HTC Wildfire

[Lamp]

The Mrs is after a touch screen phone (she's not interested in getting an iphone) & knows less about them then I do. She wants internet, decent camera, ability to store various Microsoft Office docs on it (Word, Excel) & a decent choice of apps to DL. She's kind of drawn to the Wildfire. They any good? Any issues with them?

TIA

 

[Ch3tan]

It's a bit underpowered in my opinion, the screen is a lot poorer than the Desire (the bigger brother of the wildfire) and can seem to lack sharpness and resolution.

There is a £100 android phone - the Orange San Fransico, that is probably a better choice.

Ask this question in the tech forum in the "new phone" thread. You'll get a bigger range of opinions.

 

[cHodAX]

Have seen some very good reviews for the San Francisco, including this...

Orange San Francisco review from TechRadar UK's expert reviews of Mobile phones

Looks very viable at £100 or less.

 

[Raven]

Samsung Galaxies should be cheap soon, with the galaxy 2 not far off. Decent enough phone which covers all you need.

 

[Ch3tan]

And I have a desire for sale too (once HTC send it back to me!)

 

[soze]

Vote for the San Fransisco here. The Screen is good and you can get good Froyo custom Roms. It is not as well put together as the more expensive models but it is solid and it works well. I have bought 3 and i have kept one for my drinking phone lol.

The Wildfire is a solid phone put the screen res is really poor if you are used to the real smart phones. But my Sister got one and loves it she has never used a Nexus ect so does not see a problem with the screen.

 

[nath]

The San Francisco is the perfect entry-level smartphone. Well, I say entry-level but it really does everything you could want a smartphone to do perfectly well with the exception of heavy 3d games. The screen is absolutely great looking and as soze says, you can root it and pop on a Froyo ROM for an even better performing phone. For £99 you really can't go wrong.

 

[Bob007]

I love my wildfire.

It has 2.2, sence and a large following on the phone forums, so help for pretty much anything is at hand.

Yes its a very cut down version of its much bigger brother the desire. It won't do live wall papers or play 3d games or stuff. But it will send and receives email, sms, makes phone calls, surfs the www while am mobile. It has plenty of games and apps. Office docuements aren't a problem nor are PDF's, terminal services and rdp it handles well to.

But and its a big but. The battery is a joke. It lives on charge. If i charge it overnight and then don't charge it all day, it won't last the full day due to me being a faily heavy user. It has plenty of other cons as do all phones but this is by far the biggest. Aviod the wildfire if you can't charge it a little during the day and you a fairly heavy user. Otherwise you won't be sorry.

 

[PLightstar]

Its great for my mrs, she loves it its no where as advanced as my Desire but it does the job for her, she can use Facebook, Call, text and browse the net very easily. I customised the sense to make it easier for her to navigate to important things, but she says its the best phone shes ever had.

 

[Ormorof]

i love my Wildfire but as mentioned the battery is a bit of a pain, have to charge it pretty much every night (or during workday if i forget to charge it at night)

some apps seem to stop it going into "sleep" mode and drain power faster too it seems (for example skype if you have it set to always on seems to kill the battery in hours)

i dont really play games on my phone (and am not that interested) mostly use it for browsing internet or online radio when on the move.

 

[Wij]

If I wasn't in a contract I'd eat this up:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/mot...15-32-gross-24m-only-8-86-after/876628?page=4

Motorala Defy is way better than Wildfire or San Fransisco and is also scratch resistant and waterproof. After Quidco and a one-off redemtion it works out as less than 9 quid a month for 300/300/500MB. Easy enough for me.

Bah

 

[Fast]

The people on Modaco have knoticed that since December the San Fransico has been shipping with TFT. Orange havn't announced anything but they suspect there is a shortage, and Samsung are saving the super Amoled screens for the Galaxy.

Unless you get lucky and get old stock it's worth bearing in mind.

 

[Ch3tan]

That motorola defy deal is very good.

 

[Wij]

Gah - anyone know a good way to get out of a Virgin Mobile contract ?

Do a Reggie Perrin perhaps ?

 

[Ch3tan]

No real way to get out of any contract without paying it off Wij, unless they've broken their T&C's.

The only other way could be to start complaining about network issues, keep it up for a month and hope they agree to let you leave on the basis of poor service.

 

[Lamp]

Thanks for the advice, chaps.

 

[dysfunction]

The people on Modaco have knoticed that since December the San Fransico has been shipping with TFT. Orange havn't announced anything but they suspect there is a shortage, and Samsung are saving the super Amoled screens for the Galaxy.

Unless you get lucky and get old stock it's worth bearing in mind.

If you did get a TFT San Fran it would still be a superb phone especially for the price!

 

[nath]

Indeed, though you'd be entitled to feel a bit miffed that others got a lovely OLED for the same price.