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New Kid on the block HTC Wildfire


scuba_2

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A phone with a gps that really works good to 2m!!!!

As an engineer I an on the road and wanted to cache on the move I tried an Iphone 4 and the gps was 40 to 80 feet out! then the samsung Galaxy s came out and I thought yes, but no alass the gps doesn't work and they have not managed to fix it yet.

I was just starting to think I would have to take up knitting or somthing when this little Gem came along.

you really are going to have to go some to match this. see my days caching bellow

 

It is amazing the gps is accurate to 2m as good as my hand held gps, I have been out today the gps did not loose its lock it 6 hours of caching! I only stopped when the battery went flat!

the screen is very clear and ronning c:geo it gives loud voice comands when being used as a sat nav on the way to the next cache (turn by turn nav ) a feature thats missing from the Iphone app.

I am a very hard to please person but by god they seem to have done it!!!

Oh and it only cost £160 so it was cheaper than a gps!

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HTC devices in general are much overlooked in the iPhone era.

 

I have had HTC phones since 2003, all Windows Mobile models, and wouldnt swap them for anything. My only complaint of late is the lack of support from major companies who release apps for iPhone and Android but neglect the Windows market...not mentioning any names in particular..........

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I have the HTC Desire and agree the GPS on it is excellent. But the battery life is pretty poor and I wouldn't want to use it too much out in the wilds in case it got wet or I dropped it. So for that reason my Oregon still wins. But for the occasional impulse caching outing the HTC does a fine job. And I like the sat nav with voice commands too, very useful.

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I have the HTC Desire and agree the GPS on it is excellent. But the battery life is pretty poor and I wouldn't want to use it too much out in the wilds in case it got wet or I dropped it. So for that reason my Oregon still wins. But for the occasional impulse caching outing the HTC does a fine job. And I like the sat nav with voice commands too, very useful.

 

The nice thing with this one was it is only £160 and argos have an offer of £129 if they ever have any in stock.

it has a smaller screen and a 400mHz processor powerfull enough to do geocaching but not over powerful so to kill the battery.

as I can not plan where a breakdown will come in I can not prepare for going out caching so this is a god send for me .

I will now be able to take advantage of finishing work in say oxford and can pick up a few caches before I set off home.

I hope to get a spare battery as well that should give me 12 hours also when it is upgraded to android 2.2 it is supposed to save a lot more power as well!, that I look forward to.

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Watch out for the build quality on these HTC devices.

 

- My wife and I went through 6 HTC devices - 4 Vogues (Touch) and 2 Rhodiums (Touch Pro2)

- The USB port came out of three of our Vogues.

- The power button fell off of two of the Vogues, and one of the Rhodiums.

- The keyboard became very mushy on both Rhodiums

- The battery cover cracked / wouldn't fit right after 6 months on ALL SIX devices

- All four of the Vogues cracked around the case and power button - none of these were dropped

- One of the Rhodiums, the backlight inverter failed after 11 months. This happened to three other people I know.

 

I'm now using an iPhone, as I got tired of going back and paying for a refurb model from the carrier every 12 months.

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Is the Wildfire model rugged? "The best Geo Phone ever" had better be dust proof & at least water resistant (if not waterproof).

 

I'm eager to see the upcoming Motorola Defy, that one is dust proof water resistant and has a gorilla glass scratch resistant screen.

 

And, only a 400Mhz CPU in the Wildfiire, really? It may be OK to sacrifice some performance for better battery life, but 400Mhz is going to be pokey slow compared to all other smartphones out today..

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Is the Wildfire model rugged? "The best Geo Phone ever" had better be dust proof & at least water resistant (if not waterproof).

 

I'm eager to see the upcoming Motorola Defy, that one is dust proof water resistant and has a gorilla glass scratch resistant screen.

 

And, only a 400Mhz CPU in the Wildfiire, really? It may be OK to sacrifice some performance for better battery life, but 400Mhz is going to be pokey slow compared to all other smartphones out today..

 

It is quite fast for a phone processor.

Its what and how it uses it,The desire Hd has a 1Gz but this is because it will render a hd divx video somthing a lot of home pc's would not manage!

