HTC Wildfire PDA Phone Review
If at all phones are capable of making kids, then once you place your hands on the HTC Wildfire, you could not stop thinking that it is the child of the Desire and Nexus One. The recent range of HTC models were running short of budget models and that is the main reason why the company manufactures some low cost solutions from time to time. But, obviously, the dull truth is that, this is just an Android 2.1 alternative for the flagship Tatoo.
Being a smartphone on a tight budget, the HTC Wildfire, it does not skimp on the specifications. It is equipped with the same 3.2-inch 320 x 240 capacitive LCD touch-screen, 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor, 384MB RAM and a 5 megapixel camera. So, does this reasonably priced handset provide enough value to satisfy the Europeans and can the aging processor maintain the Sense UI well functioning? Read on to find out.
Design:
Compact and Colourful:
Design wise, the HTC Wildfire is really a smart and familiar looking smartphone. The rounded edges and rubberised, brown grey finishing are identical to the Desire and, below the screen, you will be able to find the optical trackpad of Desire. If you are not too fond of subtle brown finishing, there are other colour options too, from jolly cerise to serious bronze. The Wildfire is actually more pocket friendly than most of the other Android phones, even the devices with 3.2” screens, making it quite portable. It is good that this phone is small as you have to unlock the screen only by pressing the power button.
Lovechild of Desire and Legend:
As we had mentioned in the introduction, you will be able to realise that there have been several elements in the phone that have been borrowed from two of HTC’s Android Handsets. The optical trackpad doubles as the front panel’s only button; other commands are controlled by touchpads at the bottom of the touchscreen panel. While the touch buttons and the reassuringly back texture have been borrowed from Nexus One, the buttons do not perform as well on this big daddy. The body frame, optical trackpad, ear piece and chin have been taken from Desire. The rear has got its styling from the HD2 with a broad metallic band, but, this is not the metal that you would take away from the battery slot, the real cover has to be taken off with some endeavour from the device, just similar to the Desire. When the Wildfire is taken in hand, it feels just like the Desire and feels equally sturdy too.
Built Quality:
The chin of the phone is a part of the rear cover; but this is exactly where we were able to spot the first flaw of the HTC Wildfire. There seems to an patchy cut between the body frame and its chin. This highly lets down the impressive built quality of the other HTC devices, but being an beginner model, we feel that these small details have to be left easy. Flip it to the left, and you will find a shiny volume rocker, which feels sturdy and there is also a micro USB port. In the rear, there is the usual five mega pixel camera, which is sandwiched by a LED Flash and loudspeaker.
LCD Display:
The 3.2 inch display is big enough, but if you are accustomed to a smartphone sporting a larger screen, you might find yourself missing the extra inches though. It might feel rather cramped when compared to iPhone or the Legend. In order to meet with the inferior price point of the Wildfire, HTC has gone with the good old LCD screen instead of the AMOLED. Unfortunately, the display still has the notorious mirror effect, but it is not as sturdy as with the Desire or the Hero. Having said that, we are also quite upset that, because of the low resolution of the display (320 x 240 pixels) some of the Apps did not materialize on Wildfire’s market. Yes, because of the good old fragmentation and we advice that the potential future Android users have to look for devices with a least resolution of 480 x 320 pixels to get maximum support. Note that, this resolution is just about half of the HTC Legend or Hero’s 320 x 480 pixels, and is just a fraction of the high resolution display of Desire’s 480 x 800 pixels. This also means that you have to zoom in to make the text on the web pages legible. It also has a capacitive touch display that is smooth, supporting multi-touch gestures.
User Interface:
HTC Sense:
The HTC Wildfire PDA Phone has also been blessed with the HTC Sense user interface as in the case of it other Android 2.1 predecessors. Although this may keep costs a touch higher than they could otherwise be, it is a joy to use. Since it sports the Android 2.1, it sports all of the smartphone features such as support for Outlook email. Some of the highlights of this interface comprise Leap for switch between homescreens, as intuitive text highlighting too that seems to be seriously similar to the iOS, a keyboard that most people prefer over the stock version, a FriendStreaming Widget for stalking your friends and a built-in Flash Lite. HTC has also made some tweaks to this Android version on its own, such as, adding an excellent on-screen keypad, improvement in the management of Google, Microsoft Exchange and social networking accounts.
Navigation:
As soon as the system is switched on, you will immediately appreciate its ease of use. Navigation around the device is quite quick, simple and straightforward.
Widgets:
Having said that, HTC has included heaps of widgets of its own which you will be able to pop onto any of the seven home screens. Notably, Sense can import your contacts from these accounts into its People app, and it will automatically look for duplicates and suggest contacts to merge. We feel that all of HTC’s widgets have been well designed and good looking too. But if you do not like them personally, you can easily download tonnes of other apps and widgets from the Android market.
