HTC Wildfire S Review Part 2 By Slashdot

Let's be honest: you probably liked the Motorola Photon 4G. Are they HTC EVE 3d as much as I do, but grandma doesn't need that phone or your mom doesn't need that phone or maybe your teenage daughter? She doesn't need that high-end HD, recording dual-core toting Android smartphone. No, a mid-range device works. Just fine and T-Mobile has got you hooked up here. It is the HTC Wildfire Asia. This was announced at Mobile World Congress earlier in the year, and it's a great little mid-range Android devices for those people that don't need.

You know the one gigahertz dual-core super phone: they just need something with a good OS, something that's reliable and a smartphone where they can browse the web check Facebook from time to time. Things like that this fits the bill. It's available now for $79.99 after mail-in rebate, with a two-year agreement available in two colors white and black, and it has a 600 megahertz processor, 5, megapixel camera, but it does come with Android 2.3. Now. Is this the phone to get for Grandma for Mom? Or should you go with a basic phone? Maybe a feature phone or get something on sale like the Eve 4G, we'll find that out in the full review, but first got to get some love to my boys at Best Buy because they hook us up with a lot of cool phones for use on one paw banding game.

When you go to get this at Best Buy you're going to walk out working they're going to help. You set up your email, your web, all that good stuff. So when you walk out your daughter, whoever gets this phone mom grandma, she doesn't have Facebook access. If that's her thing, much more coverage is coming on. Let's check it out, since this is running.

HTC Sense and, like I, said its running version 2.1. Let's take a look at the differences because you know if you're coming for another hand, droid platform, let's say touch with any other stock Android. Anything like that is a little different across the board, and that goes to show you how different things can be different with the manufacturer installed overlay. So you can see, for example, the phone app and, if you've seen you know, HTC stuff. Just forgive me here because I'd like to show this off to people that are new just since the UI, but you can see the phone app here and, of course you can get rid of the digits if you will, by going on clicking that button, so you can see that there and then, when you get rid of those, you could see your full contacts list.

Obviously don't have very many because it's a test account, but that is actually one thing. They kind of I. Don't care for about the HTC Sense UI platform is when you're in here. Like this. You have.

You know, of course your missed calls and stuff, but they kind of conglomerate in with your contact. So you'll have two three missed calls. You'll, have you know two three accepted calls, and then you have your contact. So it's just this big slew of numbers across the page and because this is a smaller display, 3.2 inches, as opposed to you know something like 4 or 4.3 inches, it's not as noticeable when they scroll down but still kind of irritating here to have all these numbers here, as opposed to just a clean. You know something like.

Perhaps what Motorola does with Motorola's an applications platform where it's just a clean look? You can see there on that build of Android because both of these are running Gingerbread, so you can see how different it can be just depending on the software platform that is running or the user interface. That is running, but you see the sensory elements everywhere. You can see in the contacts list as well, so we can go into contacts, and you can see here complete HTC, I influence and let's go into billy-bob for example. So you can see there and of course it shows- and it is organized- don't get me wrong- actually, like HTC's contacts list quite a bit, because I can go in here with Billy Bob and I can scroll across and see when I'm blast text message: Billy Bob when I mailed him, when I did updates as events gallery and call history, so I can come over here call history say we talked last Tuesday, then I can come over here to messages and the last message we sent was: you know Thursday at 4 o'clock, and then I can compose and when I click compose it automatically fills in his number, and then I can add the text from there. So it kicks me over into the text messaging interface, that's pretty cool I like the organization there and, of course, your home, your messages, and you have your options: I'm going to turn the ringtone off.

You can block the call, or you can edit contact, add addresses things like that. So it's organized they've done a perfect job with it. So we're going to edit contact for example, and hear where the keyboard, so there's a little more screen space. Here you can add birthdays. You can add your interesting messenger postal address anniversary things like that kids birthdays either you know put others in their notes.

Nicknames websites, so you've got quite a bit of about contact information that you can fill in. That's something that HTC does well so kudos to them. On the contacts front, it's really an organized approach. They've really grown a lot as opposed to where they were, let's say, with the hero and with the mutt. You know back to those days the HTC Hero on Sprint, since it's really come a long way with Sims 2.1 and since 3.0, with all the customization options, and things like that now this one doesn't have the most up-to-date Android Market. You can see that the Android Market has changed in a couple of days, it'll be getting the new Android Market, which looks a lot.

There actually looks just like this and I hate again to bring in another device, but that's where the Android Market is going. Here's the old version. Here's the new version, so you can see the difference just where it's sorting by apps games, books and movies, so that'll come soon to this device there and a phased rollout. So because this is the newer device I'm assuming it's one of the ones it's set to last, so are you know close to last, so that will be coming shortly. Let's take a look at the camera.

Five megapixel camera has a flash, and you know it's not going to win you over. It's not going to replace your point-and-shoot camera by any means, but it's good for daytime shots and the flash does a pretty decent job. So I'll bring over my Bluetooth keyboard here, for example, so we can get an up-close view of the keys, and it does have autofocus, but it doesn't have a physical camera button. So you come in here and autofocus by pressing the button, and it's ready. So you can see you know four five megapixel camera.

