Hands On With the HTC Wildfire S

Now it has arrived, how does the next generation Wildfire fare in a hands-on test?

Well out of the box the first thing that strikes you are the slight differences – the lack of a home button and the fact it looks more like the new Desire S than the original Desire. It’s also slightly smaller, which may not be noticeable to non first generation Wildfire users, but will be clear to first generation owners. As will its lightness, it’s over 15g lighter than the last phone.

It’s quite a quick device to start and hits the ground running in a few seconds, which is always a good thing. The screen is also much improved and this is clear from use as well as the spec sheet, which reports a resolution of 320×480, an improvement on the original 240×360 display.

The device has also Android 2.3 which can be seen in the amazing usability and multitasking capabilities of the device. Flick through the home screens to see the added advantages of Gingerbread.

Gingerbread also means you can use the diminutive HTC for use as a WI-Fi hotspot and gives it a newer interface. However, unfortunately HTC haven’t included a front facing camera so the Wildfire S can’t take advantage of the video calling capabilities of Android 2.3. Still, the use of HTC’s own Sense 3.0 interface ensures the Wildfire is an excellent little phone to use.

The lack of a front facing camera is a pity and would give the device more marks; however it does have a 5mp rear camera capable of 720p recording at 24 frames per second which in camcorder terms is an improvement on the old Wildfire. Photos come out with clarity, possibly because of the spec improvements in software, which will have ironed out any of the issues of the Wildfire.

The HTC Wildfire S is also quite fast, especially in comparison to the previous version. The new 600MHz Snapdragon processor and increased amount of RAM can be seen, though when playing Angry Birds it’s not unknown for it to crash.

It’s quite quick also when connected to the net and handles applications quite well but can get a little clogged with too much multi-tasking. Music playback is quite good, though it would be advised to buy new cans as HTC’s headphones aren’t fantastic, however you can hold up to 32GB of tunes via the addition of a mini SD card.

Watching footage is limited by the small screen but is quite okay for short periods or for internet clips. The Friend Stream application is also quite useful and like in most HTCs places all your social media information on a concise tidy screen.

This post was written by: Techie Blogger

Techie Blogger is a IT Trainer, Pro Blogger and front end web developer. Follow him on Twitter