The HTC Wildfire is a cut-price version of the hugely popular HTC Desire, and it’s been a huge success itself, bringing Android smartphone technology to millions. There are lots of reasons to like the Wildfire, such as its solid build, its superbly responsive capacitive touchscreen, and the power of Android. But cuts have been made in terms of screen resolution, battery life, processor speed and memory. Now, more than a year after its launch, its looking rather dated and we’d recommend the HTC Desire S instead.

The Wildfire runs the same operating system as the Desire, namely Android? 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense, making it both very powerful and very easy to use. The Android Market has matured greatly, with thousands of free games and apps now available, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it overtook Apple’s App Store in the near future.

At first glance, the Wildfire’s a pretty handsome and familiar-looking device, but if you’re not a fan of this subtle brown finish, there are three more color options. You can see several elements borrowed from the company’s two other Android handsets — touch buttons and the reassuring back texture from the Nexus One, although the buttons don’t work as well on the big daddy; optical trackpad, earpiece, chin, and body frame from the Desire (read: not unibody à la Nexus One). The back is styled like the HD2 with a wide metallic band, but it’s not the metal that you take off for the battery bay — the actual cover needs to be peeled off with some effort from the top (like the Desire). When held in hand, the phone feels like a shorter Desire but equally as sturdy.

The chin below forms part of the back cover, but this is where we spotted the Wildfire’s first physical flaw: we saw an uneven cut between the body frame and the chin. This does no justice to HTC’s impressive build quality on most of its other devices, but as an entry-level device, we’ll need to go easy with this level of detail. Swinging around to the left side you’ll see the shiny volume rocker — which feels well-built — and micro-USB port, and on the back you have the five-megapixel camera sandwiched by the loudspeaker and LED flash.

As a successor to the popular HTC Desire, the Desire HD brings with it most of the desirable features of its predecessor then wrapped it with a huge 4.3 inch screen (see our review of the HTC Desire here to get a better perspective). With such a huge screen real estate, the handset makes for a very good first impression very few smartphones ever get. The 4.3? LCD display is already bordering on the tablet category, just right under other 4 and 5-inchers like the Archos 43 and the Dell Streak.

The build and form factor is nothing new to us as we’ve already seen it over a year ago with the HTC HD2, although that one was running on WinMo 6.5 (there’s a hack to install Android on that one too) so it’s not a surprise that people are eager to see the marriage of the HD2?s hardware and Android OS.

What we missed with the Desire HD that we really liked with the older Desire is the inclusion of an AMOLED screen. While the LCD on the Desire HD still brings in that bright and clear display, the crispness and depth of contrast we get from AMOLED is very noticeable.

Because of the 4.3-inch screen, the footprint of the Desire HD is quite large at 123 x 68mm. HTC has kept it slim though, with a thickness of just 11.8mm. These dimensions are only slightly larger than the HD2′s 120.5 x 67 x 11mm. We liked the aluminum material, which has a matte finish. This is used throughout the device except for the screen and plastic cutouts on the back, which hide the battery and SIM/memory expansion card slots.

The bigger size of the Desire HD means it’s not for everyone. It will fit into most pockets, but those who are smaller in stature or like to wear tight jeans may not feel too comfortable with it, especially when trying to sit down. As with the HD2, this product is meant for those who want the latest and greatest in a smartphone, and such users generally accept the tradeoff of having a larger device.

The HTC Desire is, in effect, the second in the new Android range from HTC, with its much larger brother, the HTC Desire HD, taking most of the limelight. But it’s more than ‘spare a thought’ for the HTC Desire Z, as this phone is designed to encompass the best Android has to offer with HTC’s sublime Sense overlay – and a QWERTY keyboard to boot.

The first thing you’ll notice about the HTC Desire Z when you pick it up is the sheer heft, as we’re seeing a phone with a 3.7-inch screen coupled with a not-insubstantial QWERTY keyboard and hinge underneath.

The display half is mostly occupied by the 3.7” Super LCD screen with 480×800 pixels of resolution. It has very good color gamut, improved contrast and viewing angles, and, at maximum brightness, is very usable in direct sunlight, compared to previous generation LCDs. Only Motorola’s DROID army, and, of course, the iPhone 4, are trumping it in terms of resolution, but the technology used there is the same.

