When it comes to Windows Mobile smartphones, Verizon's lineup is officially fat and happy. The second-largest U.S. carrier coasted for a long time with just the Motorola Q, the outdated Verizon XV6700, and the Palm Treo 700wx, but those lean days are gone. Now Verizon offers the XV6800 (the long-overdue replacement for the touch-screen XV6700), the Samsung SCH-i760, Verizon's first dual-keyboard slider, and the trusty Motorola Q9m, a worthy upgrade to the original Q. And there's an entirely new model in the mix, the SMT5800, which gives Verizon a second dual-keyboard-design device that contrasts nicely with the touchscreen-equipped SCH-i760. It's powerful for a Windows Mobile 6 Standard phone, but unfortunately, it stumbles on call reception.

The SMT5800's small, chunky body is 4.1 by 2.0 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.2 ounces. It feels heavier than many slab smartphones, and the plastic body is not at all stylish—a common complaint about many of HTC's otherwise superb handsets. The SMT5800's 2.4-inch, 320-by-320-pixel display is stunningly bright. That screen size is just 0.1-inch short of slab devices like the Motorola Q, despite the fact that the SMT5800 is a much smaller handset. Having a separate, backlit numeric keypad is typically cause for joy, but the device's numeric keys are placed way too close together for fast dialing. The keys are nicely "bubbled," but they are still so small that I often misdialed or pressed two keys at once.

The QWERTY keyboard slide-out mechanism is smoother and tighter than the one in the HTC S710 (the SMT5800's GSM-based predecessor) and the Pantech Duo. The keys are also backlit, albeit more dimly than the numeric keypad. They're also comfortably sized and spaced, and have a quiet but reassuring click that makes typing enjoyable. There's a dedicated Period key, and the Backspace, Enter, and Shift keys are easy to touch quickly. One minor point: The two Windows Mobile soft keys in this horizontal layout are half height and squashed up against the edge of the handset's rim below the screen, making them a bit difficult to push.

The SMT5800 is a typical dual-band CDMA phone (850/1900 MHz) on Verizon's network. Compared with the HTC S710, which has only average voice quality, the SMT5800 isn't a huge improvement, even on Verizon's CDMA network. Voice quality on my end was adequate, if a bit bright and harsh. But some callers on the other end complained of noticeable static, and they asked me to repeat myself numerous times. Other callers said I sounded crisp and clear, however: It all depended on the reception, which was often weaker by one to two bars compared with other Verizon handsets I've tested in the same area. The phone even dropped back to 1xRTT mode on occasion, which is something I haven't seen with other Verizon handsets in the New York City area. When paired with a Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset, call volume dropped noticeably, and there were some intermittent audio stutters as well. I could use the speakerphone only for quiet, indoor conversations.

There's no denying that the 400-MHz CPU is a welcome upgrade compared with other Windows Mobile handsets like the Samsung BlackJack II (260 MHz) and the HTC S710 (200 MHz). By comparison, the SMT5800 felt snappy in day-to-day use, although it has only 64MB of RAM, while the BlackJack II has 128MB. With just 23MB of available RAM, there's very little room for running mobile apps. And since Windows Mobile doesn't quit applications, be prepared to visit the Task Manager quite often.

As usual with Windows Mobile 6 Standard phones, the SMT5800 can open and edit Microsoft Word and Excel documents, but it can't create new ones. It also views, but doesn't edit, PowerPoint and PDF files. For e-mail, the SMT5800 supports Verizon Wireless Sync and ActiveSync, and offers the usual POP3 and IMAP compatibility. The SMT5800 lacks Wi-Fi, but Verizon's fast EV-DO data network coverage is solid. While the SMT5800 could be used as a dial-up broadband modem, it wasn't activated on my evaluation handset, so I couldn't run speed tests.

The handset packs in a 2.0-megapixel camera sensor, but there's no flash or auto-focus. It took pretty poor photos, too, with smeared details, washed-out highlights, and an overall inability to focus. The video recorder maxed out at 176-by-144-pixel resolution, 10-fps files, which were jerky, had very low volume, and were essentially useless.

The SMT5800 supports the wireless Bluetooth 2.0 standard and A2DP protocol for stereo music. When playing MP3 and WMA files over a set of Etymotic Ety8 stereo Bluetooth earbuds, the phone sounded reasonably clear, though not spectacular. The built-in microSD slot accepts up to 8GB cards, and it read my Kingston 4GB microSDHC card without any trouble. The handset's battery life was a little shorter than average, lasting 4 hours 15 minutes on a talk-time rundown test.

Some PDA enthusiasts swear by touch-screen handsets. But these models are typically large and heavy. It's also more difficult to dial numbers on them since you must use the screen alone (aside from hybrids like the SCH-i760). The SMT5800's design is a nice compromise, as it gives you a handset that's as small as a BlackBerry Pearl (except for its thickness) but with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. I really want to like the SMT5800. And if its voice quality measured up, the phone would earn a strong recommendation because of its compact design and fast CPU. Unfortunately, the cell is hampered by poor call reception, and it could also use a better camera and more RAM. Windows Mobile 6 and 64MB of RAM are never a good combination. Of course, the SMT5800 isn't awful by any means. But I suggest taking a look at other Verizon smartphones—including the Motorola Q9m, which also runs Windows Mobile 6 Standard and is a much higher-quality voice phone—before committing to the SMT5800.

Compare the Verizon SMT5800 with several other mobile phones side by side.

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