Smart Dating Online review

Overview

Smart Dating Online is our very own online dating service. We’ve tried our utmost to remain objective throughout this review, to offer you a fair and balanced view of all the players in the online dating market.

Smart Dating Online lags slightly behind the biggest companies in the number of profile fields, particularly those concerned with scientific matching, though we feel a great many sites demand far too much information, making profile completion a chore to complete risking the process being rushed and done badly. We're very confident that our service includes all the necessary information, and strikes and good balance between ease of use, and comprehensiveness of information.

Smart Dating Online packs a punch where features are concerned, with many neat ideas that the other major online dating firms haven't yet dreamed of.

As part of the White Label Dating group, Smart Dating Online has one of Europe’s largest internet dating membership bases. This means that along with quick and easy profile creation, a great set of features and a cheaper price tag than the major sites, it's definitely worth a go.

Who is it for?

General online dating service; covers all ages and all of the UK.

Profile creation

How long to fill out a profile? Approximately: 20 minutes.

To get started, state whether you're looking for a man or a woman, and what age. Then before you've even registered, a list of 5 possible matches including photos and a profile snippet appears on the right hand side. This offers a handy preview of the sort of people you'll find on the site.

Next you create an account and are given the option to complete the following 3 sections which are:

• General details
• Your characteristics
• Interests and personality

All in all, very quick and dead easy. The 'university of life' option in the education drop down menu is a nice touch.

In the 'Interests and personality' section you're presented with a list of 24 options to select from, which seems to cover all the major pursuits for most people. And without a clumsy drop down menu getting in the way here, from a user navigation perspective it's faultless.

The 'Personal Profile' section is the bit you write yourself. Smart Dating Online recommends you write 100-150 words; some may think this too short, and we do stress that it's just a recommendation, but experience tells us that the majority of online daters dislike profiles that are overly long. A shorter profile can be easier to create, although of course, users are indeed free to write as much as they want. If profile creation really becomes too much of a chore see our partner site, www.PerfectDatingProfile.com to find out about hiring a professional writer to do the job on your behalf.

There's some great advice in this section to help you, in the form of two 'personal profile' examples which should provide the guidance and imagination to write your own.

So, we're pleased to report that profile creation on Smart Dating Online is quickest of all the main online dating websites. From filling in the first details to being a fully fledged online dater, surfing the site, and viewing profiles - couldn't be much quicker, no annoying hold-ups here...

Features

Most features are for fully subscribed/paying members, so there is a limit to what you can do on a free profile.

The list of features on Smart Dating Online is one of the most extensive out there and certainly rivals all the big players.

Like most other online dating sites, you can generate your very own Personality Profile. This tool uses your responses to highlight your unique personality traits and give you a helping hand in understanding yourself better and the type of people you are most likely to hit it off with.

There is also a diary feature, which allows members to better express themselves and their interests to potential matches who are reading it.

Putting a different spin on things, Smart Dating Online also has a comprehensive Astrology feature. This contains 4 different applications which you can use to publish on your profile, as well as see the responses of others who have used these features. You never know, you may discover 'the one' whilst browsing through this feature. After all, they say love can be written in the stars! These 4 are:

• Horoscope
• Birth Date Report
• Romantic Profile Report
• Sun, Love and Passion Profile

Smart Dating Online also have a Gift feature, which allows you to send others a virtual gift, such as flowers or a box of chocolates, amongst loads of others. These virtual gifts are fun gestured and quirky ways of acting as an ice-breaker for someone who’s profile has taken your fancy.

As well as this, members can easily post a video profile of themselves using a webcam. This is all done through the site and so there’s no need to panic about recording and uploading as the website will make it all very simple for you. The video profile is a fabulous way of making you stand out from the crowd, and Smart Dating Online give a very helpful guide on some pointers for you when recording your own video.

Searching

Smart Dating Online gives you 4 search options:

• Quick Search
• Full Search
• Automatch
• Latest Members

'Quick Search' does exactly what it says on the tin. Find instant matches based on age and location.

'Full Search' allows you to expand the basic search criteria of age and location with additional criteria about religion, whether he/she smokes and the number of children they have, if any. You can also search by distance from your postcode area.

'Automatch' is a clever search feature that uses your profile information regarding things like your interests and personality to find you ideal matches.

'Latest Members' lets you see the newest people to have signed up, which can be useful if you want to get to know the new arrivals.

Viewing Profiles

Smart Dating Online offer a useful feature which shows your compatibility with the person you are viewing. You can check out your 'Romantic Match' which takes the astrological approach, as well as checking out your 'Personality Match', which takes the more scientific approach that many other sites use.

Contacting members

Like many other online dating services, you can 'wink' at someone to break the ice, and let them know you’re interested.

You can also send someone a virtual gift as another easy way to make contact.

To engage in full contact with someone, simply click the 'Send Message' tab in their profile.

Email alerts

Email alerts are fully customisable, meaning that you can choose whether or not to receive email alerts every time someone messages your profile or 'winks' at you, and so on.

There is also the option of mobile phone text alerts.

Value for money

Smart Dating Online is far cheaper than the more prominent players in the online dating market, however, there is nothing lacking in the features department. The personality compatibility test may not be as detailed or as scientifically rigorous as those on sites like eHarmony, but there's certainly plenty of information to browse in the profiles of potential matches.

In terms of value for money it definitely ranks very highly, offering a fantastic range of features along with one of the UK’s largest membership lists, at an extremely competitive price.

Best bits

The ease of use and speed to get up and running is a definite plus, but the wealth of features for such a low monthly fee makes this a very popular choice.

Worst bits

Not many features for free members who are frequently re-directed to the 'upgrade membership' screen when browsing their own profiles.

Pricing

1 month: £19.95
3 month: £39.36
6 month: £64.98