There’s also the question of the processor. It’s a Qualcomm MSM 7225 528MHz chip, so substantially slower than the Snapdragon 1GHz chip in many high-end smarties. However, there’s no real evidence of slowdown or sluggishness. The screen responds quickly and the browser loads swiftly – though not as speedily as the Nexus One, say. Nonetheless, you rarely feel you’re being kept waiting.
Also available in red
Built-in memory isn’t huge – just 384MB – so it’s worth adding a micro SD card to bump this up. It’ll handle cards up to 32GB.
If you’re coming to Android from the iPhone, you may miss the way you can wake the screen from the button on the front of the phone. Press the trackpad button here and nothing happens. Instead you must reach to the top of the phone and press the wake button there. Now, this isn’t a hardship – it’s really not that far – but if you’re used to touching the front of the phone, it’s annoying. HTC says it’s so you don’t accidentally wake the screen and waste battery life.
Mind you, it’s a measure of how few the Wildfire’s disappointments are, that I’m having to mention this.
Verdict
There’s a lot to like about the HTC Wildfire, from the low price to the exceptional HTC Sense user interface. The screen is the most low-rent aspect but even though it’s definitely low-res, its still usable and at least it’s not a pressure-sensitive resistive kind of screen. Beyond that, it looks good, feels comfy in the hand and works well. ®
More Android Smartphone Reviews |
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 Vodafone
845 |
 Motorola
Flipout |
 Sony Ericsson
Xperia X10 Mini |
 Dell
Streak |
HTC Wildfire Android smartphone
COMMENTS
But what about RF Power Control?
Does it have fingertip RF power control like the iPhone4?
Mine's the one with the missing bars.
Off topic?
"With every app you install you have to agree to give access to network, system, and other weird stuff you did not even know was in the phone like you should be aware as to the potential 'dangers' that accepting that would be..."
And personally, I'm glad it does.
I agree it could be streamlined, but the approach is a good one from a personal security view.
"Plenty of applications are available only when paying"
Damn those developers with mouths to feed!
And, as far as I'm aware, the Apple app store has similarly chargable apps? No?
Personally, I've found very little utility apps that didn't have a free alternative. Regardless, you can get any payments fully refunded within 24 hours - I've found it ridiculously easy to try the paid-for apps and then get them refunded.
"Oh and IPv6 is still not fully working for mobile operators"
Huh?
Re: It's cheap and a nice entry level droid
"want a half decent virtual keyboard?"
Get on the Swype beta.
"Plenty of applications are available only when paying"
As opposed to Apple's app store, where everything is free?
resistive = inferior?
Why must a resistive touchscreen be inferior? Having handled both types, and using an n900 with resistive touchscreen every day, I'd say each has it advantages. Yes, I have to touch the screen a bit more (though not *that* much), but as a bonus, I can use whatever I want to touch the screen, so for example I can make drawings or write things down with a stylus.
In this review, the fact that it only has a 320x240 screen is declared to be not so bad, but I'd rather have a hi-res resistive screen than a low-res capacitive. 320x240 were the norm 7 years ago. This is 2010... Hello?
App store vs marketplace
I agree marketplace is quite poor in some respects (e.g. level of spam, lack of policing, lack of recommendations), but your points are not very valid.
a) Favourite apps - there are usually analogous apps and it's clear that more apps are appearing by the day. e.g. Nook and Kindle just appeared for Android the other day.
b) Install Warnings - apps access certain features so why don't you want to know what features they use. At least you get told up front what features the app is using. Personally I'd like Android to allow me to set a default and a per app policy which allows me to veto certain actions, e.g. dial numbers, access certain websites etc.
c) Micropayments - big deal. Don't use those apps. The great thing about marketplace is apps are completely free to determine their own payment models - free, ad supported, trialware, shareware, subscription etc. If you don't like apps using one model don't use them.
d) sshd, terminal, keyboard etc. Again I don't see the objection here. There are free versions of these apps even if some people choose to charge for them. Furthermore you should be rejoicing that Android lets you add these things. If you don't like the default keyboard you can just replace it with another. That's a mark of a well designed OS.
d) IPv6. Android is capable of it, though I doubt many network providers do.
Your verdict is invalid. Android is a more than capable device and certain devices such as HTC's are extremely pleasant and friendly to use. I think the stock OS still has some rough edges that individual phone manufacturers shouldn't have to be fixing but there are still more than enough reasons to favour a decent Android phone over the iPhone.
