HTC Wildfire S (MetroPCS)

The HTC Wildfire S is a cute, tiny Android smartphone for MetroPCS. But at $179, it's also a bit overpriced and underpowered. It should satisfy users who aren't too demanding of their devices, but you can make a better choice for less money.

Design and Call Quality
The Wildfire S is nearly identical to the model we reviewed?over on T-Mobile (Free, 3 stars). It's very small for a smartphone, at just 4.0 by 2.3 by 0.5 inches (HWD), and weighs a light 3.7 ounces. It's made entirely of smooth, white plastic, with silver accents around the display and camera. It looks attractive, and gives the appearance of a higher end device. The 3.2-inch, 320-by-480-pixel capacitive display lowers your expectations. It looks bright and colorful, but that resolution makes images a bit gritty. Typing on the onscreen QWERTY keyboard was fine, thanks to large touch keys, although they block half of the screen.

The Wildfire S is a dual-band 1xRTT (800/1900 MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi; it connected to my WPA2-encryped home network without issue. Reception and call quality are both average. Voices sound full and clear in the phone's earpiece, but the phone rattles a bit at higher volumes. Calls made with the phone sound somewhat fuzzy, though still understandable, with average noise cancellation. The speakerphone sounds fine, but it's far too low to use outdoors. Calls sounded clear through a Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset ($129, 4.5 stars) and voice dialing worked fine over Bluetooth without training. Battery life was disappointing at just 4 hours, 28 minutes of talk time.

Data Plans and Apps
MetroPCS has no 3G data network, so if you don't have a 4G device, you're stuck with 2G. That makes for slow data speeds on the Wildfire, though MetroPCS tries to make up for it by including the free DeviceScape Wi-Fi hotspot client (which appears in your notification window as "MetroPCS Easy WiFi"). DeviceScape links together many free hotspots, which is helpful, though it doesn't guarantee widespread Wi-Fi coverage.

The Wildfire S's 2G speeds don't negate the fact that unlimited talk, text, and data plans for $50 are a fantastic value. $60 per month, you can get the same plan with unlimited music from Rhapsody. But keep in mind that you can also get unlimited, talk, text, data, and 3G from Boost Mobile for the same price, also without a contract.

The 4G smartphones on MetroPCS cost a lot more than the Wildfire S. The two phones we currently recommend are the capable Samsung Galaxy Indulge?($299, 3.5 stars), or the LG Esteem?($349, 5 stars), our Editors' Choice, but the priciest of the bunch. Note that 4G speeds on MetroPCS are a lot different than 4G speeds on Verizon Wireless, or AT&T's new 4G LTE network. As we discovered in our Fastest Mobile Networks testing, rather than offering spectacular speeds, MetroPCS is going for merely decent speeds at very low prices. The carrier's average 4G speeds are more like a very good 3G network.

The Wildfire S runs Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread). There's no word on an update to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). HTC's Sense UI 2.1 looks sharp and friendly, with upgraded apps, seven customizable home screens, and strong contact management. The FriendStream app aggregates a number of social networking updates on one page. There?s also Google Maps Navigation for free voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions, and a bit of bloatware from MetroPCS. You should also be able to run most of the 250,000+ third-party apps in the Android Market.

Unfortunately, the phone is powered by an older, 600MHz Qualcomm MSM8227 processor. For the price, I expected to see an 800MHz chip, which is quickly becoming standard in low-end smartphones. Thankfully, the Wildfire still feels responsive enough for most tasks, though you can count out high-end gaming. But Web browsing is slow, thanks to those 2G speeds, and there is no Flash support.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
There's a microSD card slot underneath the battery cover, which is very difficult to pry off. HTC includes a 2GB microSD card, along with 100MB of free internal memory; my 32 and 64GB microSD cards worked fine as well. Music sounded good through both wired earbuds, but I was unable to get my stereo Bluetooth headset to work. The phone played AAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, and WMA test files, but not FLAC. The built-in FM radio is a nice plus.

Video codec support is limited. I was only able to play 3GP, MP4, and M4V files at resolutions up 800-by-480. Videos looked fine, but it would have been nice to see greater file support; DIVX, XVID, and WMV files wouldn't play at all.

The 5-megapixel auto-focus camera comes with an LED flash and face recognition. Shutter speeds were slow, at 1.5 seconds. Test photos were better than on most low-end phones, though not on par with many other 5-megapixel shooters. Photos lack fine detail, and colors look somewhat dim. On the plus side, HTC has added some fun camera filters and effects to make the experience more fun. Recorded 720-by-480-pixel videos played back at 17 frames per second indoors and 23 fps outside, but videos looked jerky regardless of frame rate.

The HTC Wildfire S is a decent, low-end Android smartphone, but it's held back by a lack of power and a slightly too-high price. If you're looking for something less expensive, the Samsung Admire?($99, 3 stars) is a good alternative. It has a slightly more powerful 800MHz processor and a larger display, but a poor camera and mediocre voice quality. The LG Esteem is a 4G LTE device, but at $349, it's not for users on a budget. In the other price direction, the Huawei M835 may be cheap, but it isn't even worth the $79 price tag. You may also want to check out the Samsung Galaxy Prevail?($149.99, 4 stars) over on Boost, which features a faster processor and 3G speeds for less up front and the same monthly price as the Wildfire S.

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time:?4 hours 28 minutes

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