HTC Wildfire S

HTC has released another mid-ranged Android phone for those who were on a budget but wanting to get their hands on new phones. Introducing the HTC Wildfire S, this is an upgraded version of the HTC Wildfire running on the latest Android OS v2.3 Gingerbread. Reducing the phone size but maintaining the same 3.2 inch screen makes this phone under the list of most budget shoppers.

Design
There is four colors to choose from that is black, silver, lilac or brown. Phone size measuring at 101.3 x 59.4 x 12.4 mm, the HTC Wildfire S is much smaller but wider than HTC Wildfire. It has a solid bar form and a sleek finish. From the front you can see there are four capacitive buttons consist of home, menu, back and search. HTC got rid of the Optical trackpad that has not much of usage as now what we mostly do is touching the screen. Screen size is 3.2 inch, same like the old version. At the left side there is the volume rocker and microUSB port. On the top, there is a 3.5 mm audio jack and also the power/lock button. The camera with LED flash is located at the back of the phone together with the loudspeaker. By opening the back cover of the phone there is a SIM slot and a microSD memory card slot that can support up to 32 GB. This phone does have a solid feel and it comfortably sits in the palm. Weight is lighter than the older version at only 105g.

Features
The HTC Wildfire S comes with a slight upgrade in terms of the processor speed. Instead of ARM 11 528MHz, now it utilizes the ARM 11 600MHz so can say it’s not much of an upgrade but that’s what the price to pay for it so no complaint there. From the OS viewpoint we can see that now the phone is come installed with the newest Android v2.3 Gingerbread. In addition to the latest version of the Android OS, this phone has seven customizable home pages allowing users to customize at their own way. HTC has also included the latest HTC Sense V3.0 UI which is a great addition to this phone with new home screen that can be viewed in 3D.

Screen resolution of this phone has been upgraded to 320 x 480 pixels as well so much brighter and color compared to the HTC Wildfire with only 240 x 320 pixels only. Screen size is same but with the added ambient light sensor feature which would auto adjust to the screen brightness according to dark or light situations.

Several upgraded features had been added to this phone also. For connectivity, HTC runs at 114 kbps. For EDGE is at 560 kbps and also at 3G is 7.2 Mbps for download while 384 kbps for upload. Wi-Fi has been upgraded as well. It supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and can say it’s a plus improvement for this phone. Bluetooth has been upgraded to V3.0 with A2DP. SMS function is a bit hard to type because of the small screen so the keyboard is squeezed together while in landscape mode the enter button is near the home capacitive button. Often we would accidentally pressed the home button instead of the enter button so hope HTC would improve this in the future.

The camera feature had not much of an improvement from the previous Wildfire. There is no secondary camera at the front just like the previous version. It comes with a 5.0 Mega Pixel camera and an LED flash at the back. Still picture capturing maximum resolution is 2592 x 1944 pixels. New added features to the phones camera are Touch-focus, Image stabilizer and Face detection. Video recording is not as great as it would appear lag when playing back the video. 720 x 480 at 24 fps appears to be not much of an appeal there.

Lastly the battery life is not so impressive but still acceptable. HTC Wildfire S uses Li-Ion 1230 mAh battery but its predecessor uses Li-Ion 1300 so the new HTC Wildfire had a weaker battery life than the old version. Standby time for this phone at 2G is 360 hours while at 3G is 570 hours. Calling time for 2G is 07 hours and 10 minutes while on 3G its 05 hours and 50 minutes. This phone does not have a dedicated mic and calling quality is soft.

Pros and Cons
HTC Wildfire S does have upgraded their processor speed and also the resolution for the screen so it’s still an upgrade but not significant. Camera quality is quite ok with still photo shooting but video is still on the down side. The new HTC Sense v3.0 is better than the previous phone. This is to be said a mid-range phone so for non-hardcore users it’s worth the budget.

Secondary camera would be greatly appreciated but unfortunately there is not one on this phone. Battery life should have been better than the previous version but this phone does not have a longer battery life than HTC Wildfire. Call quality and SMS keyboard interface should be taken care of as well to improve the basic features of the phone.

Conclusion
Overall this is a good phone. It does not burn a big hole in your wallet for those who wants to own an Android phone and on a budget. This phone is definitely not suitable for those who need a power phone.