HTC Wildfire deals & review

In a word or two

The HTC Wildfire is a social networking, friendly smartphone with a powerful core and a surprisingly small price tag.

The Design

The look of the HTC Wildfire is strikingly similar to the Desire, only more compact. This is because the Wildfire is basically a cheaper version of the HTC Desire and HTC Legend smartphones – created for those who want to communicate with their world on a budget.

The phone’s design does not, however, tell you of its affordable nature. The HTC Wildfire feels comfortable to hold and features the same metallic cover on its battery that the HTC HD2 sports. Compact and pocket friendly, there are some nice touches on this phone to enhance your user experience. For example, there is the turn-to-mute option which means you can just flip the phone over to silence it; and the lift-to-silence option which ensures your phone starts ringing silently when you pick it up to see who’s calling.

Thanks to the 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen on the Wildfire, typing is easy – its size makes for more comfortable typing than on the HTC Smart’s 2.8 inch screen, although the display is not as sharp or vibrant as on the Desire or Legend. But then this is a budget Android device.

Specifications

The HTC Wildfire may have a price tag more on a par with the HTC Tattoo but it has the same processor as the popular HTC Hero handset. This keeps the phone running smoothly and quickly, as you launch and change between all the various apps. And there are lots of apps on this phone – together with the latest version of the Sense UI.

The UI offers you a fun and interactive way to keep up with friends. Included among the many social features of the HTC Wildfire are the Friend Stream, Enhanced Sense and Caller ID. The Friend Stream works like Motorola’s MotoBlur feature on the DEXT mobile, and merges all your tweets, posts, messages, emails and more into the one place. You can see what your friends have been up to, reply directly to any communication and update your social networking profiles too.

With the Caller ID option, your Wildfire notifies you of calls in an interesting way. Rather than a boring name or number appearing on the screen, the handset displays the Facebook profile picture, latest message and personal information such as approaching birthday, when a friend calls. And all your friends have extra stuff linked to them in the contacts screen – your last call date, text messages, emails etc.

For those moments when you’re not messaging or interacting on sites like Facebook and Twitter, you can take snaps on the Wildfire’s 5-megapixel camera. The camera has autofocus, an LED flash and smile detection for taking pretty decent images, as well as videos, which can then be instantly uploaded via Friend Stream – or emailed or shared via Bluetooth, perhaps.

You can also enjoy music on the move with the HTC Wildfire. There is a music player, FM radio, 3.5mm audio connector and an expandable memory of up to 32GB via a microSD card.

Considerations

The camera is decent but it somehow seems less capable than the 5-megapixel one on the Desire as it is a little flash-happy.

Verdict

Considering this is a budget Google Android smartphone, we’re impressed. There are some great ways to communicate with friends, a compact design and even the ability to quickly and easily share apps you like with friends. Provided the price is good, the HTC Wildfire is sure to be a seriously popular device.