HTC Wildfire Review

The HTC Wildfire brings Android technology to the budget smartphone sector. Incorporating the latest version of Android and HTC Sense plus a superbly responsive capacitive touchscreen, the Wildfire is both easy to use and supremely powerful, with access to thousands of apps. Combined with a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, a media player, GPS, Google Maps, fast internet, a fast processor, plenty of memory and a big battery, this is quite probably the best smartphone in its price range.

The number-one selling contract phone in Spring of 2010 has been theHTC Desire, and deservedly so. But the Desire isn’t a cheap phone, so HTC have made the same technology available to a much greater audience with the release of the Wildfire (due for launch in the UK in June.) While the Desire costs around £25 per month, the Wildfire is already available for for £15 per month, and that’s with half-price line rental on top! This moves HTC decisively into the mainstream. Watch out LG and Samsung, there’s a new Eastern dragon parked on your lawn!

With such a huge price differential between the Wildfire and the Desire, our first concern was that the features that made the Desire such a monster success have been sacrificed. But in fact, they’re pretty much all still here.

First of all, we’re delighted to see that there’s been no sacrifice in overall quality. The Wildfire not only looks amazing, but it feels solid in the hand too. The screen is smaller, but at 3.2 inches in size it compares favourably with other smartphones in this price range. It’s larger than the Palm Pre and the same physical size as the Nokia 5800, although admittedly it lacks the resolution of these phones. Nevertheless it makes up for this with its superbly responsive capacitive touchscreen.

Features of the HTC Wildfire include:

• 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash
• Video recording (3GP format)
• Display: Capacitive touchscreen with pinch-to-zoom capability, 240 x 320 pixels (3.2 inches) with auto-rotate
• GPS receiver with digital compass, Google Maps, HTC Footprints and geo-tagging
• Music player (aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma formats)
• FM radio
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email
• Ringtones: MP3 ringtones
• Internet: GPRS, EDGE, HSPA (7.2 Mbps download, 384 kbps upload)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate, micro-USB 2.0, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm audio jack
• Memory: 384 MB RAM plus microSD memory card (up to 32GB)
• Vibration alert
• Quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) plus HSPA/WCDMA (900/2100 MHz)
• Size: 107 x 60 x 12.9 mm
• Weight: 118g
• Talktime: 440 – 490 minutes
• Battery standby: 480 – 690 hours