I just gave back my SmartQ5 MID and now I have to write what I think about it,and this review is going to be pretty short since there’s not much nice to say about it.

SmartQ5 MID Specs
- 4.3” WVGA LCD (Capacitive)
- Wifi b/g
- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
- Samsung S3C6410 ARM 11 at 667MHz
- 128MB or Memory with 1GB of Storage
- Android Cupcake

First Impression
On paper and on the press picture the SmartQ5 is a very interesting device. In reality, let’s say that the “Made in China” touch and feel are pretty heavy! Granted the SmartQ5 is better than most products from China I’ve played with, but FAR FAR AWAY from EUR/US or JP standards… The plastic is cheap, the screen looks cheap, the stylus, but so far not as bad as its internal SD card slot where the simple fact to insert or pop-out a card will almost tear the SmartQ5 in two…

Usage… And OS Optimization
I believe the staff that worked on the OS implementation and optimization of the SmartQ5 didn’t spent more than 30 minutes on it… Besides its pretty decent hardware specs, with a correct CPU and correct amount of RAM, the SmartQ5 is as fast as a dead snail… Understand that I never saw, even in the Windows Mobile World, a device THAT slow… Well actually I saw slower devices but this was something like 3 to 4 years ago!

I have the feeling that the so called engineers who worked on the SmartQ5 just made sure that Android ran on it and point… No OS optimization whatsoever! Unlike a Smartphone the SmartQ5 doesn’t allow you to plug a SIM card in it to place a call, but you’ll still find in the menus the ability to check your IMEI, tune your phone settings (Wait? What phone?) and other relics from the Smartphone world.

Let’s talk for a second about its battery life… Well guess what? I never figured out how long the SmartQ5’s battery lasts… Every time I powered the device off before going to bed I couldn’t boot it up again in the morning.I Each and every single time I switched it off I had to plug it into its AC adapter to revive it.

The only good moment I had with the SmartQ5 was thanks to the brilliant Android Web browser, something that luckily for us SmartDevices China didn’t touch or modify!

Conclusion…
The lamest product I’ve tested in a while… Pity since the idea behind the SmartQ5 was excellent.