Embedded in the black frame underneath the screen are four tiny touch keys for the typical Android functions – home, menu, back and search. The other element below the screen is an optical trackpad, which allows you to swipe through the homescreens, navigate around in menus and websites, and press it to execute the desired action. It’s a good way to lessen contact, hence smudges on your touchscreen, but its functionality in the homescreens is somewhat limited to just scrolling them left and right, so you’ll have to inevitably use your fingers on the display there. When the alarm goes off, it lights up the area around the optical trackpad for some visual stimulation as well. The screen half also hosts the two-stage camera key at the right side, which needs to be held for a split second at full press to enter the camera interface.

The HTC Dream is the first smartphone to run the open source Android operating system, developed by the Open Handset Alliance (a Google-led consortium of 47 companies including HTC, Intel, Motorola, Samsung, LG and Qualcomm). It’s also the first handset we’ve seen from HTC that runs something other than Windows Mobile. We’re guessing there are a bunch of engineers at HTC breathing a sigh of relief that they can finally stretch their wings and use something other than WinMo in their handsets.

The Dream is encased entirely in a matte-black finish. Unlike in the US where it is also offered in white and bronze, this is the only color available in Asia at the moment. The buttons on the front face of the Dream are all located below the screen in a section that’s slightly tilted upward. This looks a little strange at first but it does make the device distinct from the wide range of Windows Mobile devices made by HTC. Aside from the Menu, Home and Back buttons which are required to navigate the OS, there are also the Call and Hang Up keys for phone calls. A trackball is found in the center of this entire portion, which allows you to scroll and navigate pages. This is similar to what you will find on most BlackBerry devices starting from the Pearl and Curve series.

The HTC Dream has a lot of strengths – which we’ll get to in a moment – but sex appeal isn’t one of them. To look at, it bears a close resemblance to one of HTC’s older smartphones, with a touchscreen dominating the front and a QWERTY keyboard that slides out from behind the display. Bucking against the trend of small and sleek devices, the HTC Dream is a positively brick-like, weighing a portly 158g. It’s also longer and thicker than most other phones, measuring 117mm long and 17.1mm thick. By comparison, the iPhone 3G (which isn’t exactly the poster child of portability but is at least relatively thin) weighs only 133g and measures 115mm long and 12.3mm thick.

Feel the exhilarating power and freedom of having all the communication tools you’re used to in your hand. Mobile Internet services are at your disposal with quick one-touch access to Gmail™, YouTube™, Google Talk™ and Google Calendar™. Explore even more of the world with detailed street, traffic and satellite views via integrated Google Maps™.

Dazzle your friends with the large sensationally crisp 3.2” display. The touch-sensitive navigation is finger friendly and super intuitive but you can swing it out of the way to use the full five-row QWERTY keyboard. There is plenty of room to respond to emails, messages and even chat.

G1 delivers an extraordinary browsing experience. The G1’s browser comes with a clever multi-page window pane; it lets you surf multiple websites at the same time. Drag the page around with your finger to pan, or move from one link or textbox to another with the handy trackball positioned perfectly for your thumb. And don’t worry about waiting for pages to load. The G1 is equipped with 3.5G and Wi-Fi technology… seamlessly switching to always offer you the best connection. Instant notification bar discretely alerts you of emails, text messages or IM sent your way. Whether you’re getting mail from Gmail™, another POP or IMAP account or receiving IMs from any of the most popular services, you’ll be alerted as soon as a new message comes in.

Highlights

	3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with HVGA (320 X 480 pixel) resolution.
	Full 5-row QWERTY keyboard.
	One-Touch Google Search™.
	Customizable Home screen with instant Email, text message and IM notifications.
	Instant access to mobile Internet services (Gmail™, YouTube™, Google Maps™, Google Talk™, Google Calendar™).
	High-speed 3.5G network connection.
	Wi-Fi technology with seamless transition to open networks.
	Android Market™ with access to variety of software and media downloads. (some fees may apply)
	3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus.
	microSD™ (SD 2.0 compatible) expansion slot for all your storage needs.