If you can’t justify forking out the small fortune it costs to buy an all-singing, all dancing, top-of-the-range mobile handset, then the HTC Wildfire could be for you…..

HTC‘s Wildfire has been around for a few months now and offers an entry-level look at Google’s Android 2.1 operating system for those restricted by budget or just not interested in high price tags or expensive contracts. You can pick up an HTC Wildfire on a 24-month contract for as little as £15 per month at the moment, or if you would prefer to buy one outright, you can do so for around £230.

We picked up a Wildfire to give it a good going over; here’s how we found it………

SPECS

The Wildfire sports a 3.2-inch QVGA LCD display with a capacitive touchscreen, and in the engine room, you can expect a 528MHz Qualcomm processor with 384MB of RAM. There’s 512MB of ROM although you can extend this to 32GB via a micro-SD slot.

There’s plenty of connectivity options; dual-band HSDPA, quad-band GSM/EDGE, WiFi b/g and Bluetooth set things up nicely and you can also expect GPS for all your location-based Android services.

Also included is a 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash and an FM radio which you can tune into via the 3.5mm headphone jack. Other features of note include  an accelerometer, a digital compass and of course, access to the all-important Android Market for apps.

DESIGN

Considering HTC have classed this as a budget handset, the Wildfire looks fantastic. Looking like a smaller version of the HTC Desire and available in four different colours (black, brown, red, and white), the Wildfire fits snugly in the hand and has a light, yet solid feel to it that denotes some quality workmanship. A slight lip at the bottom of the handset adds some character.

The front panel of the Wildfire houses the 3.2″ touchscreen, which should be big enough for the majority of users that haven’t been spoiled rotten by the comparatively huge screens of the Desire, iPhone or HTC Legend. However, it is also the cause of perhaps our biggest issue with the HTC Wildfire; the display resolution.

The screen may well be large, but with a display resolution of just 240 x 320 pixels, graphics, images and text all seem a little blurry and you will find yourself straining your eyes to read through web pages. If you’re used to the crystal-clear sharpness that you get on the higher-end mobile phones, then the Wildfire is likely to disappoint.

Beneath the display you’ll find four touch-pads which link you to Home, Menu, Back and Search, and under these is the optical track-pad, which doubles up as the camera shutter button. Along the side of the Wildfire you’ll find a large rocker button that acts as a volume control for calls, tones and media, whilst the back of the handset houses the camera lens and flash hole – more of which later.

FEATURES

The Wildfire is effectively an HTC Tattoo updated to Android 2.1 which, combined with HTC’s Sense UI, offers a simple, intuitive experience that is kind to newcomers in the smartphone arena and still has enough features to entertain the old hands.Once turned on, just follow the easy-to-understand instructions to set up your new Wildfire to your liking and you’ll be ready to go.

The HTC Wildfire features seven home-screens, which can be scrolled through by swiping left or right, via the optical track-pad, or by pinching the screen to access Android 2.1′s Leap View, which lets you see mini-versions of all seven home-screens before allowing you to select your preferred destination.

Previous owners of HTC phones will know that a large part of the experience is down to Sense UI’s excellent widgets – many of which better some of the Android efforts – and it’s no different for the Wildfire. Particularly useful is the Friend Stream widget, which brings together all of your contacts and aggregates all of their social networking activity for you, from sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

However, due to the relatively weak and slow processor used in the Wildfire, you won’t be able to access all the apps that you normally can through other Android 2.1 phones. A quick look through the Android Market showed that some apps were just not available; one particularly noticeable absentee was Live Wallpapers, which should give you an indication of the limits of the Wildfire.

The virtual keyboard may be an issue if you have particularly large hands/fingers, but most users will find it easy to use, particularly as it responds to the accelerometer and can be used in both portrait and landscape modes. It’s not perfect, though; as with the majority Android-based phones the keyboard does take up a huge proportion of the screen as you are typing, meaning that you have to put in that extra bit of work to fire off a text message, as the Send option is often hidden behind.

PERFORMANCE

Despite the use of the 528MHz processor that is generally regarded as almost antiquated, the HTC Wildfire doesn’t suffer too badly in terms of speed. The general feeling is that HTC have managed to get the most out of the old Qualcomm warhorse; the Wildfire can certainly hold its own when performing basic tasks such as swiping through home-screens or accessing apps.

However, there are a few areas that performance is affected, with varying levels of concern. There is the occasional pause whilst the CPU catches up with what you have instructed it to do; there is a reasonable wait for web pages to load up, regardless of signal strength; the keyboard lags behind whilst you’re typing on the keyboard. Although these issues are a hindrance, they will hardly have you hurling the Wildfire out of your window with rage.

Which may be the case if you’re watching trying to watch video, for example. The Wildfire has support for Flash Lite, but you won’t be able to watch any Flash videos online. Even little pre-downloaded movies will freeze, jog, splutter and generally not work – and shooting movies is pretty awful as well. If video is your bag, then look elsewhere. Try the Samsung Galaxy S or the Wave – or even an Archos device – which should all give you  a much cleaner video experience.

It’s not all bad news, though. The music player is excellent; playlists are easy to set up and maintain, whilst you can expect good sound quality (when listening though a decent pair of headphones, rather than the supplied hands-free) and smooth performance. The camera is also good for still images, which turn out very well. Don’t be fooled by the pixelated nature of their appearance on the Wildfire’s display; this is just the effect of the low-res screen and your pictures will look much better on your PC screen.

Call quality is fine; the earpiece transmits the callers voice clearly, and the microphone picks up your voice with good effect, whilst the battery life is fairly standard; you can expect to be re-charging every night unless you adjust your settings and turn off your connectivity, as is the case with pretty much every single smartphone on the market.

VERDICT

The HTC Wildfire is unlikely to turn your head if you have experienced the joys of a higher-end handset, as there’s just too many little flaws in performance that will grate away at you. However, this phone hasn’t been made for such people. The Wildfire is aimed at those on a tighter budget and as such, delivers some reasonable value. There are plenty of features on board that offer fun, interactivity and will get you closer to your social networks whilst on the move, and so long as you don’t want to watch much video and don’t mind the lack of sharpness from the display, most of the performance issues are annoying rather than terminal. Combining these facts with an easy learning curve makes the HTC Wildfire an excellent choice for those new to smartphones….

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