Virtual Keyboard:
As far as the keyboard is concerned, anybody in the Android community, they would bet that HTC has got one of the best virtual keyboards, but we have a nasty feeling that the Wildfire will not quite make to this list. No, the issue is not with the slightly crammed keys, you will still be able to type quite well with that, the annoying this is the tortoise response to the typing. Having said that, HTC has done a commendable job by yanking the hide button as the back button that resides below the screen does the job anyway. By doing this, Wildfire is now able to extend the spacebar and in addition to this, the keyboard settings now prompt a customisable set of international keyboards for quick switching. This will just reduce the pressure caused by the laggy keyboard.
On the other hand, we liked the optical trackpad of the Wildfire PDA smartphone from HTC; it works smoothly, and looks slick compared to the trackball that we had seen on phones like the HTC Hero. You will not have to use it often, but it is quite handy for editing text and scrolling through little links on busy Web pages.
Features:
Multimedia:
We have already been impressed by the multimedia apps of HTC in the Legend and Desire itself. And, you will not find a lot of changes on this note as far as the music player is concerned; it still seems to be spontaneous and steady like before. But music lovers should consider investing in a microSD card to beef up the built-in 512MB of memory. There’s room for up to 32GB more, via the memory card slot.
But unfortunately, the gallery app is conspicuously sluggish at loading pictures, and the video playback is worse. The dwindling video performance is understandable as a 720p playback is just not feasible with an older CPU and in fact, all of the 720p clips seem to freeze from the gallery app. But, even with the 640 x 480 MP4 clips played at a lower frame rate, you will just start to wonder, who on earth will be willing to buy this PDA, when there are heaps of feature phones that can do a much better job. Sorry HTC, but this is not pleasing by any means.
Social Networking:
HTC Wildfire 3.2″ Touchscreen Phone has gone all-out as far as the social networking features are concerned. It has integrated Facebook into everything from calendar to caller ID. Sharing of the Android Apps have also been made simple with a system included for sending links to friends from the handset. One of our favourite social networking widget is the Friend Stream Widget, which keeps you up to date with your Twitter and Facebook updates, without requiring you to open an app, as you must on the iPhone.
Camera:
As with all of the other HTC devices, do not expect to have any great picture quality; especially in the low light conditions. The five mega pixel camera in HTC Wildfire produces indoor shots that are pretty good. But, with the outdoor usage, the camera struggles either with White Balance or with the time after time under exposed shots. However, there is no need to panic as they are nowhere as bad as you might imagine. The videos are capped at a 352 x 288 pixels resolution with a very sad frame rate, and you will end up with a lower frame rate if you are recording in dark.
Browsing:
The HTC Wildfire comes with a WebKit browser on-board. Multiple windows come as standard and switching between them is just a two-command affair. The HTC Wildfire also features a ‘find on page’ option, which makes wading through text heavy web pages much easier. Switching between Wi-Fi and 3G is fairly easy and if you are planning on switching between 3G and Wi-Fi regularly, we would recommend adding the HTC power control widget to one of the home screens. It is a one-stop shop for controlling your 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS connections.
Maps:
GPS is also available to keep you going in the right direction with the help of Google Maps. Maps caused no issues, with the GPS able to locate us effortlessly as we travelled around by loading maps at an acceptable speed. The built-in compass is invaluable for the directionally-challenged, and the route planner is wonderfully simple to programme with clear directions to follow either in list view or on the map.
Performance:
Weak:
The weak processor does take a toll on the performance of the otherwise excellent user interface. Just like its predecessor Legend, the Live Wallpapers have been disabled sensibly on the feeble Wildfire. However, there were still some occasional hiccups every now and then and there were a few crashes from the internet browser along with the headache of a slow Camera App. Obviously, the CPU is the black sheep as the Legend is also equipped with the same 384MB of RAM, but does not suffer from any such glitches. Talking about the hiccups, the Flash web content also takes several minutes to load on the Wildfire. Even if you have the kind of patience, the lower frame rate leaves just a lot to be desired.
Messaging and eMail:
Messaging using the HTC Wildfire is pretty basic. However, what the device lacks in feature, it makes up for it with ease of use. The inbox features images of the contacts, making it quite nice and pleasant to look at. And, each of the contacts has its own threaded messaging, like the iPhone. As far as typing the messages is concerned, it is pretty much a breeze. As we had mentioned earlier, the HTC Sense QWERTY Keyboard is one of the best. Setting up Exchange or Pop email is a breeze as long as you have all the required information to hand. It is simply a matter of filling in the fields onscreen and that is it.
Audio:
Adding to the list of positives on the Wildfire is vast range of audio files supported, stereo Bluetooth that works flawlessly and the built-in FM radio. We would not recommend the loudspeaker at the rear for listening to music entertainment, but the handsfree kit that comes in the package is pretty cool; too bad that it is not the noise cancelling type of plug and its mic is quite average too. Again, the phone’s mic is not better by any means too.
