Best Budget Android phone?

Credo

Credo

Credo

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Having recently got my daughter an HTC Desire on a very good deal, my wife is now looking to get a new phone, and fancies the new HTC Wildfire. I'm a bit reluctant to go for this as I think she's expecting it to be like the Desire in terms of responsiveness and screen resolution, which it isn't. We've not had a look at one yet, and I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a budget alternative? The Wildfire can be had for about £8.00 a month after cashback from mobiles.co.uk, which does make a strong case despite it's shortcomings.

Any suggestions are welcome...
 
How about the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro? That's generally regarded as the best small android, not many great deals atm though.

edit: the standard mini is very cheap though...
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Thanks for your replies, good options there. Need to see them in the flesh. Is the Wildfire not worth considering?
 
not a fan of these tiny android phones at all. be better off with something like the pulse or legend imo if on a budget. or even an unwanted upgrade handset from ebay
 
Niir said:
yup excellent phone bascially a baby desire
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No, its a very poor phone.

I'd say the X10 Mini is your best bet if it has to be a 'budget' one.

"andy" said:
not a fan of these tiny android phones at all. be better off with something like the pulse or legend imo if on a budget. or even an unwanted upgrade handset from ebay
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Agreed, you are losing a lot of the point of a smartphone having a tiny screen and so forth.


Tell your wife to wait and get her a Desire/Galaxy S when you can afford it ;) :p
 
Wildfire hands down (if you don't mind the low screen res). Robboftw have you actually used one?

Wildfire > X10 mini as it runs android 2.1 rather than 1.6 and also runs HTC Sense which is a winner.

And also, (shock horror) it actually makes phones calls and sends text messages (I swear some people on this forum forget that this is the main purpose of a mobile phone). Call quality is excellent and texting a doddle.
 
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I have used both and I think the X10 Mini is slightly better, though they are both poor.

The Wildfire is just not a good smartphone, a good phone though, it may be.
 
My brother-in-law wanted an android phone, but something cheap he can take to work without worrying about it being to expensive to lug around in his pocket (he's a builder). Anyway, he got the Wildfire and asked me to set it him up (he's a bit of a noob when it comes to smartphones). I've played with it and think it's a decent phone. Well worth the money. The small screen size is the biggest minus for me and it wasn't as snappy as my Nexus One but there's nothing I found that was a major disappointment. Best Android phone for the price.
 
Robboftw said:
I have used both and I think the X10 Mini is slightly better, though they are both poor.

The Wildfire is just not a good smartphone, a good phone though, it may be.
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I don't know how the wildfire is not a good smartphone, when there isn't much that the desire can do that the wildfire can't.
 
Good debate going on here folks, keep it up! As a bit of background, the wife currently has a K800i on the old Orange price match Virgin Mobile tariff, no line rental but you pay for calls and texts. She's clocking up £5 - £10 a month at the moment. She'd use a tariff with bundled minutes and texts etc much more, so would undoubtedly get more use out of any phone she got.

If the wildfire had a better screen, it would be a no brainer I think. Sounds like the X10 mini is worth a look, I kind of discounted SE Android phones...
 
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If I was getting a cheap Android phone right now it'd be the Samsung Galaxy Portal. Much better spec than the HTC Wildfire and similar price, no brainer really.
 
Credo said:
Good debate going on here folks, keep it up! As a bit of background, the wife currently has a K800i on the old Orange price match Virgin Mobile tariff, no line rental but you pay for calls and texts. She's clocking up £5 - £10 a month at the moment. She'd use a tariff with bundled minutes and texts etc much more, so would undoubtedly get more use out of any phone she got.

If the wildfire had a better screen, it would be a no brainer I think. Sounds like the X10 mini is worth a look, I kind of discounted SE Android phones...
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Thing is, the wildfires screen isn't THAT bad. If it's to be your wifes first smartphone then it'd probably be fine. If she had used a hero/desire/legend etc etc then it would be an issue.

my wildfire is my first smartphone and i think it's a corker.

2G/3G HSPA (or whatever it is), wi-fi, gps (yep...full satnav available for free via google navigation), pop3/imap email, gmail, internet.

it's more pocket/purse friendly than the bigger phones and battery life is not bad (by smartphone standards) especially if you take care of it and disable wi-fi, HSPA (or whatever it is) when they are not being used.
 
NorthstaNder said:
my wildfire is my first smartphone and i think it's a corker.
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Then I appreciate your point of view but you really have little to properly compare it to.

Its not a terrible phone by any means but when compared to the Desire/Galaxy S and so forth its just like putting a Fiat Punto next to an Aston Martin DB9 :p

You get what you pay for at the end of the day, but the Desire is available on some extremely cheap deals so its always worth a look in my opinion.
 
bam0 said:
If I was getting a cheap Android phone right now it'd be the Samsung Galaxy Portal. Much better spec than the HTC Wildfire and similar price, no brainer really.
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How is the Galaxy Portal better spec? It has a faster processor than the Wildfire (800mhz to 528mhz) and has a slightly higher res screen, though the same size screen, (480x320 to 320x240) but that's it. The Wildfire has more available ram (384mb to 200mb), a better camera (5mp with flash compared to 3mp without flash), and runs android 2.1 compared to the Galaxy Portal's android 1.5(!!!).

I'd say both have their pluses and minuses but I wouldn't call one 'better spec'. Personally only having 200mb of onboard ram is a big downer on a phone you'll be wanting to download lots of apps on. And having only android 1.5 you're not going to be able to put those apps on an sd card either. 3mp camera without flash is pretty shambolic as well.
 
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