As I am not looking to plah hd movies as Im caching I think it is ok. remember the slowest thing with a phone is data coming in from the phone network.

 

As for rugged it is a solid little beast and i am going to get one of those waterproof rugged bags us scuba divers use to put our important stuff into. (the ipad has one) its like the old style map bags.

I have a spare battery they are only £20

This phone is cheap and just works .

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Watch out for the build quality on these HTC devices.

 

- My wife and I went through 6 HTC devices - 4 Vogues (Touch) and 2 Rhodiums (Touch Pro2)

- The USB port came out of three of our Vogues.

- The power button fell off of two of the Vogues, and one of the Rhodiums.

- The keyboard became very mushy on both Rhodiums

- The battery cover cracked / wouldn't fit right after 6 months on ALL SIX devices

- All four of the Vogues cracked around the case and power button - none of these were dropped

- One of the Rhodiums, the backlight inverter failed after 11 months. This happened to three other people I know.

 

I'm now using an iPhone, as I got tired of going back and paying for a refurb model from the carrier every 12 months.

You seem to be very unlucky I hope they have improved the buld quality looking at the wildfire it seems pretty solid but time will tell, but in the mean time at least I will be 80 feet closer to my caches than with an Iphone or Galaxy s

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Watch out for the build quality on these HTC devices.

 

- My wife and I went through 6 HTC devices - 4 Vogues (Touch) and 2 Rhodiums (Touch Pro2)

- The USB port came out of three of our Vogues.

- The power button fell off of two of the Vogues, and one of the Rhodiums.

- The keyboard became very mushy on both Rhodiums

- The battery cover cracked / wouldn't fit right after 6 months on ALL SIX devices

- All four of the Vogues cracked around the case and power button - none of these were dropped

- One of the Rhodiums, the backlight inverter failed after 11 months. This happened to three other people I know.

 

I'm now using an iPhone, as I got tired of going back and paying for a refurb model from the carrier every 12 months.

You seem to be very unlucky I hope they have improved the buld quality looking at the wildfire it seems pretty solid but time will tell, but in the mean time at least I will be 80 feet closer to my caches than with an Iphone or Galaxy s

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Watch out for the build quality on these HTC devices.

 

- My wife and I went through 6 HTC devices - 4 Vogues (Touch) and 2 Rhodiums (Touch Pro2)

- The USB port came out of three of our Vogues.

- The power button fell off of two of the Vogues, and one of the Rhodiums.

- The keyboard became very mushy on both Rhodiums

- The battery cover cracked / wouldn't fit right after 6 months on ALL SIX devices

- All four of the Vogues cracked around the case and power button - none of these were dropped

- One of the Rhodiums, the backlight inverter failed after 11 months. This happened to three other people I know.

 

I'm now using an iPhone, as I got tired of going back and paying for a refurb model from the carrier every 12 months.

You seem to be very unlucky I hope they have improved the buld quality looking at the wildfire it seems pretty solid but time will tell, but in the mean time at least I will be 80 feet closer to my caches than with an Iphone or Galaxy s

 

My iPhone 4 consistently brings me within 4 meters of a Geocache. Found one tonight in a major rainstorm no problem. The device manufacturers do improve over time. My HTC Vogue GPS was crap. The rhodium fared much better but if you ran GPS while charging it overheated the unit

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Watch out for the build quality on these HTC devices.

 

- My wife and I went through 6 HTC devices - 4 Vogues (Touch) and 2 Rhodiums (Touch Pro2)

- The USB port came out of three of our Vogues.

- The power button fell off of two of the Vogues, and one of the Rhodiums.

- The keyboard became very mushy on both Rhodiums

- The battery cover cracked / wouldn't fit right after 6 months on ALL SIX devices

- All four of the Vogues cracked around the case and power button - none of these were dropped

- One of the Rhodiums, the backlight inverter failed after 11 months. This happened to three other people I know.

 

I'm now using an iPhone, as I got tired of going back and paying for a refurb model from the carrier every 12 months.

