{"id":6386,"date":"2011-12-05T14:52:29","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T20:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=6386"},"modified":"2013-04-19T03:31:54","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T08:31:54","slug":"techcitement-review-htc-wildfire-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/hardware\/techcitement-review-htc-wildfire-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: HTC Wildfire S"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 Time was that making such a choice meant settling for an out-of-date Blackberry if you wanted any kind of smartphone at all.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\u2019re looking at HTC\u2019s 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\u2019s spectrum.<\/p>\n

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Euro HTC Hero. Ooh la la.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Wildfire S actually reminded me of HTC\u2019s 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\u2019s Android skin, Sense, that was running when I first turned it on (more on that later).<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0All 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\u2019s not going to compare to HTC\u2019s recent trend of building massive phones, but for those who happy with a 3.2\u201d display, it\u2019ll do fine. This is not a fancy-shmancy IPS, AMOLED, or any other initials display. It\u2019s a simple, old school 320 x 480 resolution TFT LCD screen. If you\u2019ve used some of those aforementioned newer technologies, it may seem a bit washed out, but the screen size is size proportionate.<\/p>\n

Under the hood, you can find a basic set of specs as well. There\u2019s a 600 Mhz chip powering the Wildfire S — slower than the aforementioned HTC HERO. There\u2019s no internal storage, forcing you to rely on the 2 GB bundled MicroSD card or an SD card (upgradable to 32 GB). \u00a0With that noted, the Wildfire S is quite the performer. I don\u2019t think it will replace someone\u2019s media player, what with the lack of internal storage and low-tech screen, but I constantly found myself pleasantly surprised by the device\u2019s battery life, speakerphone volume, and most importantly, call quality.<\/p>\n

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Remember phone calls? Those things we used to make before texting?<\/p><\/div>\n

I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

As for Android functionality, \u00a0the 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\u00a0 also find HTC\u2019s 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\u2019t like Sense and don\u2019t mind hacking your phone, there\u2019s a nice selection of custom ROMs out there for the phone.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s $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\u2019re going to get at any on contract network. After a few months, you\u2019ll have made back that $199 and not be stuck in a two-year contract like.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re 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\u2019d even say keep your eyes peeled for other such sales as we get closer to the holidays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,1085],"tags":[1774,6,421,1505,1773],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6386"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6393,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions\/6393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}