The New HTC Wildfire Smartphone – Android and Sense Interface

Posted by Geronimo Boosh on May 29, 2010 · Leave a Comment

If you are a Facebook member you may remember the HTC question from them asking what they should name one of their new smartphones. It has arrived ( in some places ) and HTC chose the name “Wildfire”. Get a closer look at yet another unit from HTC below.

AT&T said they would have five HTC Android handsets in the first half of this year. This Wildfire unit is one of them, but may be a little bit late arriving. It may not arrive at all in the USA market. It is destined for Europe and Asia. It is created for the younger users and for smaller budgets. It is just a bit smaller than the HTC Desire and resembles it with its small “chin” profile. This seems to be the age of downsizing many things in economies and the Wildfire does this gracefully.

This Wildfire smartphone is fast. It boasts a Qualcomm MSM 7225 528 megahertz processor. This is about equal with many smartphones manufactured today. A few are around the 1000 megahertz range, like the “Google phone” (N1). The abundant RAM helps the Wildfire to run through the menus at a quick pace, with hardly a hiccup. The statistics on the memory are 384 megabytes of RAM memory and 512 of flash ROM memory.

The camera is a fairly common five megapixel model with autofocus and flash, LED-style. It can also detect smiles. It can handle taking video but no frames per second ability has been reported yet. The HTC Wildfire has a FM radio for enjoying the surrounding news. The radio can detect RDS, which is the acronym for “Radio Data System”. It allows you to tune in to stations based on the type of music ( or talk ) they play.

If you do not yet know about the Android operating system powering this Wildfire smartphone, now is definitely the time to get familiar with it. It has over 50,000 apps ( web-speak for “applications” ) that can do just about whatever you want, even some considered “shady”. Track your friends in real-time, keep up with everyone in your social contacts, scan devices with the camera to get better prices and much more. The Wildfire comes with a new service that allows you to share which “apps” you like with your contacts. If you should happen to lose your Wildfire, you can wipe the personal data from it remotely with a special text message. The Wildfire has the popular “Sense” user interface. Just the interface by itself has rave reviews from the mobile community. If anything, you will enjoy the Sense interface as much as the Android 2.1 abilities of the Wildfire.
The display is a not such a “bright point” on the Wildfire. HTC did not manufacture it with the newer AMOLED techonolgy. This means it still uses the older and dimmmer LCD type of display. On a more positive not, the display is responsive to touch. It is a capacitive touch style and needs no stylus or prods with a fingernail. The resolution is a somewhat disappointing 240 by 320 pixels. It is clear enough to use but will not get any awards. It does the “digital acrobatics” when turned on its side, and shows the landscape mode automatically.

The exterior looks good and you can get a Wildfire in four colors, black, red, bronze metalliz and white. A manual keyboard is included for pounding out a quick email or text. The back cover has a brushed metal look to it. The battery is a 1300 mAh hour size which should give it a sizable talk time. As stated, it will be marketed to those with a little less money, but who want to enjoy a smartphone. This will be a somewhat entry-priced smartphone, but do not look for it to be dropped anywhere near a “feature phone” price. It is due out in the third quarter of this year.