You seem to be very unlucky I hope they have improved the buld quality looking at the wildfire it seems pretty solid but time will tell, but in the mean time at least I will be 80 feet closer to my caches than with an Iphone or Galaxy s

 

My iPhone 4 consistently brings me within 4 meters of a Geocache. Found one tonight in a major rainstorm no problem. The device manufacturers do improve over time. My HTC Vogue GPS was crap. The rhodium fared much better but if you ran GPS while charging it overheated the unit

 

I spoke to some guys in america and they were doing fine with the Iphone 4, we decided it was more a uk problem over here The Ipnone 4 i tried was jumping around all over the place the ipad and my handheld gps were fine but Iphone was saying 40 feet then 78 feet then back to 60 feet it was totaly unusable. its a pity as I like the Iphone.

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I spoke to some guys in america and they were doing fine with the Iphone 4, we decided it was more a uk problem over here The Ipnone 4 i tried was jumping around all over the place the ipad and my handheld gps were fine but Iphone was saying 40 feet then 78 feet then back to 60 feet it was totaly unusable. its a pity as I like the Iphone.

 

A one time test is not a good measure of a GPS. You may have been out when there was a poor satellite constellation available (like, 3 satellites all lined up on the same axis). The local carrier may have injected garbage into the aGPS data -- but in that case all the devices on that carrier will act up. I can remember a time Telus had both my Windows Phone and my Blackberry convinced I was in Bermuda - 2,000 km from my actual position at the time. You can eliminate aGPS error by tossing the phone into Airplane mode (though you will lose the Geocaching app). A simple restart of the device may have solved the issue for you.

 

I have had excellent GPS signals on my Rhodium (Touch Pro2), iPhone 4 and Blackberry Tour 9630. I've also had some examples of *terrible* location data on these devices though oddly enough my iPhone hasn't really gone AWOL on me that often.

 

--

 

Back to the OP, my major concerns about the HTC device you mention:

 

- 400 MHz is painfully slow for an Android (or Windows Mobile) device that's running a realtime geocaching app. My Rhodium would struggle at times running at 528Mhz with that HTC Sense stuff enabled.

- I fully expect the power button will fall off after 12 months, or the USB/Charging port will fail

- Check to make sure you can run GPS+Data with the charger connected, and that the unit will not overheat. Again, that 400Mhz processor is gonna be running full tilt and crank out lots of heat to add to the equation

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Nothing beats the real deal. Nought will beat a real handheld gps device in the long term.

So how do you find a cache if you do a call in a random part of the country ?

 

like tonight I finished a call down south, hit nearby caches on the wildfire and up they popped.

I picked one pressed turn by turn and the sat nav took me there.

When I got out the car I hit show on external maps (it is set to mapnik) this gives me a road map with all the footpaths.

off I go, when I am near the cache if I want I can switch to Radar this will get me to about 3 feet.

 

The gps in this is more accurate than my garmin hand held gps I use for locating shipwrecks.

 

The gps's I have seen, you have to pay a fortune to put british maps in, then they are not normaly down to 1.25000

they are normally 1. 50000 and you can only put in so many caches which need updating.

This does not really work forthe unplanned random caching that you get when you are on the road.

I rest my case.

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not sure what wildfire you have from htc but mine has a 528mhz cpu not 400, ive been using it with c:geo and must say that it has been doing a fantastic job when i dont have the oregon on hand

sorry you are right about the cpu my mistake.

I am just amazed at how accurate the gps is and it will lock on in under 12 seconds thats unheard of!

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Nothing beats the real deal. Nought will beat a real handheld gps device in the long term.

 

If you imagine this is the first generation gps-smartphone and this puts us LIGHT-YEARS ahead of my Oregon, I really wonder 'what comes next' ?

Yes, I know it's not as rugged, so what, mine hat a lanyard, zagg screen-protection, silicon case.

If it really rains a zippbag.

 

So for the longterm, I think my Samsung Galaxy droid wins, because it has so much more, like very cheap gps programs, free maps, telephone ,video- photocamera, for the survival type use an Oregon type gps, but this market will grow very small.

