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    Virgin Mobile - HTC Wildfire S No-Contract Mobile Phone - Silver

    Model: Wildfire S SKU: 2847042
    3.6 of 5 3.6 of 5 (70 reviews)

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    $149.99
    Reg. Price:
    $179.99
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    Stay connected and productive on the go with this no-contract mobile phone that features 3G speed and built-in wireless capability. The 3.2" color touch screen provides a clear view and ensures simple navigation through menus.

    What's Included

    • Virgin Mobile HTC Wildfire S No-Contract Mobile Phone
    • Lithium-ion battery
    • Combination charger
    • Owner's manual

    Product Features

    • Android 2.3 operating system
      Allows you to stay connected and productive on the go.
    • 3G speed
      Offers quick and easy connection speeds.
    • Wi-Fi network
      For Internet browsing capability (additional fees may apply).
    • Bluetooth compatibility
      For wireless communication with a Bluetooth-enabled device.
    • 3.2" color touch screen
      For easy navigation and a clear view of your text messages, photos and videos.
    • microSD card slot
      Supports microSD cards up to 32GB (2GB card included), so you easily can store or transfer media.
    • 5.0MP digital camera
      Lets you shoot still photos.
    • MP3 playback
      For listening to your favorite songs.
    • Hands-free speakerphone
      Allows you to keep your hands on the wheel while driving.
    • Vibration alert
      Lets you silence your phone but still be alerted when calls and messages come in.
    • Customizable polyphonic and superphonic ringtones
      Allow you to personalize the sound of your phone.
    • Up to 4 hours talk time and up to 12.5 days standby
      With included lithium-ion battery.
    Product images, including color, may differ from actual product appearance.

    Customer Reviews

    (45 out of 70)
    A Beautifully Built Phone with a Few Caveats
    4
    Posted by: from Eau Claire, WI on 05/10/2012Putting it simply from the start - whenever you buy a phone made my HTC, you know you're going to get a great phone with a great user experience. That doesn't change at all with the Wildfire S, which has the potential to be the best low-end phone in Virgin Mobile's lineup. I've been using the device for about a week now, and I've developed some first impressions that I thought I'd share with you all in hopes of helping you make a better decision as to whether or not this phone will fit you. Without further ado, here's my review (ha, that kind of rhymes...kind of...) Pros: Display Colors: The first thing you're going to notice when you start using the device is the extremely punchy colors that it's Super LCD display under Gorilla Glass can produce. Seriously, I was very surprised at the quality of color reproduction that this phone exhibited, especially for it's price point. On the downside, the great colors seem to wash out a bit when you view the device's screen at extreme angles because it doesn't utilize IPS technology, but that's not much of a bother. Seriously, if color reproduction on a screen is important to you, this is your phone for Virgin Mobile. The Motorola Triumph, though billed as a "high-end" device for VM (Virgin Mobile), has terrible color reproduction with it's display and the Optimus V isn't much better. This one is the easy winner of the three. UI Intuitiveness: If you've ever used an HTC Android phone before, then you're probably familiar with their claim to Android fame, Sense UI. In a nutshell, Sense UI is HTC's attempt to personalize the Android experience on their phones with special custom widgets, wallpapers, and lock screens. In my opinion, they do the best job out of all the Android manufacturers at creating a custom user interface, and it's always been very polished. If you're worried that Sense UI isn't fully present on the Wildfire S, fear not. All the bells and whistles are there in what HTC dubs as Sense version 2.1. Even more surprising is the fact that even though the phone runs on what seems like a measly 600 mhz processor, the experience is still very responsive. I'm very impressed and pleased. Size in Hand: Not much to say here, except that the phone feels really great and natural in the hand. I'm a guy with bigger hands and was worried the phone would feel too small coming from other larger phones, but I was pleasantly surprised that the phone fit nicely in my palm and was very natural. Camera: The Wildfire's 5 megapixel camera will impress you because not only does it take excellent pictures compared to other phones in it's class, it takes decent pics in low light situations and even better pics in outdoor conditions. Macro shots are great and the flash is powerful enough to light up a room. You'll likely be very satisfied with the camera. And no, to the.... Cons: Internal Storage: Let me just say, if you are a heavy apps user (and by heavy I mean that you want to be able to install five to ten apps from the Play Store), do NOT buy this phone unless you know how to root it and remove the Virgin Mobile bloatware. The phone only comes with 150 Mb of internal storage for apps and phone processes, and most of it is taken up out of the box with Virgin Mobile's apps and HTC's Sense UI. First off, when you add your Google account, the Market will update, taking up a significant amount of extra space right from the get go. After that, all of Virgin's annoying apps will begin updating by themselves and you'll be left with about 50 Mb of free storage left. Unless the rest of the apps and games that you want can be moved to the external SD card, you're going to be out of luck before long. If storage space is of any concern to you, get the Motorola Triumph instead of the Wildfire S or even the Optimus V, which also suffers from storage issues, though not as extreme. Screen Resolution: This is to be expected on a phone with a 3.2 inch screen and an affordable price tag, but the screen resolution on the Wildfire S (320x480) will make viewing small text and looking at high res pictures difficult and frustrating. It's not too bad due to a pixel density of 180 ppi, but it's not great either. Screen Size: I personally don't mind the screen size here, but some people who are used to large screens probably won't enjoy the Wildfire S. It's a small phone probably build for first-time users and people with small hands, but I don't mind it myself. I've listed it as a con because some may want to avoid it if you plan on watching movies on YouTube or Netflix. Conclusion: So there's my review. I really enjoy the Wildfire S, aside from it's internal app storage problems. There are some great ways to force apps to install on the SD card of the phone that you can find guides for all over the internet, so if you're willing to take a chance at some coding, hit up those methods. Good luck with your decision all and thanks for reading my review!

