPC within budget. The home-brewed Smart Pack user interface on top of the Windows Mobile 6.5 is the only bonus feature.
The GSmart S1205 hits the market a few months before the release of the new Windows Phone 7 OS and must fight among a slew of Android handsets. But it has one powerful weapon – dual-SIM dual standby support. We are sure there are many people out there who have to lug around both their home and work phones and would welcome a one-device solution. Their choice has always been limited and Gigabyte are pleased to offer a solution. The GSmart S1205 seems to have a whole niche all to itself. Let’s look at how it’s gonna handle it.
Key features3.2" 65K-color resistive touchscreen at WQVGA resolution
Dual-SIM dual standby quad-band GSM/EDGE support
Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional OS with Smart Pack UI
MediaTek MT6516 416MHz CPU
128MB RAM, 256MB ROM
3 megapixel fixed-focus camera and VGA@30fps video
Wi-Fi connectivity
FM radio with RDS
Stereo Bluetooth 2.1, standard microUSB port
GPS receiver
3.5mm audio jack
Office document viewer and editor
Good audio quality
Main disadvantagesLow-end display resolution
Poor sunlight legibility
Smudge-prone screen surface
No 3G connectivity
No Back button
Task manager buried deep in the Settings menu
The lack of 3G support is perhaps the most important drawback. Still, there is EDGE to cover data connections and Wi-Fi for heavy use, which should be enough for most. The three megapixel fixed-focus camera is perhaps more of a disadvantage rather than a key feature. But dual-SIM smartphone shoppers are not quite likely to care about imaging anyway.
Gigabyte have made their own custom interface – the Smart Pack UI. It adds some fancy homescreens to offset the rather boring Windows Mobile looks. The new UI is not in the same league as the heavily customized HTC Sense, but still manages to impress. We are not talking a high-end smartphone here after all.
Modest retail packageThe tiny box of the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 packs everything you’d expect to get with such a phone. There’s a USB charger, a standard microUSB data cable and the usual paperwork.
There’s a one-piece headset, but the supplied headphones aren't your only option as the S1205 has a 3.5mm audio jack. However, there is no bundled memory card so you’ll need to buy one.
Gigabyte GSmart S1205 360-degree spinThe GSmart S1205 is more than decently sized for a dual SIM touch phone. On a second look though, the wasted space around the screen doesn’t quite make sense. The handset measures 110.6 x 55.0 x 13.1 mm and weighs in at 114.5 grams. It feels solid in the hand, but the battery cover creaks annoyingly every now and then when you tap the screen.
Design and constructionTouchscreen phones are not the best devices to get creative with design and the GSmart S1205 is no exception. It’s a simple handset, finished in black with gray accents down the side. Again, it’s a reasonably well built phone but perhaps looking a bit cheap for a PocketPC. But you know what – that’s not too bad. After all, it is a cheap PocketPC – and dual SIM at that.
The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 uses a 3.2” WQVGA resistive touchscreen. It’s responsive enough, but the sunlight legibility is one of the poorest we’ve ever had to deal with. The plastic over the screen is highly reflective and gets covered in fingerprints in no time, which doesn’t help at all. Basically the screen is good enough indoors and as good as useless outdoors.
Above the screen we find the earpiece, which acts as a loudspeaker too. There is also a small status LED next to it. It blinks in different color to indicate charging, or various active connections.
Underneath the screen, there’s a mix of hardware and buttons and touch controls. You have a touch-sensitive (resistive) Start button to access the Honeycomb launcher. The other touch control is a Phone Settings key to access the various settings of the two SIM cards.
There’s no call management involved though, just the essential user-defined settings for the two phone modules. In between these two buttons is what looks like a home key but it doesn’t do anything other than turn on the backlighting of the two call buttons.
Further down are the call/end knobs, either side of the Center key. The latter is no Home button either – strangely it’s a confirm button and it’s absolutely redundant on a touchscreen device. It will activate the currently selected item in a list or icon in a menu. The only time it becomes remotely usable is in some of the custom homescreens of the Smart Pack plug-in.
It’s a shame really – a dedicated back button would’ve made so much more sense.
The left side of the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 features a thin volume rocker, while the right one hosts the dedicated camera key and the microSD card slot.
Unfortunately there is no cover for the card slot and it’s likely to pick up dust Cleanup is recommended every once in a while.
At the top we find the lonely and very thin Power/Lock key.
As usual, at the bottom of the phone you will see the mouthpiece. The standard microUSB port accommodates both the charger and the data cable. Right next to it is the 3.5 mm audio jack.
The other thing to note here is the stylus compartment. Unfortunately, there is no active stylus here – a feature we quite liked in some PocketPCs by HTC. What’s worse though is that the stylus is essential in the Gigabyte GSmart S1205. Despite the Smart Pack customization, using this phone isn’t exactly thumb-friendly. But more on this in the interface chapter.
The back of the S1205 features only the 3 megapixel camera lens and the GSmart logo.
The material used on the rear cover is similar to HTC Desire’s soft-touch plastic – it’s still plastic but with a soft rubbery feel for a great grip.
Under the battery cover, you'll find the two SIM card slots and the 1320 mAh battery right next to them. The SIM beds are one on top the other and have a tiny lock mechanism. Tampering with the lock switch turns off the phone immediately.
The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 is a well-built phone. It looks cheap but we guess most of the potential customers won’t mind the cost-cutting. No fancy finish, poor screen and all, this phone is trying to deliver where it counts and the lack of competition in the dual SIM smartphone niche certainly works in its favor.
We for one wouldn’t care so much about the looks and finish. The lack of proper Home and Back keys however does make the handling a bit awkward. Anyway, compromises were obviously inevitable but the price tag takes due notice.
