The HTC Wildfire S is a small, budget smartphone available exclusively on the Telstra network in Australia. Unlike most network-exclusive handsets, the HTC Wildfire S will not actually function on any 3G network other than Telstra’s, but will still offer standard calling and texts on other carriers.
The Wildfire S sports an extremely compact design, measuring just 101.3 x 59.4 x 12.3mm and weighs in at just 105 grams. While it might not be the thinnest device on the market, this handset is noticeably smaller than your average smartphone when held in the hand or put in the pocket. It offers a very no-nonsense feel for those users who want smartphone functionality, but don’t really feel the need to be on the cutting edge or have a massive screen.
Hardware and Speed on the HTC Wildfire S
Hardware-wise the HTC Wildfire S is around what you’d expect from a lower-end device. A 600MHz processor with 52MB of RAM should get the job done without too much hassle and internal memory is limited to just 512MB, relying on MicroSD cards for expandable storage.
The small, 3.2 inch display provides passable multi-touch support but unfortunately falls a bit short in the graphics department. The screen itself is quite dull, not offering the vibrant colours or bright backlight that we would prefer. Although this display apparently supports a 320 x 480 resolution (the same as the iPhone 3Gs and many other phones in this category) it seems at times that one can almost see in between the pixels, leaving the experience somewhat more wanting than it might otherwise have needed to be.
As far as actual speed goes the HTC Wildfire S won’t wow anybody. It tends to suffer from a bit of jerkiness for Home Screen slide animations, as well as occasionally in the App Menu, but only enough to detract from the end polish, rather than really frustrate the user.
Loading and closing applications can sometimes take a bit of time, but once again not nearly enough for us to send it hurtling towards an untimely end against the brick wall out back.
User Interface, Keyboard and Browsing
The user interface (UI) is Sense 2.1 running on Android Gingerbread 2.3.3. What that means is that it’s one of HTC’s standard UIs and it comes running on one of the most recent versions of Google Android. The Sense interface has always been one of our favourites as it is easy to navigate, tends to operate without too many glitches and even looks pretty sleek to boot.
The biggest problem we encountered with the HTC Wildfire S was the on-screen keyboard. In portrait mode the keyboard is almost too small to type on at all for anyone with larger thumbs, but that’s more of a physical constraint due to the device’s compact nature, rather than an oversight. But even in landscape mode we still found frustration in the Wildfire S’seeming inablility to keep up with our typing speed. Although we realise we are quick typists, being in the gadget industry and all, we still have personal friends and family members who type at the same speed and whom we think would find this just as frustrating as we did. This keyboard lag was not limited only to SMS, either. Email, web browsing and all other keyboard functions were affected.
Browsing itself was fast and accurate, which is what we’ve come to expect from the Telstra network. Of course the experience was somewhat hampered by the keyboard, but other than that we found it to be pleasant. Anyone who is hard of eyesight might have a bit of trouble making out pictures on the 3.2 inch screen and we did find it a bit annoying having to scroll constantly due to the smaller display. It was still fine for casual browsing, but once you got in to some serious news reading or web surfing the 3.2 inch screen did make things measurably more difficult than on a larger device. Once again this wasn’t bad enough for us to wish the Wildfire S any harm, but for web browsing we certainly prefer our larger screens.
Camera, Media and Apps on the Wildfire S
The 5MP camera is quite good in a market-standard kind of way. Like almost every phone camera we review, especially of the 5MP variety, it takes great photos in good light and poor photos in low light or at night time. The LED flash, of course, makes for better shots during the darker hours. As with other phones, pictures taken of fast moving objects can come out a bit blurry at close range, but improve in quality the further away from your target you stand.
Video capture comes out in a similar fashion, but suffers a bit more from sudden movements or in low-lit areas.
The media player on the Wildfire S is standard fare for HTC’s Sense UI, which means it functions well and is easy to use. We did encounter a bit of a problem with the 3.5mm headphone jack; it tended to skip and create a bit of white noise when our earplugs were turned on a certain angle. We tested it with a couple of other headphones and found it to be the same each time. There also seemed to be insufficient friction to keep headphones all the way plugged in when carried in the pocket. We often found our music suddenly stopping as the plug wrenched itself loose.
The video playback interface is also easy to get a handle on, but the viewing experience did tend to suffer from the earlier issues we mentioned with the display. Colours just weren’t vibrant and the washed-out screen didn’t give us the same feel as with higher end devices. This is to be expected, of course, as it’s not fair to compare a low-end device to an iPhone 4 or HTC Desire HD, but when compared to the Google Nexus S, which is available for a similar price (and in some instances on cheaper plans), it was definitely of inferior quality.
App support, with Android Gingerbread, is fantastic. Of course you’ll be looking at less apps than you would on an iPhone, but Android handsets still have well over 200 000 apps available to them these days. Opening and closing apps did tend to lag every once in a while, due to the 600MHz processor. But on the whole we found app support to be more than sufficient to meet our needs.
The WhistleOut Opinion
All up the HTC Wildfire S was a sturdy little device with a few frustrating flaws that detracted from the experience. If the idea of a laggy keyboard or slightly washed-out screen doesn’t bother you then we would definitely recommend it for anyone looking for a low-budget smartphone. However, if you’re after something more substantial you might want to look elsewhere. The Wildfire S certainly got the job done and, for its price range, we have to say it did it quite passably. But for anything more than the bare smartphone essentials users might find this handset a little lacklustre.
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