Edited by splashy
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i just got the wildfire yesterday so i am still learning its features to do with caching.

 

What apps are you guys using and how do you get it to direct you to a cache?

 

cheers Paul

 

My other half had ordered a wildfire through t mobile as they were doing a great deal - however three weeks later and after a couple of calls to say there would be a delay in delivery - she got another call today to say they had run out of stock and will not be able to supply the phone - soo annoyed :D

we were really looking forward to seeing how this matched up against my oregon

 

ah well

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i just got the wildfire yesterday so i am still learning its features to do with caching.

 

What apps are you guys using and how do you get it to direct you to a cache?

 

cheers Paul

 

My other half had ordered a wildfire through t mobile as they were doing a great deal - however three weeks later and after a couple of calls to say there would be a delay in delivery - she got another call today to say they had run out of stock and will not be able to supply the phone - soo annoyed :huh:

we were really looking forward to seeing how this matched up against my oregon

 

ah well

 

have a look at the Orange san francisco - got all that wiildfire has - gps, wifi, compass, magnetometer, accelerometer etc etc - and a better screen than Wildfire

 

Only £100, (80 if already an Orange PAYG customer). Can unlock it for less than £5 and use on any network and loads of apps and mods (see modaco.com)

 

a fantastic phone for the price

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Nothing beats the real deal. Nought will beat a real handheld gps device in the long term.

 

If you imagine this is the first generation gps-smartphone and this puts us LIGHT-YEARS ahead of my Oregon, I really wonder 'what comes next' ?

Mio and HP have been making gps smartphones for at least 4 years AFAIK. What makes you think Android/iPhone are even close to being first gen???

 

And Wildfire users - how are you getting on with the official Groundspeak app?

Edited by keehotee
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have a look at the Orange san francisco - got all that wiildfire has - gps, wifi, compass, magnetometer, accelerometer etc etc - and a better screen than Wildfire

 

Only £100, (80 if already an Orange PAYG customer). Can unlock it for less than £5 and use on any network and loads of apps and mods (see modaco.com)

 

a fantastic phone for the price

 

Different league as far as the device is concerned. Not sure who is OEM for the Orange device but HTC have an excellent reputation for build quality. On top of that, Wildfire has 5Mb camera (with LED Flash), 2Gb MicroSD supplied and excellent HTC Touch interface - it will also get Froyo update in December (?). I'm sure the Orange device is OK but IMHO the Wildfire has to be the best value Smartphone about at the minute.....if you can find it, Argos has then for £129 (providing you buy £10 Vodafone airtime).

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have a look at the Orange san francisco - got all that wiildfire has - gps, wifi, compass, magnetometer, accelerometer etc etc - and a better screen than Wildfire

 

Only £100, (80 if already an Orange PAYG customer). Can unlock it for less than £5 and use on any network and loads of apps and mods (see modaco.com)

 

a fantastic phone for the price

 

Different league as far as the device is concerned. Not sure who is OEM for the Orange device but HTC have an excellent reputation for build quality. On top of that, Wildfire has 5Mb camera (with LED Flash), 2Gb MicroSD supplied and excellent HTC Touch interface - it will also get Froyo update in December (?). I'm sure the Orange device is OK but IMHO the Wildfire has to be the best value Smartphone about at the minute.....if you can find it, Argos has then for £129 (providing you buy £10 Vodafone airtime).

 

Got to disagree, i don't buy a smartphone for the camera - san fran takes ok pics for a phone!

Comes with 2GB card as well

screen is twice the resolution of Wildfire, so much crisper

Alpha froyo available now and full froyo update any day now!

has everything but at 2/3 the price

OEM is ZTE

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San Francisco

The definitive Orange San Francisco review

 

For

>Great screen

>Super build

>Nice Orange widgets

>Can ditch the Orange skin easily

>Useful apps pre installed

 

Against

>No Twitter out of the box

>Disappointing stills camera

>No Facebook out of the box

>Very disappointing video camera

>Poor FM radio

 

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mo...w#ixzz14FB5XA91

Edited by splashy
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Nothing beats the real deal. Nought will beat a real handheld gps device in the long term.

