The HTC Wildfire is the latest mid range offering from the manufacturer that brought us the excellent Desire handset, and this new model certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to its big brother.
The HTC Wildfire features the same mix of metallic trim with rubberised parts that immediately differentiate the phone from rival handsets. Once again the excellent optical trackpad is present at the base of the phone, offering a nice alternative to the touchscreen, especially for browsing websites. So where is the difference between these models you might ask, well the screen is one area where HTC seems to have kept the price down. The display measures 3.2" and displays a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels.
Looking at mobile phones in general, this is quite an acceptable standard, but it is what keeps this handset out of the bracket of "high end smartphone", which to be fair is the manufacturers aim. The screen thankfully supports multitouch technology and displays a massive 16 million colours, so to the untrained eye, image quality is actually rather good. The screen is a capacitive touchscreen, and its relatively low resolution does actually enhance another area of the phone which is battery life. Also, thanks to its slightly small size, the Wildfire seems a little more compact than many other Android devices available, which will certainly please certain areas of the market. You will also find a 3.5mm headphone jack on the exterior of the phone, along with a micro USB for easy PC synchronisation.
The HTC Wildfire uses the Android 2.1 operating system, like many high end phones, thus retains the functionality of many of these models which is pleasing. The 528Mhz processor is ample, although those used to models such as the Desire or the iPhone may find it a touch on the slow side. Connectivity is varied on the phone, with great facilities whether you are at home or on the move. WiFi is present, and offers the fastest online experience, however there are times when you cannot connect to such a network so it is great to see that the Wildfire supports 3G coverage, the best connection whilst travelling around. And even if you cannot connect to this, GPRS and EDGE are waiting in the wings to ensure you can always stay in touch. Such great connectivity options means the Wildfire is a great social networking tool. The handset features a function named Friendstream, which collaborates various information from different social networking sites, and displays it to you all in one place.
The HTC Wildfire really boasts a wealth of features for its relatively modest price. The phone benefits from Android 2.1, and thus behaves very much like a more heavyweight smartphone, but also maintains a degree of compactness not associated with such models.
