HTC Wildfire S review
The basics
The HTC Wildfire S is a delightful and affordable smartphone that crams a hefty range of features into a compact package dressed in a tough, great-looking unibody design. A 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, up to 32GB of storage, easy social network integration and web browsing makes the HTC Wildfire S one of the most capable budget smartphones around.
The good
It’s easy to judge budget smartphones as inferior to more costly handsets, but in the HTC Wildfire S we have a smartphone that offers features similar to pricier models. We love the unibody design that combines form and function. A 512MB internal memory can easily be upped to 32GB using a microSD card, offering plenty of room for music, photos and video.
The HTC Wildfire S’ 3.2-inch screen offers plenty of room for web browsing while keeping things compact. A friend-stream integrates all your social networking contacts into one contacts page.
And the 5-megapixel camera is not to be sniffed at. Higher end smartphones may pack more of the pixels in, but the snapper here performs consistently. The LED flash is great for taking snaps in darker conditions when needed.
One nice little feature we noticed is the ability to fiddle with the music controls from the lock screen, so that you can easily skip or pause tracks without having to unlock the phone. Smart thinking.
The bad
The bad
The dinky size isn’t for everyone. One downside to the smooth unibody is getting used to holding the thing without accidentally dropping it. You also cannot play Flash video. And even when playing non-Flash video, the HTC Wildfire S tends to struggle. Web browsing could also feel a little quicker, so overall media performance feels limited.
The bottom line
The HTC Wildfire S may not be up there with the pricier handsets, but as a budget handset, the HTC Wildfire offers a handsome alternative with all the features you need to stay in touch, browse the web and listen to the odd tune.
User comments (2)
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Anonymous01 March 2012
Very Good Phone. Easy to use and has good features. Looks very smart and is light weight too. The 5mg camera with flash is nice as well. The bad thing is that it gets slow when playing high graphic games. Obviously the screen is not too big but is ok to use. Better then many small screen phones such as Sony Erixson Xperia x10 mini. I would recommend this phone strongly. If you can only spend about £150......then this is the perfect phone for you........
Report as inappropriateShaunTweddle03 June 2012
Had this phone over a year. For a budget phone, it's still possibly one of the best phones out there. Its only real features that are a bit of a let down is its battery life and its internal memory. Yeah you can install some apps to an SD card, but you can't do this with all of them (like Facebook, Twitter, Google Maps etc) and you'll soon find youself having to uninstall a couple to make room. It's also been confirmed by HTC that the Wildfire S won't be getting the Android 4.0 OS (Ice Cream Sandwich) because of it's lack of memory. There is a newer version of the Wildfire coming out soon called the Wildfire C which is an update of the Wildfire S which looks a better bet, with updated specs and its compatible with Android 4.0. If the faults I have mentioned aren't a real issue for you then you can't go wrong with this phone.
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