Smart Pack Custom interfaceGigabyte GSmart S1205 runs Windows Mobile 6.5. That’s not an impressive start really – several months now since the much fresher WinMo 6.5.3 has been around and the new Windows Phone 7 is expected in another few months.
Luckily, there is some eye candy – and a bit of functionality boost – on top of the stock OS to make up for the missing WinMo 6.5.3.
Let’s take a closer look at the home-brewed Smart Pack. This is actually what makes the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 worth a look – apart from the dual SIM thing. What you get is not only a revamped homescreen but three Gigabyte-made themes that will let you further customize the handling – with quite a number of homescreen panes, various shortcuts, sweep gestures and widgetry.
There’s nothing special about the Windows Mobile theme. You have a homescreen with customizable wallpaper and some virtual buttons (called “items”). You can add as many items as you wish until the whole Today screen is covered with them. The items are most of the time simple small-font lines of text you can’t really tap – stylus works way better. It doesn’t look too tidy, let alone stylish, especially on a low-res screen.
Next up is the Chinese Painting theme which brings you three homescreen panes. The first one (central) features four shortcuts docked at the bottom. By default, those virtual buttons are assigned to the dialer, messaging, call log and the theme switcher. Notice the small numbers below the Messages and Call Log icons – those indicate the number of new messages and missed calls.
Tapping and holding on any of those four shortcuts will launch a menu to let you assign other functions – you have a choice between nine items.
The favorite features list is a swipe away to the right, on the next homescreen pane. Again, you can tap and hold on an item to change or remove it.
A swipe to the left form the central homescreen will take you to E-mail, Call History, Contacts and Quick Contacts.
Another swipe, this time upwards, leads you to the widgets – Calculator, Notes, Windows Live, Clock, World Clock, Schedule, and Weather. A downward swipe (or pressing the hardware Confirm key), will take you to the menu. Those two screens (widgets and menu) are also available in the next two themes. They only look a bit different.
The other things that the three Gigabyte themes have in common are the icons on top of the homescreen. Those are somewhat oversized (bad-looking, but are finger-friendly) indicators for the battery, signal strength (for both SIM cards) and connectivity with the lock key underneath. And under the battery indicator you’ll see information on the time and date as well as a weather forecast.
A tap on the battery indicator starts the Power Manager while tapping on either of the signal strength indicators will bring you to the Wireless Manager where you can switch Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on and off, enable/disable any of the SIM cards and activate Airplane Mode.
The Smart Zone theme has 9 homescreen panes, which are accessible by thumb sweeps in all four directions. The funny thing is you even have diagonal swipes. If you press the Confirm key, you’ll get a tiled view of all 9 homescreen panes.
The central screen displays the same information as the Chinese Painting homescreen but this time there is a large centrally located analog clock with weather readings just underneath. The rest is the same.
Again, the left screen (swipe to the right to access it) is reserved for the favorite features list and the right one – for E-mail account, Call History, Contacts and Quick Contacts.
To get to the settings screen you swipe upwards from the homescreen, while a short menu (Tools, Media, Office Mobile) is hidden in the upper screen. Windows Media is launched by a diagonal swipe downwards left to right. A downward diagonal swipe right to left reveals the Photo Album. The other two (upward) diagonal swipes will take you to the Widget screen and the Internet Explorer, respectively.
To go back from any of the panes to the central homescreen, there’s a dedicated button in the upper right corner of each screen. Right next to it, is a button that will bring up the aggregated tile view of all the screens.
It sounds complicated but it isn’t once you’ve spent some time with the phone. The graphics generally look poor on the low-res screen and the Smart Zone theme does look rather basic with its white background. The diagonal swipes are just too much perhaps. But some users will appreciate the number of shortcuts available on the Gigabyte GSmart S1205.
The Live Nature theme is our favorite. There are no countless screens here (just the homescreen, a custom-made launcher and a widget screen) but it still is convenient enough. And reasonably attractive too – as much as it could be on a WQVGA screen.
The homescreen is pretty standard with one major exception – it’s alive. There’s always something going on – a snail will slide down a leave, cows grazing in the meadow will moo when touched, a little frog will snap at a buzzing fly. You may notice a flying kite, an airplane or a flock of birds crossing the sky, rain falling down. None of these though is informative in any way, no alerts or signals or anything. It’s all there for fun’s sake. .
The Widget screen is an upward swipe away while the Application launcher menu is in the opposite direction (or accessed through the Confirm key).
Speaking of the special Application menu, it’s like a list of all your applications and most important settings all in one place. It consists of three screens. The indicator on top of the display tells you which of the menu screens you’re currently looking at.
We decided to do a benchmark and see how the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 stacks up next to the much powerful Acer neoTouch, which comes with the 1GHz Snapdragon processor on board. From the screenshots bellow you may see that CPU results of the Snapdragon are 3 times better, while most of the other neoTouch benchmark results are even more impressive.
Overall, Gigabyte deserve some credit for trying to boost customization options. It’s not always consistent and not all of their design decisions make sense. Not to mention that the poor screen resolution does the interface little favor.
The respectable number of shortcuts and the level of homescreen customization are commendable. The themes are diverse enough and give users adequate choice. On the other hand, the lack of a proper Back button does affect navigation. And sadly, there are too many places in the interface where the stylus is essential.
One of Nokia's next full touch smartphones, the Nokia C7, which posed for some photos a couple of weeks back is for real. The confirmation comes from Nokia itself - the C7-00 UA profile surfaced on the company's website. Sadly, there are still plenty of unanswered questions concerning the upcoming device.