 

If you imagine this is the first generation gps-smartphone and this puts us LIGHT-YEARS ahead of my Oregon, I really wonder 'what comes next' ?

Mio and HP have been making gps smartphones for at least 4 years AFAIK. What makes you think Android/iPhone are even close to being first gen???

 

And Wildfire users - how are you getting on with the official Groundspeak app?

 

Hi, I have taken delivery of my HTC wildfire today :rolleyes: £129 from Marshall ward.

 

I'm having trouble locating the official Groundspeak app through the marketplace......any ideas anyone?????

 

Jane

Link to comment

Nothing beats the real deal. Nought will beat a real handheld gps device in the long term.

 

If you imagine this is the first generation gps-smartphone and this puts us LIGHT-YEARS ahead of my Oregon, I really wonder 'what comes next' ?

Mio and HP have been making gps smartphones for at least 4 years AFAIK. What makes you think Android/iPhone are even close to being first gen???

 

And Wildfire users - how are you getting on with the official Groundspeak app?

I didn't say it was first I just said it worked, all the time i have been looking for a phone and some help everyone has been very quiet just when I needed help, so when i found a phone myself and put it up here In case anyone else was looking.

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Nothing beats the real deal. Nought will beat a real handheld gps device in the long term.

 

If you imagine this is the first generation gps-smartphone and this puts us LIGHT-YEARS ahead of my Oregon, I really wonder 'what comes next' ?

Mio and HP have been making gps smartphones for at least 4 years AFAIK. What makes you think Android/iPhone are even close to being first gen???

 

And Wildfire users - how are you getting on with the official Groundspeak app?

 

Hi, I have taken delivery of my HTC wildfire today :rolleyes: £129 from Marshall ward.

 

I'm having trouble locating the official Groundspeak app through the marketplace......any ideas anyone?????

 

Jane

 

Yes install c geo from market place also instal Rmaps (this gives you access to beter maps select mapnik from the list it has footpaths and install radar then you are good to go happy caching.

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Nothing beats the real deal. Nought will beat a real handheld gps device in the long term.

 

If you imagine this is the first generation gps-smartphone and this puts us LIGHT-YEARS ahead of my Oregon, I really wonder 'what comes next' ?

Mio and HP have been making gps smartphones for at least 4 years AFAIK. What makes you think Android/iPhone are even close to being first gen???

 

And Wildfire users - how are you getting on with the official Groundspeak app?

 

Hi, I have taken delivery of my HTC wildfire today :rolleyes: £129 from Marshall ward.

 

I'm having trouble locating the official Groundspeak app through the marketplace......any ideas anyone?????

 

Jane

 

Yes install c geo from market place also instal Rmaps (this gives you access to beter maps select mapnik from the list it has footpaths and install radar then you are good to go happy caching.

sorry missed one you can also download gps status this shows gps signal strenght and the like

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ah ok, I did find that app but it is only an unofficial app. I thought the Groundspeak app was the official one but couldn't find it. I will have a look for the other apps you mentioned.

 

Thanks...... caches here I come

Yep not sure where you get GS app but c geo yorks much better and has turn by turn which is sat nav to get you to the cache site very usfull.

when you install it it will ask if you want it to install radar and a few bits just click yes.

It works really well.

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ah ok, I did find that app but it is only an unofficial app. I thought the Groundspeak app was the official one but couldn't find it. I will have a look for the other apps you mentioned.

 

Thanks...... caches here I come

Yep not sure where you get GS app but c geo yorks much better and has turn by turn which is sat nav to get you to the cache site very usfull.

when you install it it will ask if you want it to install radar and a few bits just click yes.

It works really well.

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Without getting into a discussion about which app is best, you may need a combination of apps depending on your caching style. c:geo is an excellent app but has very limited offline capability; official GS app has GPX import but only in a limited way (download & import individual GPX files) and has a good online mode.

 

Neither of these suit my caching style as 95% of the time I cache, I know where I am going and chances are, signal will be limited so I pre-load all the GPX files beforehand into GeOrg. For the other 5%, c:geo, GS App, GeoHunter, GeOrg, etc will all allow 'on the fly' caching but only the GS app doesn't break the GS ToS.

