Htc Wildfire

[guzzi850m2]

I bought above phone at the beginning of the year as I wanted to try one of the so called smart phones.

I must say that I am disappointed in many ways: If I want to write a test message in Danish it will auto correct (English) to the point of driving me crazy. When I want to search for a contact and I press the first letter for that person it is sometimes next to impossible to find that person, I press as an example 2 for abc and about 50 contacts pop up, crap. Wi-Fi? I never been in a place in Pattaya with fast wi-fi so far, getting a good signal but very slow speed? I end up turning on mobile network and pay myself (OK not the phone at fault here). Screen always blurred as I am sweating when talking outside so have to clean it the whole time. Who wants to read news on a pathetic little screen anyway, I got a 22" desk top solution in my house, yes thank you very much.

GPS. well when you turn all that on it will burn out the battery very fast and the navigation is nowhere near so good as my Nuvi 205W, so I use the Nuvi when needed in the car.

Never managed to take a good picture with it. OK I always carry a compact camera in my belt when leaving home so another feature I don't need.

Unhandy bastard to hold when talking on it, afraid to drop it, heavy too.

Today I bought a Nokia 1800 for 960 bath, no camera. When its ringing I push ONE bottom and I am in business, not drag down as on the HTC.

The Nok is small and light and if something happens to it, I can only laugh and say: OK never mind I buy another one.

Anybody wants to buy a Wildfire? Maybe at 49 I am too old for all this new technology? I will in the next couple of days compare the 2 phones and decide later if I want too keep the HTC or not.

[kurnell]

Wildfire? Old technology

[sulasno]

the list price is more expensive than the basic model of BB Curve

[tw25rw]

I had a wildfire. Piece of crap thing. I think I even said so on here somewhere.

Have a Galaxy S2 now. Chalk and cheese.

I'm thinking I will use the HTC to play with different ROMs etc or maybe give it to the gf to use as a wifi hotspot.

[lopburi3]

Believe the poster has issues (or would have issues) with any smart phone model regardless of it being a year or more behind the time or not. He just wants a phone and they can be had for 1k or so. Admit I have not felt the need for more than that myself but much of that is due to being within reach of a computer 99% of the time.

[tutsiwarrior]

I bought a Wildfire in August of last year because I wanted to try a touch screen phone. Now after a year of ownership I must say that I prefer a push button phone as it's less hassle, takes much less time to send a message or dial a number for example. Plus as someone said on another thread if you're not careful accidentally touching the hypersensitive screen will 'start WWIII'. Never use the internet or any of the apps...that's what computers are for...the music and the camera are nice...

so, back to Nokia and a qwerty keypad with nice camera and tunes and a weeks' use per battery charge...which model is recommended?

[guzzi850m2]

Well yes admittedly I don't really need all those fancy aps, I only use them when out and waiting for the wife doing some shopping or whatever (read: bored). I can't really see the point of surfing on the e-net on it, screen way to small and cramped for typing and so on. Okay now I tried one and its not me.

Can you guys (or girls) tell me what you are using your fancy phones for?

[sulasno]

sometimes I use them as paper weights though I wish I could use them as door stoppers

[Gary A]

I bought a Wildfire in August of last year because I wanted to try a touch screen phone. Now after a year of ownership I must say that I prefer a push button phone as it's less hassle, takes much less time to send a message or dial a number for example. Plus as someone said on another thread if you're not careful accidentally touching the hypersensitive screen will 'start WWIII'. Never use the internet or any of the apps...that's what computers are for...the music and the camera are nice...

so, back to Nokia and a qwerty keypad with nice camera and tunes and a weeks' use per battery charge...which model is recommended?

I have been shopping for a phone for the last couple of days. The best I have found is the Nokia E6. Even that one has a partial touch screen but I think I could live with that. The E6 has a great camera and the qwerty key pad. The battery life is really good. It is a little expensive at around 11,000 baht but if you want the goodies, you have to pay for them.

[lomatopo]

I bought a Wildfire in August of last year because I wanted to try a touch screen phone. Now after a year of ownership I must say that I prefer a push button phone as it's less hassle, takes much less time to send a message or dial a number for example. Plus as someone said on another thread if you're not careful accidentally touching the hypersensitive screen will 'start WWIII'. Never use the internet or any of the apps...that's what computers are for...the music and the camera are nice...

so, back to Nokia and a qwerty keypad with nice camera and tunes and a weeks' use per battery charge...which model is recommended?

