S&W really went down the wrong road with that .380. They made their reputation on high-quality, well made guns (yes, even the autoloaders--I own an awesome 3913 LadySmith)--and then made basically an S&W Bryco. I think the design life was only a couple thousand rounds, and you had to use a pin punch to disassemble the thing, IIRC. I'm not even sure if it had real sights. :banghead:
Had they instead made a small, double-action .380 comparable to the Colt Pony or the Kel-Tec P3AT, they'd have grabbed a lot of market share in the small-.380 niche.
For the price, a used Bersa .380 or something like that would be a lot better choice from a quality standpoint, IMHO. (I just read the Bersa thread in Autoloaders, and the poster said they typically go for ~$150 or so.)