HTC Wildfire S (T-Mobile)

The HTC Wildfire S is a small, budget Android?smartphone?that helps fill out T-Mobile's lineup. It runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), which deserves a hallelujah, as plenty of new handsets are still shipping with the dated Android 2.2 OS, and even the sluggish, archaic Android 2.1 in some cases. No one will trade in a HTC Sensation 4G?($199, 4 stars) for this phone, but the Wildfire S offers some of Android's best apps and features at a particularly appealing price point ($79.99 with contract).

Design, Call Quality, and Apps
The Wildfire S looks like a lower-end, touch screen feature phone, even though it's an Android smartphone. It measures 4.0 by 2.3 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs a svelte 3.7 ounces. It's made entirely of plastic, with the exception of the glass screen. It's a smooth, appealing form factor that may snare many buyers based on appearance alone. The 3.2-inch, 320-by-480-pixel capacitive panel itself looks bright and colorful and quickly becomes smooth and accurate to the touch. The Wildfire S packs a G-sensor, digital compass, proximity sensor, and ambient light sensor, just like all the higher end Android phones do. Typing on the on-screen QWERTY keyboard was surprisingly easy in both portrait and landscape mode; credit the oversized keys (the tradeoff is that they block a significant portion of the screen). Dialing numbers was a little sluggish, but it wasn't unbearable.

The Wildfire S is a quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and dual-band HSDPA (1700/2100 MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi; it connected to my WPA2-encryped home network without issue. Although it doesn't hit T-Mobile's higher speed HSPA+ network, it's fine for a lower-end device, and you can use Wi-Fi for voice calls and data while at home or in the office. Call quality was just okay; callers sounded a little rough through the earpiece, although as long as I was standing outside and catching 3G signal, transmissions through the microphone were clear. Reception was below average; I live in a primarily EDGE (2G) coverage area on T-Mobile, but I couldn't use this phone at all inside my house without T-Mobile's Wi-Fi calling mode enabled.

Calls sounded clear through an?Aliph Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset ($129, 4 stars). Voice dialing worked fine over Bluetooth without training. The speakerphone was a disappointment; even at maximum volume, I could barely hear it over my office fan when set to low speed mode. Battery life was a weak spot at just 5 hours and 44 minutes of talk time in EDGE mode. This result would have been fine for HSPA+, but it's several hours off the average endurance of other Android phones on T-Mobile's 2G EDGE network.

HTC's Sense UI looks nice and sharp, with its upgraded apps, seven customizable home screens, and robust contact management. That said, HTC went with an older, 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor to keep the price down; fortunately, the phone still felt responsive enough for most tasks. The FriendStream app aggregates Facebook, Twitter, and Flicker updates on one page. DoubleTwist is also preloaded, so you get wireless media synchronization with iTunes playlists right out of the box. There?s also Google Maps Navigation for free voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions, and there's not much in the way of useless bloatware, which is great. The Wildfire S has a standard screen resolution that offers maximum app compatibility in the Android Market, so you also shouldn't have much trouble running any of the 200,000+ available third-party apps.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
My 32GB SanDisk microSD card worked fine in the microSD slot, which is located underneath the battery cover; HTC throws in a 2GB card to get you started. The standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack makes finding good-sounding earbuds easy. Music tracks sounded fine through?Samsung Modus HM6450?Bluetooth earbuds ($99, 4 stars). HTC's upgraded music player app, with its jukebox-style cover art flow, is as fun to use as always. Standalone videos played smoothly in full screen mode, but transcoding 720p HD files on the fly is too much for this phone. (You're better off creating 320-by-480-pixel versions of your videos anyway, for various reasons.)

The 5-megapixel auto-focus camera comes with an LED flash and face recognition. HTC builds in some nifty camera filters and effects to make the experience more fun. Test photos were good for a low-end phone, although a little off the mark for a 5-megapixel sensor, with not quite enough detail in outdoor shots and too much grain indoors. Shutter speeds were a little slow, leading to a few soft shots. Recorded 640-by-480-pixel videos were quite usable at 19 frames per second; the phone had an overaggressive light sensor, though, as videos went from dark black to brightly lit too suddenly.

At this point, T-Mobile has a slew of powerful Android devices across the price spectrum. Watch for sales; a good portion of the decision process these days is seeing where the up-front price is for each phone right at the time of purchase. The?LG Optimus T?($39, 4 stars) feels a little more solidly built than the Wildfire S and has better voice quality and battery life, but it lacks the latter's Gingerbread OS and HTC's attractive Sense UI enhancements. If you have a little extra cash up front but still want a small phone, the?Samsung Exhibit 4G?($99, 4 stars) is extremely tempting, thanks to its 4G HSPA+ data radio, 1GHz CPU, and sharper screen, and it even has Android 2.3. The Exhibit 4G also lacks HTC's various UI enhancements, but some users prefer that anyway.

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 5 hours 44 minutes (EDGE)

More Cell Phone Reviews:
??? BlackBerry Bold 9930 (Verizon Wireless)
??? Nokia E6 (Unlocked)
??? HTC Wildfire S (T-Mobile)
??? Sharp FX Plus (AT&T)
??? Samsung Nexus S (AT&T)
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/jI4dtq2QTUI/0,2817,2391124,00.asp

osi umenyiora take the money and run discrete holiday world php php al capone