Review: HTC Wildfire S

More and more people are opting for contract-free cell providers like Boost, MetroPCS, Cricket, and Virgin Mobile. Time was that making such a choice meant settling for an out-of-date Blackberry if you wanted any kind of smartphone at all. Those times have changed, with all the name brands you can think of producing phones for the month-to-month market. In this case, we’re looking at HTC’s Wildfire S. The Wildfire S is also available as a contract phone from T-Mobile, but this version runs on Virgin Mobile, a provider that resells Sprint’s spectrum.

Euro HTC Hero. Ooh la la.

The Wildfire S actually reminded me of HTC’s first Android phone, the GSM version of the HTC HERO. All it lacked was the chin. This similarity was brought home by the older version of HTC’s Android skin, Sense, that was running when I first turned it on (more on that later).

The white and silver plastic chassis actually makes the phone stand out a bit and is a nice change from the basic black of most smartphones. Despite being plastic, it manages to not feel cheap.  All the controls are well placed — headphone jack and power on top, large hard to miss volume rocker as well as MicroUSB jack on the left, small microphone on the bottom, and a completely smooth right side. Size-wise, it’s not going to compare to HTC’s recent trend of building massive phones, but for those who happy with a 3.2” display, it’ll do fine. This is not a fancy-shmancy IPS, AMOLED, or any other initials display. It’s a simple, old school 320 x 480 resolution TFT LCD screen. If you’ve used some of those aforementioned newer technologies, it may seem a bit washed out, but the screen size is size proportionate.

Under the hood, you can find a basic set of specs as well. There’s a 600 Mhz chip powering the Wildfire S — slower than the aforementioned HTC HERO. There’s no internal storage, forcing you to rely on the 2 GB bundled MicroSD card or an SD card (upgradable to 32 GB).  With that noted, the Wildfire S is quite the performer. I don’t think it will replace someone’s media player, what with the lack of internal storage and low-tech screen, but I constantly found myself pleasantly surprised by the device’s battery life, speakerphone volume, and most importantly, call quality.

Remember phone calls? Those things we used to make before texting?

I don’t know what HTC did with the antenna technology in this phone, but I consistently got better reception than when using my other cellphones. That includes phones that were on Sprint, the very same network that Virgin phones use.

As for Android functionality,  the phone runs Android 2.3 (aka Gingerbread) and runs it well. HTC has skinned the OS with their Sense interface, as they always do. I confess to being less annoyed by Sense than I am with some other skins. I  also find HTC’s FriendStream social network solution to be handy for quick updates, even if you’re stuck with an onscreen keyboard to make them. Oh, and if you don’t like Sense and don’t mind hacking your phone, there’s a nice selection of custom ROMs out there for the phone.

There’s no front-facing camera on the Wildfire S, and the rear 5MP is a basic camera, with the plus of having a flash if you need it. The few pictures I took came out fine. As with most phones, the camera itself is not going to be your selling point.

My favorite feature of the phone was actually not something I found while using it, but something I found while not using it. The standby time on this thing is quite good. I often forgot to charge the Wildfire S for a solid day. This is likely due to the lower system specs, amusingly enough.

Those same lower specs may make one balk at spending the $199 asking price for this phone, found exclusively at Best Buy and Radio Shack (where it’s $50 off right now). After all, the iPhone 4S is $199 on three major networks. However, the appeal of networks like Virgin is that your Total Cost of Ownership is lower. The base plan of $35 for 300 minutes and unlimited texts and data is a better base than you’re going to get at any on contract network. After a few months, you’ll have made back that $199 and not be stuck in a two-year contract like.

If you’re on a budget and want a solid smartphone that handles the smart options well, you should consider the HTC Wildfire S. Based on the current Radio Shack sale, I’d even say keep your eyes peeled for other such sales as we get closer to the holidays.