I’ve never been such a big fan of the SMART Amazing Phone. Don’t get me wrong: it’s got nothing to do with the looks or the features. I just really don’t have the knack for the Microsoft Smartphone OS. Coming from several Symbian devices and having tried Windows Mobile Phone Edition (O2 XDA II), the MS Smartphone platform is classified as “hilaw.”

Though statistics will prove me wrong since SMART recently released the Voyager (an updated Amazing Phone unit from HTC known as the E200 everywhere else in the world), the fanbase is steadily growing. But as a mobile lifestyle critic, I believe that there should be a limit as to how “feature-packed” a phone should be. In which case, why not get a Phone Edition handheld device instead like the XDA?

But from a tech point of view, the Voyager is indeed something for the tech-savvy. Integrated Bluetooth and a 640×480 VGA camera are the two items we were looking for in version one of the SAP. HTC did a good job with the integration. And yep, Smartphone 2003 is a big improvement over the previous version — it doesn’t hang, it is loads faster, and mpeg / avi files play smoothly over Windows Media Player. As you can see from the picture, the 5-way joypad has also been improved for a better feel.

Thanks to Carlo Guerrero for the pics.