      8 out of 8 found this review helpful.

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    Fast phone, but didn't like it.
    4
    Posted by: from Vallejo, Ca on 05/10/2012This is a very fast phone. The start up takes seconds. My niece loves this phone, but I hated it. I was spoiled with slide out keyboards, and couldn't get used to no keyboard. Nice phone, but I disliked it so much that I traded it up for an Optimus Slider, which I love.

      2 out of 2 found this review helpful.

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    Not a bad phone overall
    2
    Posted by: from New York on 04/25/2012I purchased this phone for my daughter and we ended up returning it for the next model up because it didn't hold a charge at all. She does text a lot and uses apps, like Facebook and Twitter on the phone. But she would charge it turned off all night and get maybe 3 hours of use out of it before needing to be recharged.

      3 out of 4 found this review helpful.

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    Not enough internal storage
    3
    Posted by: from Santa Maria, CA on 04/18/2012This phone is small and cool. The camera is good and the good thing it has flash but there is only one problem, not enough internal storage. Ya it comes with a 2gb sd card but the problem is not all apps can be installed on it. You will run out of internal storage when you update the preinstalled apps and Facebook and twitter user data takes up memory too.

      3 out of 4 found this review helpful.

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    a good beginning smartphone
    3
    Posted by: from cleveland, oh on 04/04/2012I recently got this because of money on my old virgin mobile. i wanted one with no contract. This works well for most of my needs as i do not twitter or text. the phone works fine no problems, internal men. is low and has to much bloat ware that you can delete. I even tried to root the phone but have much searching on how gave up.

      5 out of 8 found this review helpful.

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    no internal memory
    2
    Posted by: from ohio on 03/30/2012I had the phone for 4 days and i installed 2 apps and had no memory left.

      6 out of 9 found this review helpful.

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    Nice Phone for no-contract
    4
    Posted by: from Monson, MA on 03/22/2012great little compact phone. perfect size. pretty fast. I dont like the fact because its android, it has all these stupid updates i dont need. its annoying. otherwise, this phone is perfect for me. the weather widget is great. great display, nice features. I also got a screen protector for it. great

      6 out of 6 found this review helpful.

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    Good phone, but Internal Memory is a DEALBREAKER!
    2
    Posted by: from Utah on 03/22/2012This phone says it comes with 512Mb of internal memory, HOWEVER, usable space "available" for you is 150Mb out of the box, and of that, only 50Mb is unused. This is a problem because, firstly, the bloatware, though minimal, that it comes with can neither be uninstalled NOR moved to SD memory. Secondly, many important apps, like Gmail, need at least 25Mb free internal space to run (even if they're stored on SD). Also, many apps can't be moved to SD after you download them anyway, without rooting your phone or doing some complicated "debugging". Doing the latter, I enabled the phone to store apps I download directly to the SD card without rooting the phone, but that really doesn't do much. When you only have 50Mb to work with (25Mb, really, if you use Gmail), there's not much you are able to do. I would definitely NOT recommend this phone to a friend and I really wish I returned it when I could have.

      6 out of 8 found this review helpful.

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