Not everyone needs the mobility and connectivity which smart-phones offer. I'm fairly certain, that ~ 20 years ago many people thought it was crazy to need a mobile phone? Or had the same reactions 100 years ago when telephones, electricity and automobiles were first being introduced. Now where did I put my buggy-whip?

You can review the Nokia catalog here...

http://www.thaimobilecenter.com/catalog/Nokia.asp

Nokia X2-01 2,200 baht

Nokia C3 3,200 baht

Nokia E5 5,500 baht

Nokia E72 8,500 baht

Nokia E6 10,300 baht

[sotsira]

Have to disagree, i think the HTC Wildfire is a great little phone the beauty of it is it's small compact size unlike many

smart phones that are way too big and bulky to carry around easily. The Wildfire is pocketsize with all the Android features

and good camera for under 9000bt.

Great value!

[tutsiwarrior]

yeah, I got to admit that the Wildfire has some nice features, like nice to plug it into the laptop and have it act as another USB drive for music and photos both of which are good quality...what frustrates me the most is answering a call: drag it outta yer pocket, drag down on the screen to get rid of the screen saver, drag down to answer and sometimes the touch screen is not responding with missed call, redial, etc...frustratin' mutha...other times you touch the screen accidentally and it's bloomin' 'WWIII'...

I've owned it for a year now so when the battery plays out I'll be lookin' for a qwerty keyboard device...thanks for the links, folks...

[lomatopo]

FWIW, there is a newer version available locally, the Wildfire S, ~ 8,300 baht. This newer version supports 850/2100 Mhz 3G so would work on Truemove H or DTAC. (I believe the original Wildfire was 900/2100 Mhz 3G.)

[Phil Conners]

I'm not sure if this is an option in HTC Sense/Wildfire but on ASOP (Generic Android) you pick your available languages from Home > Menu > Settings > Language and keyboard > Android keyboard > Input languages, then when you are typing anything and you have the keyboard visible you can choose which language is active by sliding your finger on the spacebar. This avoids spelling problems with different languages.

On ASOP and assuming you meant the contacts app - if you click on the "contacts" icon you get a browsing window where you can scroll down to your contact. If you want to search you click Menu > Search and you have a normal search window where you can search for any part of the name.

Most free wifi in Pattaya is pretty good. The noticeable exception is of course Tukcom where you can hardly download your Email. I have 3BB hotspot for 99B/month and this is usually faster and always cheaper than GPRS/EDGE/3G and practically available anyplace where I'd want to use the Internet and that doesn't have free wifi.

Talking on a smartphone does mess up the display. I usually just wipe it off in my shirt. A little grease on the glass makes your finger slide easier

A 3.2" display is not good for us age-challenged users. Even the 3.7" of my HTC Desire seems tiny after using my new Samsung Galaxy S Wifi 5.0 5" display. But of course devices with such big displays are not as handy to have in your pocket. I love to read news and other stuff when I hang around waiting at Immigration, Doctors, or the female family members shopping for shoes. Or just checking my shares while out.

The dedicated GPS devices from Garmin are better for navigation, but that's not to say Google Maps is useless. I switch off GPS if I remember and I'm not using it, but I don't really notice much difference in battery consumption. Again, this could be due to the ROM I use which automatically lowers consumption when the screen is off.

Like with dedicated GPS devices, a dedicated camera is almost always going to be better, but it's handy to have the phone camera to make a quick snapshot if you didn't bring your camera.

The issue of weight has been discussed a lot of places like XDA developers. It appears that heavy weight is considered a sign of quality by most western consumers, so it's assumed some manufacturers intentionally add weights to the smartphones by including iron frames etc.

I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S Wifi 5.0, aka "Gs5", with a huge 5" display. It was a bit of an impulse purchase as the price was almost 10,000 baht less than the SGS2. The difference is (1) it has no phone hardware, like a Wifi-only tablet (2) slightly slower, but still very respectable 1GHz cpu, huge 5" display and 2500mA battery to match. The biggest catch is no phone, but like the OP said, you can buy a very nice mobile phone for <1000 baht to take care of you call needs, and at least for my usage I don't think having to rely on a wifi ap would be to much of a distraction with the free wifi or 3BB hostspots available practically everywhere in Pattaya. Maybe on the beach, but you can't read the smart phone displays on the beach anyway.

The one thing I'd want to make sure is available in an "un-smart" phone would be a way to sync my contacts with Google, but I'm sure that's available for most phones these days.

Suggest you put the Wildfire up for sale at classifieds.thaivisa.com, it can join my HTC Desire. Prices are coming down however and there doesn't seem to be much market for yesterday's second hand smartphones.