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Hands-on: HTC Wildfire S – Small and stylish and packs a punch

By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011 at 7:12 AM

One of HTC’s newly-announced Android smartphones is the Wildfire S, the successor to the compact and feature-packed Wildfire from last year. The iterative update to the Wildfire made its debut at Mobile World Congress 2011 at HTC’s press conference, and we had a chance to take the compact handset for a spin. If you’re in the market for a smartphone that you can hide in the palm of your hand, but still want the latest and greatest features, the Wildfire S might be something to consider.

The device isn’t exactly something we’d call a performance junkie. It sports a 600MHz processor at a time when dual-core smartphones are hitting market and quad-core processors are just starting to rear their heads. The touchscreen display, while still doubly as good as its predecessor, falls far short of the WVGA displays that are so popular today. Still, considering the Wildfire S has a 5-megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi (B/G/N), Bluetooth 3.0, and a 3G data connection, the handset can hold its own against other mid-range smartphones on market today.

To be sure, the phone is tiny. It’s almost comically small in my man-sized hands. HTC isn’t aiming this handset at manly men, but we won’t blame any of you full-grown dudes out there that pick up this bite-sized Android phone as your primary handset. Well, maybe we’ll blame you just a little.

You can expect the Wildfire S to be broadly available to customers across major European and Asian markets during Q2 2011.

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...