Android is big news these days, and it seems like almost every day there is a new story, detailing new boundaries broken by Android toting devices. As one of the leading manufacturers of Android based handsets, HTC have done as much as anyone to help drive Android to the top of the sales charts, and they have just announced another handset in their fast expanding range of smartphones, the HTC Wildfire.
At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking the Wildfire is actually a Nexus One, so similar is the styling of the device. But whilst the Wildfire and Nexus One may look the same, that’s where the similarities end. In terms of horsepower, and all round capabilities, the Wildfire is more at the Tattoo end of the market. But that shouldn’t be taken as a criticism; there is a big space in the market for functional smartphones that come at an acceptable price. People want smart, but not at any cost. Given the sim free price of the Wildfire is expected to be around the €300 mark, it is going to appeal to the wider audience that is slightly more budget conscious than your multi phone owning smartphone devotee.
So, what does the HTC Wildfire offer? Well, as we’ve already established, the Wildfire is an Android powered device, and thankfully the Wildfire comes to market sporting the latest version of Android currently available, Android OS 2.1. Running over the Android OS, the HTC Wildfire brings the ever popular HTC Sense UI, delivering a bright, colourful way of interacting with the device. The Sense UI delivers seven homescreens which are fully customisable; you can add shortcuts and widgets to a variety of applications and widgets, bringing up to the minute news and weather reports, updates from your favourite social networks and messaging alerts from your email and instant messaging straight to the homescreen of the device.
The HTC Wildfire sports a QVGA 240 x 320 capacitive touchscreen, which is quite a low resolution for a smartphone, but in keeping with the overall budget focus of the device. The Wildfire display supports multi touch input, which comes into its own when playing games or browsing the web, and has a built in accelerometer for display auto rotation. An optical trackball is available, which is pretty redundant for most things as swiping through the menu system is very intuitive. The trackpad does come into its own though when trying to locate a specific point when editing a text message.
Imaging fares rather well on the Wildfire, endowed as it is with a decent 5.0 Megapixel camera, with autofocus support, LED flash, smile detection and geotagging, which allows you to record the location an image was captured in via the built in GPS receiver, which you can then instantly share with friends via your favourite social media application. For entertainment purposes, the Wildfire offers a built in stereo FM radio with RDS, and a full media player, which supports multiple formats for both video and audio.
Data connectivity is also well represented on the handset, with HSDPA Mobile Broadband offering data downloads at up to 7.2Mbps, backed up with Class 10 GPRS and EDGE. WiFi 802.11 b/g is also included, as well as Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support. All in, not too bad fr a budget handset. Which leaves the question, what is budget about this phone? Well, aside from the previously mentioned low resolution display, the HTC Wildfire has a 528 MHz processor, and 384 MB RAM. Whilst these numbers don’t stack up against the best smartphones on the market right now, it is going to be good enough for the market segment this handset is aimed at, maybe first time smartphone owners who want to see what all the fuss is about.
Overall, the HTC Wildfire presents as a solid device, and what it lacks in punch it certainly makes up for with style. The inclusion of Android 2.1 and HTC Sense UI is a proven winning combination, and if you are looking for your first Android device, you could do a lot worse than start with the HTC Wildfire.
The HTC Wildfire is available to pre-order from us now with deals from just £10.42 a month, includes free handset, 300 minutes and unlimited text messages.
Related HTC Wildfire Links
- Compare the latest HTC Wildfire deals
- Compare HTC Wildfire pay as you go prices
- Read user HTC Wildfire reviews
- Full list of HTC Wildfire specs
- View gallery of HTC Wildfire pictures
- Watch latest HTC Wildfire video
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10:49 pm
This is the simple reason that Android is going to eventually get control of the mobile operating system market. High end Android phones such as the HTC Desire, SE X10 are selling in numbers comparable to the Apple iPhone and now Android is also able to go after the lower market which is currently held by over devices such as those running Symbian. Apple iPhones are unlikely to ever be able to be purchased at a lower price, but relatively decent Android phones are coming out at lower and lower prices (I even saw the HTC Wildfire for sale unlocked at under £200 which follows the price of the HTC Tattoo but with higher specs).