Battery Life:
Though there are some performance issues with the Wildfire, it manages to provide about twelve hours of battery life on just 3G data connectivity with some occasional music, moment capturing, video recording, FriendStream, Twitter and web browsing. This is a very impressive timing, considering that you will be able to get just eight to ten hours on the Legend, which also has the same 1300Ah battery, but with a newer and obviously a much efficient CPU. And perhaps, even the AMOLED screens of the other devices suck up some fair bit of juice than the other LCDs.
Accessories:
HTC does not seem to mess around when it comes to accessories. And, as such the HTC Wildfire comes with minimum, as it is the quality we like and not the quantity.
Warranty:
HTC offers Wildfire Android PDA one year warranty for parts and labour.
Verdict:
Being a low budget model, we did not have high expectations for the Wildfire to start with and having reviewed it, we are less stoked. This Android smartphone has more than just a passing resemblance to its larger cousin, the HTC Desire. Android 2.1 means the Wildfire has all the functionality of a more expensive handset, although its lower resolution screen means that using it is not quite so much fun. This handset seriously lacks in multimedia features and, there is the screen issues and the occasional lag too.
Having said that, you just cannot hate the device entirely as the battery life is excellent. The HTC Wildfire does not skimp on smartphone features, offering some of the best social network integration that money can buy. There is really nothing about this handset that screams ‘cheap phone’ except the low-res screen. If you primarily need a mobile phone, but want occasional internet, mapping, email and gaming, then this is an ideal choice. If you cannot stand the display of the Wildfire, the Samsung Monte is a good consideration; though it does not provide you with the smartphone software, it provides a good user experience with a decent display and plenty of features. The Wildfire is available for free on a £15-a-month, 24-month contract. You can also pick it up for around £230 SIM-free.
HTC Wildfire PDA Phone – Technical Specification Table
| Manufacturer | HTC |
| Model Name | HTC Wildfire Android PDA Phone |
| Dimensions (H x W x D) | 106.8 x 60.4 x 12 mm |
| Weight | 118 g |
| Colours available | Black, Brown, White, Red, Silver |
| Display size | 3.2 inches |
| Display type | TFT capacitive touchscreen 16M colours |
| Display resolution | 240 x 320 pixels |
| Display Features | Multi-touch input method Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate Proximity sensor for auto turn-off Touch-sensitive controls Optical trackpad HTC Sense UI Turn-to-mute and lift-to-dim-out a call |
| Memory | Internal: 384 MB RAM; 512 MB ROM Card slot: microSD, up to 32GB |
| Camera | 5 megapixel colour camera |
| Camera Resolution | 2592 x 1944 pixels |
| Camera features | Face detection capability Auto focus LED Flash Smile Detection Geotagging |
| Video | 320×240 (QVGA) (24 fps), 352×288 (CIF) (15 fps) |
| CPU | Qualcomm MSM 7225 |
| CPU processing speed | 528 MHz processor |
| Operating System | Android OS, v2.1 (Eclair), upgradable to v2.2 |
| Messaging | SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM |
| Browser | HTML |
| HTC Widgets | Bookmarks, Calendar, Clock, Footprints, Friend Stream, Mail, Messages, Music, News, People, Photo Album, Photo Frame, Search, Settings, Stocks, Twitter, Weather, Downloadable widgets |
| Social Networking | Facebook integration v Friend Stream Photo sharing on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter Video sharing on YouTube HTC Peep for twittering |
| Internet | 3G, Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g |
| Multimedia | Photos application for viewing photos and videos Music FM Radio |
| Audio formats supported | Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma Recording: .amr |
| Video formats supported | Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv Recording: .3gp |
| GSM | 850, 900, 1800, 1900 |
| UMTS | 900, 2100 |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth® 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate A2DP for wireless stereo headsets FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HSP, PBAP, SPP, Service Discovery Application Profile |
| Radio | Stereo FM radio with RDS |
| Games | Yes |
| GPS | A-GPS support Internal GPS antenna Google Maps |
| Network Bands | HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz |
| Windows system requirements | Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, or Windows XP HTC Sync |
| Phone book features | Caller groups, Multiple numbers per contact, Search by both first and last name, Picture ID, Ring ID |
| Special Features | HTC Caller ID that shows the caller’s Facebook status and a birthday reminder App Sharing that lets you recommend apps straight from your phone Adobe® Flash® support on the web browser In-built, dimmable flashlight Ringer that automatically lowers the ring volume when you lift up the phone or mutes when you flip the phone face down |
| Connectors | 3.5 mm stereo audio jack Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0) |
| Sensors | G-Sensor Digital compass Proximity sensor Ambient light sensor |
| Battery | Standard battery, Li-Ion 1300 mAh |
| Battery life | Stand by: Up to 480 h (2G) / Up to 690 h (3G) Talktime: Up to 7 h 20 min (2G) / Up to 8 h 10 min (3G) |
| Warranty | One year standard warranty for parts and labour |
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