HTC S743 – a smartphone without touch-screen
Thumbs Up:
Slim design; US 3G/3.5G support, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi.
Thumbs Down:
GPS performance and call quality needs improvement.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM
Band: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone Design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other Features: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
The HTC S743 is powered with 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor, 256MB ROM and 256MB RAM. The user-accessible memory is 123MB and micro-SD expansion slot accepts up to 16GB cards. Its operating system is Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard Edition.
2.4 inches LCD display has 320×240 pixels resolution. The supported wireless interfaces are Bluetooth 2.0 and IEEE 802.11 b/g. The additional features are GPS, HSDPA, Web browser, EDGE, and GPRS.
3.2-megapixel camera features focus-free adjustment. The S743 smartphone supports audio formats of eAAC+, AAC+, AAC, MIDI, WMA, WAV, QCP, MP3, and AMR.
1000mAH lithium polymer battery has a life of 350 minutes talk time and 260 hours idle standby time.
Razzle Dazzle:
The HTC S743 is 4.5 inches tall, 0.6 inch deep, and 1.7 inches wide and weighs 4.9 ounces. The smartphone has solid built and sleek look with mirrored face and classic black chassis.
Inside Dope:
HTC is offering different types of handsets with different designs to meet the needs of its consumer base. The HTC S743 smartphone is a variant of the previous the S740 and runs on the Windows Mobile operating system. It falls between HTC Touch Pro 2 and HTC Touch Diamond. The S743 features all wireless capabilities, full QWERTY keyboard and numerous productivity tools to attract the professionals. You can buy its unlocked version for $500. However, its GPS performance and call quality needs improvement. The S743 smartphone is compact and lightweight, but still manages to pack a slider QWERTY keyboard. Therefore, the S743 is a good smartphone for professionals who need the facilities of emails, appointments, and so forth.
2.4 inches LCD display of the HTC S743 has 240×320 pixels QVGA resolution that supports 65,000 colors. The smartphone only has Windows Mobile User Interface, which is not as flashy as TouchFlo UI. However, you can customize the Home Screen with options available in Settings menu.
The navigation array is locate beneath the display and consists of two soft keys, four-way toggle with middle select button, Talk key, back button, Home shortcut, and End key. The alphanumeric keypad has large buttons for better typing experience.
You can slide down the HTC S743 phone horizontally to access the full QWERTY keyboard of four rows. The sliding mechanism is smooth and the display rotates automatically to landscape mode. We appreciate the HTC to include dedicated SMS/MMS key, but the space bar is small in size.
The micro-SD card slot is located behind the battery compartment, and you have to remove the SIM card to access it. The camera activation/capture button sits on the right side, while the volume rocker is on left side. You will find the micro-USB port for charger/headset on the bottom and power button on the top. We will prefer to have a standard 3.5mm headset jack. The camera sits on the back side.
The HTC S743 can store contacts in its phonebook limited to available memory and SIM card can hold additional 250 contacts. Each entry can save multiple phone numbers, work and home addresses, email address, spouse name, birthday, instant messenger screen name, and so forth. You can organize the contacts into caller groups and pair them with ring-tone, and photo for caller ID.
The basic feature set includes speed dial, voice commands, voice dialing, a speakerphone, text and multimedia messages, and quad-band world roaming. The additional highlights are 3G/3.5G support with HSDPA, Wi-Fi, integrated GPS, and Bluetooth. The HTC S743 has preloaded Google Maps Mobile for traffic data, text-based navigation, positioning, and more. You can also use real-time location based TeleNav GPS Navigator service. The onboard Bluetooth 2.0 supports profiles of personal area network, file sharing, object push, file transfer, hands-free kits, stereo and mono Bluetooth headsets, and more.
The HTC S743 supports 3.5G US 850/1900 MHz and HSDPA with AT&T service. The operating system is Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard Destination. You will also get pre-loaded Microsoft Office Mobile Suite and Microsoft Direct Push for real time mail delivery and auto-sync with Outlook, and Windows Media Player. You can also download more utilities and applications.
3.2-megapixel camera of the HTC S743 features video recording. The still capture settings include brightness, white-balance, resolutions and picture qualities. The camcorder options are recording length, flicker adjustment, effects, and four resolutions. We captured some pictures and recorded clips for testing. The overall image quality was mediocre. The pictures appeared washed out and the recorded videos were of average quality. You can share the images and clips with MMS and email.
We made few calls with the HTC S743 via AT&T service. The overall call quality was good. We received good sound at our end with little background noise. The callers also received similar background hiss with static and crackled sound at their end. The speakerphone call quality was average with tinny sound and echo while conversation. We did not face any problem in pairing Bluetooth headsets with the S743 smartphone.
The HTC S743 was good to handle the daily tasks. However, there was noticeable lag while launching the applications. We did not face any crash or system restart while testing. We also loaded some Web sites in the browser. The GSMcellulars.com loaded completely in 22 seconds. The Google Map was slow to start and took 10 minutes to lock down the satellite positions. After that, it found our changing locations quickly.
The battery life is 5.8 hours talk time in GSM and 5 hours in 3G. The idle standby time for both is 10 days.
Nitty Gritty:
If you need a HTC smartphone with good wireless capabilities, then go for – HTC S743. However, we will recommend you top check the HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro.
