HTC Wildfire review

The Wildfire is an Android-based handset from HTC, and for those who don’t have the cash to splash out on an iPhone or HTC Desire, this could be a great low-cost substitute.

Design-wise, the Wildfire is compact and curvy with dimensions measuring 12.19mm x 60.4mm x 106.75mm. It looks like a pint-sized version of the HTC Desire, which is no bad thing.

At 118g (including the battery), the Wildfire is very lightweight. Even though it is small, it does feel solid in the palm of the hand.

Upon the first boot the phone runs through set-up options, allowing you to configure network and Wi-Fi settings, sync social networking/email accounts and activate the Google location application.

This is very convenient and saves users from having to go through these individual steps after booting the phone.

The 3.2in QVGA touch-screen is fully capacitive and has a 240 x 320 resolution. While it’s not as sharp as the iPhone 4’s Retina display (960 x 640) or the Samsung Wave’s super Amoled screen (480 x 800), the colours on the Wildfire are vibrant. The touch-screen is very responsive and the pinch-to-zoom feature comes in very handy.

There are four touch-sensitive buttons below the screen – home, menu, back and search – to aid quick navigation. An optical track pad is also included for those who do not want to prod the touchscreen, but it is a bit unresponsive at times.

One of the best features of the smartphone is the Android 2.1 OS combined with HTC’s Sense UI. The interface is simple, making it a pleasure to navigate.

All the important applications are on the home screen, but it is possible to customise the phone to individual needs. Widgets can be added to the home screen and adjacent screens. We chose to set up a V3.co.uk RSS feed, which was one swipe away from the home screen.

For those who are too lazy to customise their phone, HTC provides “scenes”, which automatically changes widgets on the home screen and flanking screen. A great touch.

The handset comes pre-loaded with a range of apps, including FM Radio, Footprints, Friend Stream, Peep, and the usual suspects such as Stocks and YouTube. Friend Stream is particularly useful for those who like to keep track of their social network accounts, as it is able to sync Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Android’s app store features an estimated 80,000 apps at the moment. While this is not as many as the 225,000 apps available in Apple’s store, the Android Marketplace has a definite advantage over Samsung’s store for Bada, which only has 150 apps, although it is a much newer platform.

Messaging on the Wildfire is quick and easy, thanks to the great predictive text. Although the screen looks small, typing is quite accurate and the vibration feature provides haptic feedback – although some may prefer to have the vibration, we generally found it to be distracting.

Web browsing is swift over both 3G and Wi-Fi. The 3G signal is capable of downloading at up to 7.2Mbps, according to the manufacturer’s specification, and certainly felt speedy during our tests. The device also supports GPRS, Edge and Bluetooth 2.1.

The browser fully supports Flash and displayed the full version of the V3.co.uk web site. However, downloading clips from YouTube did take a bit longer and the quality of video playback wasn’t the best.

A 5-megapixel camera with LED flash is another great feature. Pictures are crisp even when zooming closely into images and the phone takes decent pictures, even in unsteady hands. The phone is unable to record in HD though, but this isn’t a deal-breaker for many smartphone buyers.

There was a little problem inserting a micro-SD card. The first card we used did not appear to register, but the second one worked. This was the only problem we experienced and the micro-SD slot supports cards up to 32GB.

Battery life gives up to 490 minutes of talk time and up to 690 hours standby time, according to HTC.

Charging takes place via the micro-USB port. During a particularly lengthy phone call, the device needed charging and got particularly hot against the ear, which wasn’t very comfortable. The short length of the USB cable also meant that the power supply had to be close at hand.

So all in all, barring a couple of gripes – the 528MHz processor is a bit on the slow side and the haptic feedback can get irritating to the point where you have to turn it off – the Wildfire is a solid device, and a good choice for users on a budget wanting an Android touch-screen phone.

3.2in capacitive screen, Android 2.1 OS, HTC Sense UI, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, up to 32GB storage via micro-SD card, Webkit 3.1 browser, 118g, 528Mhz processor