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Argos have it on Vodafone for £129.99.

 

Good luck !! This is 'slightly' in demand - I managed to get the first one in our local area (thanks to a screw up by Argos) and my friend has got the last one. If your local store doesn't have one, you may have to go into the store and ask them to d=find the nearest one locally.

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Nothing beats the real deal. Nought will beat a real handheld gps device in the long term.

 

If you imagine this is the first generation gps-smartphone and this puts us LIGHT-YEARS ahead of my Oregon, I really wonder 'what comes next' ?

Mio and HP have been making gps smartphones for at least 4 years AFAIK. What makes you think Android/iPhone are even close to being first gen???

 

And Wildfire users - how are you getting on with the official Groundspeak app?

 

Hi, I have taken delivery of my HTC wildfire today :D £129 from Marshall ward.

 

I'm having trouble locating the official Groundspeak app through the marketplace......any ideas anyone?????

 

Jane

 

You won't be able to get the official app from Market. Unfortunately, in common with the HTC Tattoo and SE X10 Mini, Wildfire has a qvga screen, and the app has not been released for handsets with qvga screens.

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You won't be able to get the official app from Market. Unfortunately, in common with the HTC Tattoo and SE X10 Mini, Wildfire has a qvga screen, and the app has not been released for handsets with qvga screens.

 

Sheesh. It's Windows Mobile all over again. Here's hoping Groundspeak (and Android in general) can get that little problem fixed quickly.

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You won't be able to get the official app from Market. Unfortunately, in common with the HTC Tattoo and SE X10 Mini, Wildfire has a qvga screen, and the app has not been released for handsets with qvga screens.

 

Sheesh. It's Windows Mobile all over again. Here's hoping Groundspeak (and Android in general) can get that little problem fixed quickly.

 

not really an android problem, just the lower quality screen on the wildfire

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You won't be able to get the official app from Market. Unfortunately, in common with the HTC Tattoo and SE X10 Mini, Wildfire has a qvga screen, and the app has not been released for handsets with qvga screens.

 

Sheesh. It's Windows Mobile all over again. Here's hoping Groundspeak (and Android in general) can get that little problem fixed quickly.

 

not really an android problem, just the lower quality screen on the wildfire

the screen looks pretty dam sharp to me.

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You won't be able to get the official app from Market. Unfortunately, in common with the HTC Tattoo and SE X10 Mini, Wildfire has a qvga screen, and the app has not been released for handsets with qvga screens.

 

Sheesh. It's Windows Mobile all over again. Here's hoping Groundspeak (and Android in general) can get that little problem fixed quickly.

 

not really an android problem, just the lower quality screen on the wildfire

the screen looks pretty dam sharp to me.

when you consider it's got a better resolution than my first computer screen and it's in the palm of your hand, then yep, it's pretty good, but compare to the current crop of handsets and it's poorer :D

Edited by davnig
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Do you have a link to that deal?Is it a refurb?

 

Argos have it on Vodafone for £129.99.

 

Thanks,had ordered a refurb off Carphone WH,as its not arrived may cancel.

 

Hi, hope you get sorted with a phone. Marshall Ward are not doing the same deal anymore and it wasn't a refurb, I think they have struggled supplying the demand. I too noticed that Argos was doing the same deal but no stock available at any stores near me.

 

Play.com are doing the wildfire for £149 which still isn't a bad deal.

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Do you have a link to that deal?Is it a refurb?

 

Argos have it on Vodafone for £129.99.

 

Thanks,had ordered a refurb off Carphone WH,as its not arrived may cancel.

 

Hi, hope you get sorted with a phone. Marshall Ward are not doing the same deal anymore and it wasn't a refurb, I think they have struggled supplying the demand. I too noticed that Argos was doing the same deal but no stock available at any stores near me.

 

Play.com are doing the wildfire for £149 which still isn't a bad deal.

 

3-5 weeks on Play,can`t find one anywhere at the moment,and I don`t want to pay £230 for sim free. :anibad:

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