General: From Smart to Stupid

I love my 35 minute train journey into London – it's where I get my best writing done. Wrote 2000 words in total thanks to those two journeys. Naturally, they will both need some trimming down

I was heading in for two reasons – and one of those was to test drive the latest Smart car.

One of the comments I had on Twitter when I mentioned this, was that they wouldn't respect my opinions on cars as I've only recently passed my test - a fair enough comment. However, I wasn't intending on writing about my experience as someone of authority – in fact, as with any event I turn up to, there is no guarantee I'll write about it at all. However, I've always had a soft spot for Smart cars and was eager to finally give one a go. How could I say no?

So, after a grabbing a cup of coffee and some salad, I was sat in a mock school room where I was told how to drive as economically as possible. All of the tips were fairly obvious – although one that they felt wasn't mentioned enough was driving with a full tank. I generally only put half a tank in my car at a time – putting in a full tank you really notice the extra weight this apparently affects your economy. It's like watching “The Transporter” all over again.

After this talk, which was little more than a way of me getting to know my instructor, we jumped in the car. We got lost but I had great fun driving around the London traffic. As a driver, the car doesn't feel particularly small as you have a hell of a lot of room to move around. But certainly for me and my bike – there isn't enough room, so I could never really consider one.

I was a little funny pulling away because the set up is so different to what I'm used to – i.e no clutch. You simply put it into the drive position and pull away. Then to change gear, you push forward with the gear stick, like a digital switch – none of these funny H shapes we're used to. On your dashboard, it lets you know what gear you're in and as your accelerating it tells you when it thinks you should change gear to be most economical. How nice of it. Changing gear is as simple as pushing the gear stick forward again. As you don't have a clutch to worry about – you don't even have to come of the accelerator and the gear change is as smooth as possible.

If you want to, you can change down a gear by simply pushing down – but if you're lazy you don't even need to do this. As you break and slow down, it changes the gear for you so by the time you come to a halt, you're in neutral ready to pull away.

All this is pretty smart – but it gets better. Push the little button on the side of the gear stick and it turns into fully automatic mode. So instead of recommending to change gear at the correct points – it actually does it for you, and at the point where I'd probably change gear anyway.

You're not going to wheel spinning off the white line, but it does give you as much control as you realistically need. I don't particularly find shifting gears a problem – in fact, I enjoy it – so I'm not sure how much appeal an automatic has to me – no matter how “smart” it is.

I am happy to admit that the car was pretty enjoyable to drive – especially in the traffic where I didn't wear my legs out constantly pulling away. Quite how this compares to a standard automatic car, this is where my lack of car use comes into play, but even I appreciated it when stuck in traffic.

But wait, there's more!

After the event, I was heading over to Westminster – thankfully Nelson Bostock (the PR company looking after Smart) had laid on taxis for the journalists which was incredibly useful considering the tube strike. Why those chaps should get a 5% wage increase is beyond me.

A company that does market research offered me £100 for 2.5 hours of my time to tell them how I felt about Netbooks and Notebooks. I felt that this offered decent value for money and opted in. I turned up, they paid me cash in advance and then I was swept off to a room with two other guys – Gary and Leon.

We were asked for opinions on two Notebooks and then two Netbooks. All the logos were covered in stickers so we were left to guess the brand. The questions were truly awful, with very little context. I kept asking myself “compared to what???”. Questions that shouldn't be asked, were, and important questions that needed to be asked, weren't. It was very frustrating.

The most useful aspect of the whole talk was at the end when we all started talking about each product as a group. Of the 2.5 hours – only 35 minutes was allocated for this and not enough was said.

This, in combination with a volunteer door to door marketing questionnaire I was involved in about internet filtering earlier in the year, makes it clear to me where companies are really going wrong. Why the hell are they using services like this when they should just be listening to what professional reviewers have to say? The amount of times I made comments in reviews only to have the next version of the product released with the same problems is incredibly frustrating.

Even when they do have important people in one room – in this case a professional designer, a PHD student in computer interaction and a journalist who has spent nearly a decade reviewing products – they ask the wrong questions!

As it turns out, it was Samsung who funded the event – made clear, and confirmed by the organiser, as 2 of the 4 products were Samsung's.

Still, it was hardly difficult and the cash in my back pocket was always pleasing. I swiftly went off the to the pub with Leon, joined shortly by Gordon, Ian, Alexis, Clare and Andrew. Much fun and Sushi eating was had by all!

I'm aware of that - but I'm not leaving £1500 of bike strapped to the back of my car

They're good cars. Also, take a look at the new Fiat 500, if you're after a small car.

And then you see a Smart Car smashed into a concrete barrier at 70 miles an hour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-yyoU8s

this is cool

I think you're right CB, in every respect. The incompetence came from the companies though - THEY wrote the questions, not the firm interviewing us.

The problem is - they view reviews as merely free advertising/promotion and don't really trust the expertise of the people writing them.

On the other hand, some products you really do have to do an "in and out" of. A quick test and a short review. It's a time thing.

I'm doing weekly reviews for Pocket-Lint (http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk) at the moment. Which is great, I'm just requesting in loads of bits and bobs that look interesting. Mainly accessories - mice, keyboards etc. So I can properly use them for a while before I actually write them up.