It certainly does a good job. It's not going to beat the industry leaders the iPhone 4, the any of the HTC 8 megapixel device is the n8 my touch 4G slide, which has a fantastic eight megapixel camera, but it's gonna. Do you find when you're the well-lit situation like this, with a light shining or outside in the low light situations? It's going to be a little grainy, so you can see over here. You know you have your editing options. You have flash not going to, of course expand that out and see self-timers image.

Adjustments that contain change the white balance. The resolution to ISO things like that. So quite a few options there and, like I, said certainly not a bad camera for a mid-range device, and then you have the camcorder as well, and we'll go in here. So you can see the video quality you do not have HD video quality on this device. The highest it goes, is 640 by 480 s, keep in mind no HD video recording.

If that's something that's important to you, then you'll need to upgrade perhaps to the g2 x2 the sensation, if you're on T-Mobile. So that's something to keep in mind: let's take a look at quadrant standard which I just downloaded and keep in mind with any of these network tests, take them with a grain of salt because it doesn't really reel a day-to-day performance. Day-To-Day performance on this thing has been just fine, but because it does have a slower processor, I imagine quadrant standard isn't going to come out as well, but still will we'll give it a go now. One thing I will say about this: both call quality and battery life had been surprisingly decent. Huh, I've been giving HTC a hard time recently with the sensation and with the more so with the Eve 3d, but with the sensation as well.

I feel like the wireless radio, isn't quite up to par I, hold it up against something like a photon or a T-Mobile, something like the g2 X and the wireless radio seem to be a little stronger on the competing devices. This one's been pretty decent I've had a pretty decent signal.3 G's been very consistent. The network has done a good job when I took it to a dead spot. It was a little choppy, but it held the call, and then you have a 1230 William hour battery, not so good in to inspire 4G because of the big display works just fine in this one because of the smaller display and the lower processor speed. So it's worked pretty well at moderate.

You should be able to make it through a day on a single charge. I'd say you know if your heavy user carry around a car charger just in case, but something to keep in mind, so we're loading it up here, and then we'll see the benchmark results, and we'll bring it up and because it's running Gingerbread, it's giving me a hard time. So quadrant standard score 735. So it's not going to be your Nexus One. It's not going to be the galaxy s2, the Matrix 4G any of these high-end devices on the market, but 735 pretty decent for a mid-range device like I, said.

Take these with a grain of salt, because it's not indicative of day-to-day performance. I've had no lag, no real slowdowns, except things like hardcore web browsing, or you know, playing games or anything, that's graphically intensive. So keep that in mind. You know you're going to be fine with day-to-day text messaging, calling things like that. Let's take a look at speed test, because I want to give put T-Mobile's network to the test here and see what we can get.

It has three bars of service right now, so we'll see what speed test pulls up for us and we'll load this up, and I just realized I forgot to change it. Two megabits per second, so I have to do some rough converting, as you can see here, ping is loading up right now, so we'll see where we're at looks to be about okay, we're going to go up a little, hoping we'd shoot for one yea about 1100 kilo bits per second, so that one megabit per second I think he keeps calling keeps going, so we're looking at about two megabits per second there on the download and then on the upload. Let's see here, let's just say about 300, no going up a little: 330 I'm going to call it 380. No I was close 377, so you know converting these over roughly about two megabits per second on the download about 0.35 megabits per second on the upload. So something to keep in mind.

You know these. This obviously isn't going to compete with the SPA+ devices on T-Mobile, but it's a pretty decent speed for mid-range SPA device on the carrier. So again, you know you're not going to see seven megabits per second at any point, but still two megabits per second, that competes pretty directly with Verizon's 3ge video revision a, and it's a little faster, actually in most testing and competes head-to-head with ATT's 3G while, and they're SPA+. Honestly, because you know in the Charlotte area, I haven't seen speeds on AT&T much higher than about 3.5 megabits per second. So again, you know competes with a lot of the carriers, even though it doesn't have SPA+ out of the bar.

Doesn't mate just be a plus period so something to keep in mind. So all in all, you know very good device. It's a welcome addition to T-Mobile's lineup. It's something I would recommend, particularly to those people that are like you know my daughter's going back to school she's turning 16 needs a cellphone, don't want to spend an arm and a leg. This is going to be your device, it's going to be a decent back to school device or perhaps for Mom or perhaps for Grandma.

Somebody, that's new to the smartphone world wants to sink their teeth in it, but they don't want to spend. You know, put a significant investment in it. $300 is quite a bit of money and a lot of instances. So something to keep in mind is good device. I would recommend it and for what it is its an it performs pretty well much more covers, come on phone dog, calm with the HTC Wildfire s, so keep it locked on the site will have some ROG fights with this as well, since we're going to Penn nearing the back-to-school time so keep an eye out for those and be sure to like us on Facebook, facebook.

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com, slash phone dog, a B, thanks. So much for watching keep it locked on the site, more coverage to come with this bad boy. We'll see you next time.

Source : Slashdot