HTC WildFire S

Like several other of its successful smartphones, HTC has upgraded its WildFire handset to a version 'S'. This new and improved compact Android phone is sure to appeal to space-conscious users, but is the WildFire S just a watered down Desire S, or can it make a name for itself as a super-small but still fully functional model? It's time to find out!

Design & Handling: been there, done that

HTC is an innovative brand in the smartphone market, generally offering handsets with original or unique designs. This time though, there's nothing really new. Like the rest of the brand's Android handsets that have been treated to an 'S', the phone's overall design hasn't changed much at all, and the only model that really stands out in this range is the Legend. That said, the WildFire S has a clean, fairly subtle design with a good overall finish—and not all smartphones can boast that.

Although the screen hasn't been equipped with any fancy technology like AMOLED or Super LCD seen higher up in HTC's range, the WildFire S does still have a 3.2-inch screen (which isn't that small when you think about it) with an increased resolution of 320 x 480 pixels. This should help make the phone much more pleasant to use, especially with apps download from Android Market.

In spite of the fact that the screen's gamma isn't all that accurate (mid-grey shades look too dark) and the deltaE of 6.7 means that colour fidelity leaves something to be desired, this WildFire S has an excellent colour temperature of 6502K. That won't change much on a day-to-day basis, but it's still worth pointing out since most TVs could learn a thing or two from this phone!


We've got no real complaints about the phone's physical handling, apart from the disappearance of the optical trackpoint. This feature was really very practical and we can't understand why HTC has removed it.

CPU: small but powerful

The arrival of the revamped version 'S' means that this new WildFire's processor has been boosted from 527 MHz to a new-generation 600 MHz CPU. That may not look like much, but if you take a look at the different benchmark tests available on the web, you'll soon see that it out-performs the much-hyped 1 GHz Snapdragon processor. On paper then, the WildFire S has nothing to envy of the Nexus One (or Desire) or Galaxy S.


So do these performances hold up in real life? Well, it's difficult to find fault with this pint-sized smartphone, as apart from an occasional and very slight lag in the menus, it runs very smoothly indeed. In fact, you'll only notice the limits of its multimedia capabilities when you push it to the limit with power-hungry games or HD video—don't expect it to handle advanced usage without a few glitches.

On the whole, the Sense interface runs well (for more information on HTC's Sense interface, see our review of the Desire HD) and looks good on the small, higher-definition screen.

Multimedia: a few setbacks

HTC handsets have always been a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to multimedia functions, and the WildFire S is no exception to that. For starters, the camera is nothing special and the internal image processing system doesn't seem up to scratch: photos taken with the flash are over-exposed and noise-heavy pictures are smoothed beyond recognition. You definitely won't want to give up on your digital camera just yet.



It's the same story for music too, as although the output is sufficiently powerful and the playback interface has been largely improved, the signal still lacks power at the highest and lowest ends of the spectrum. What's more, the long-serving HTC headphones go no way to making up for things.

However, for social networking and connected services, the WildFire S is a great phone, and features some really handy and well-designed widgets.


The Flash-compatible web browser is practical and pleasant to use. The boosted screen resolution helps keep things sharp and makes the handset suitable for reasonably regular web browsing—much more so than the first WildFire.

The WildFire S is not a revolutionary headset and it won't send shock-waves through the compact smartphone market. However, it's a decent update of the previous WildFire that effectively corrects a few of its predecessor's faults. Let's face it: if you don't spend all day surfing the web, playing games or using loads of applications, then there's no real point in shelling out for a higher-end model—especially when the WildFire S has a battery life of almost a day and a half (no doubt thanks to components that are less power-hungry than in certain other models). At the end of the day, you can't really ask for a great deal more!