Features
The HTC S743 aims for balance--a balance of communication (voice and messaging) and a balance of lifestyle (work and play)--and tries to achieve that with its feature set, though it's really no different than most Windows Mobile devices.
As a phone, the S743 offers quad-band world roaming, a speakerphone, voice dialing and commands, speed dial, and text and multimedia messaging. The address book is only limited by the available memory (the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts) and you can store multiple numbers for a single entry, as well as home and work addresses, e-mail, IM screen name, birthday, spouse's name, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can pair a contact with a photo, a caller group, or a customized ring tone.
The smartphone also has Bluetooth 2.0 that supports mono and stereo Bluetooth headsets, hands-free kits, file transfer, object push, file sharing, personal area network, and more. GPS is integrated so there's no need for extra peripherals. If you want real-time navigation with voice-guided directions, however, you'll need to add a location-based service like TeleNav GPS Navigator, but you can also use Google Maps for Mobile for positioning and text-based navigation, traffic data, and more.
The S743 supports the U.S. 850/1900MHz 3.5G bands so you'll get HSDPA support with an AT&T SIM but not T-Mobile since the carrier's 3G network operates on the 1700/2100 bands. The smartphone also offers integrated Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), however, so you won't always have to rely on a cellular connection to surf the Web.
As a Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard Edition phone, the S743's default browser is Internet Explorer Mobile and along with it you get the rest of the Microsoft Office Mobile Suite, Microsoft's Direct Push for real-time e-mail delivery, and automatic synchronization with Outlook (POP3 and IMAP accounts and HTML-formatted e-mails are also supported), and Windows Media Player. The HTC S743 only ships with the most basic PIM applications, but you can always download more utilities and other third-party applications. For some suggestions, you can check out Download.com.
Finally, the HTC S743 features a 3.2-megapixel camera with video recording capabilities. As usual, you can select from a variety of picture qualities and resolutions and adjust the white balance and brightness to get the best image. The camcorder doesn't offer quite as many settings, but you do get a choice of four resolutions and other tools like effects, flicker adjustment, and recording length.
Picture quality was a little disappointing. As we've seen on a number of occasions, the image was clear but colors were off the mark, looking gray and washed out. We tried various settings, but we weren't able to capture the rich and bright colors of the scene. Recorded video clips were OK; there was some slight blurriness, but will do the job if there's something that you must absolutely record on the spot. Once done, you can share them with others via multimedia message or e-mail, save them as your background image, or simply enjoy them in a slideshow. The HTC S743 has 256MB RAM/256MB ROM with about 123MB of user-accessible storage, though the microSD expansion slot can accept up to 16GB cards.
Performance
We tested the quad-band in San Francisco using AT&T service and call quality was OK. There was a bit of a background hiss on our end and though we could still carry on with our conversation and use an airline's voice-automated response system, it was slightly distracting. Our friends reported similar results, noting that they could hear some static and crackling. Its speakerphone quality wasn't any better. There was plenty of volume, but the call was again plagued by some hissing, and our friends added that there was a bit of an echo and our voice sounded tinny. On a brighter note, we successfully paired the S743 with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.
Armed with a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor, the S743 proved to be a snappy little device. It was able to handle most of our tasks (e-mail, document viewing, and so forth) without slowing down too much and didn't quite have the lag we've experienced on other Windows Mobile smartphones. Applications launched quickly and there weren't any hiccups in switching screen orientations when opening and closing the phone.
Using AT&T's HSDPA network, it took about a minute for CNET's site to fully load on the smartphone while CNN's mobile Web site came up in about 20 seconds. Unfortunately, the S743's GPS radio wasn't the strongest. While it was able to immediately find our location on Google Maps using cellular triangulation, it took about 10 minutes to get a fix on our location using GPS satellites and it was about a half block when following our movements.
The HTC S743's 1000mAh lithium ion battery has a rated talk time of 5.8 hours (GSM)/5 hours (3G) and up to 10 days of standby time. In our battery drain tests the S743 beat the rated talk time by lasting 8 hours and 15 minutes on a single charge.
