July 14th 2010 10:59 pm
Budget smartphone Android 2.1 phones to get
It seems like the smartphone wars doesn’t stop. Well, who want to? Whoever wins, get to eat a big chunk of smartphone pie, and cashes too. Nokia used to dominate this sector and it still does, but sadly, we can see this segment being eaten up by RIM (Blackberry), Apple of Iphone and Androids(HTC and Samsung mostly). Though, smartphones used to cost a big bucks. Nowadays, with aggressive pricing and marketing strategy from phone manufacturers, we can get outself some pretty kick-ass smartphones at wallet-friendly price.
HTC Wildfire
I start with the recently released Android incarnation from HTC. It is called the Wildfire. Well, catchy name, designed wise might not well suited to its nomenclature though. That might be changed if you get the red version of Wildfire. Oh, before I forgot, there are four colours available. Brown, black, red and white silver. Personal preference, white silver is the one to get. Thus, I’ve attached the picture here in silver.
….and the boring brown like you have seen in Desire as well.
More pictures available here http://www.htc.com/uk/product/wildfire/gallery.html
I have to say, great job HTC. The colours availability is quite an advantage, and it gives consumers more choices.
Okay, physical appearance aside. Let’s see whether this Wildfire is as beauty as skin deep.
- 528MHz Qualcomm processor, same as HTC Tattoo
- 384MB RAM, 512MB ROM
- 3.2inch TFT capacitive touchsreen @ 240×320 resolution
- 3G, WiFi, EDGE, bluetooth
- 5MP with LED and autofocus camera lense
- GPS hardware with A-GPS
- 1300mAh Li-ion battery
- Android 2.1 OS (Eclair)
One word about it, the specs is nothing to shout about. 528MHz MSM7225 Qualcomm processor and the TFT screen is kinda outdated, well, that’s what you get at what you paid for. The rest of the specs is kinda standard these days. Did I mention the price? Contract-free at RM1200(USD350) is almost halfed of the cost of Desire and almost RM500(USD160) cheaper than the HTC Legend. But on the other hand, with 1300mAh battery capacity, you can expect to get a long usage on a single charge. Engadget reported of having 12hours of 3G connection, which is quite impressive.
Upgradability to Froyo is no where to be seen. That might be changed if the sales of Wildfire is really wild though. But with HTC Sense UI and at an enticing price, this phone is the budget Android phone to get. Or is it? Let’s look up for the next contender from Samsung.
Samsung Galaxy 3
Samsung attempted budget Androids back a year ago with Galaxy Spica, though didn’t welcomed much by the masses. Now Samsung made an upgrade for its Galaxy phones lineup. Of course, this review isn’t about the super expensive high specs Galaxy S, this one is called Galaxy 3. I certainly have no idea about the naming convention that Samsung trying to use here, as there were no Galaxy 1 or 2 before this. Anyway, here are the specifications.
- 667 MHz Samsung ARM-based processor
- 240×400 capacitive touchscreen @ 3.2inch
- 3.2MP camera with auto focus and Geo tagging
- Connectity galore – WiFi, 3G, EDGE, bluetooh 2.1, GPS
- Video playability – DivX, WMV, MP4, h.264, h.263
- 1500mAh Li-Ion battery
- Android 2.1 Eclair
Pictures just below here, comments?
The buttons situated on the left and right is actually touch-sensitive button employed with capacitive touchscreen technology, while the center button is a 5-ways navigation D-pad which also brings up the menu once pressed on the centre.
The upside about this phone is the Touchwiz 3.0 interface which Samsung uses. It isn’t as elegant as the HTC Sense UI, but it was certainly better than the standard UI found on the vanilla version of Android Eclair. Another plus point is the support for various video codecs natively, so you don’t have to get any 3rd party apps to watch any short clips in DivX or WMV format. Kudos to Samsung for this.
The major downside, yeah, you saw it. Is the lacked of LED flash and the lowly 3.2MP camera. While some may argue this is more to smartphone, but hey, having an LED flash does helps a lot. Another complain is the WQVGA screen ratio. 400×240 is not the standard available on phones these days. Which means, the apps you downloaded from the Android market might not be supported on your phone.
Anyway, Samsung Galaxy 3 was just announced, so you might not get it that soon. Pricing should be at the range as HTC Wildfire. Based on the specs, I suspect it could be cheaper. Falling to the range of Sony Ericsson X10 mini is great. next page >>
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