I revisited my very first smartphone

Summary

My very first smartphone was the HTC Wildfire S, a budget Android handset from 2011.
The Wildfire S runs the now-outdated Android 2.3 operating system, and features a tiny 2.3-inch display panel.
I booted up my unit some 14 years later — here’s how it went.

The High Tech Computer Corporation, better known as HTC, once ruled the Android roost when it came to rivaling the iPhone. The Taiwanese phone maker made a name for itself in the early 2010s, thanks in part to three major factors: its knack for building high-quality physical products, its useful Sense operating system overlay, and its tight partnership with Google.

It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that my first smartphone was an HTC-branded product. In the year 2011, I was gifted an HTC Wildfire S, which was a then-current entry-level phone.

For context, the Wildfire S was released at a time when HTC was beginning to hit its stride, just ahead of Samsung swooping in and devouring much of the Android handset market for itself.

Queue the nostalgia-fueled flashbacks.

It’s been some 14 years since I first set up the Wildfire S, and my original unit is thankfully still around and kicking. I recently booted up the device again, as I was curious to see whether time had been kind to it.

Queue the nostalgia-fueled flashbacks: the memories of clearing cache to free up space for apps, the removable battery launching out of the chassis upon impact after a drop, and much, much more.

HTC Wildfire S

The HTC Wildfire S was an entry-level smartphone from 2011, which shipped with a 3.2-inch display, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and a single 5-megapixel rear camera.

SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon S1
Display: 3.2-inch 320 x 480 LCD
RAM: 512 MB
Storage: 512 MB + 2 GB microSD included
Operating System: Android 2.3 Gingerbread (with Sense 2.1)

HTC U11 Plus could have a translucent back and HTC has already shown it off image 1

10 of the greatest HTC phones of all time and what made them so iconic

At its height of prominence, HTC was never a household name. But it’s arguably made some of the best phones the industry’s ever seen, and here’s why.

Phones of this size simply don’t exist anymore

The HTC Wildfire S features a tiny 3.2-inch display panel

The most striking thing about the HTC Wildfire S is its puny physical size. When I pulled my unit out of storage, I was taken aback by its petite frame, and by its equally miniature 3.2-inch display panel. By today’s standards, the Wildfire S is comically small, and I’m baffled that I never thought of it as particularly tiny back in 2011.

For a budget smartphone, the Wildfire S is surprisingly sturdy and well-built. Considering HTC’s pedigree, I really shouldn’t be surprised — the matte plastic body feels solid in the hand, the volume rocker, sleep/wake switch, and earpiece are made of metal, and the unit doesn’t creak or flex in the slightest.

Much of HTC’s early design language DNA can be found front and center on the Wildfire S.

Much of HTC’s early design language DNA can be found front and center on the Wildfire S: a front-facing brand logo, a distinctive chin, a side-mounted micro-USB port, and a front panel that’s embedded organically into the chassis design.

Interestingly, the phone features a small camera hump, many years before optical protrusions would become a mainstay within the mobile industry. What the phone does have that modern phones don’t, on the other hand, is a removable back cover. The rear panel easily rips off, exposing a removable 1,230mAh battery pack, a Mini-SIM tray, and a microSD card slot.

A woman wearing a Vive Focus Vision headset and dancing with motion trackers trapped to her arms.

HTC’s new headset might be the ultimate wearable arcade

HTC’s new headset looks familiar, but includes major quality of life improvements that keep it competitive — including a $999 price tag.

Computationally, the HTC Wildfire S struggles to keep up

The phone feels sluggish, and its camera is hardly usable

Powering things on, and the phone’s age immediately starts to show. You can count the individual pixels on its 320 x 480 resolution LCD, and its Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 processor and 512MB of RAM combo struggles to keep pace.

I almost immediately received a low storage warning, a pain point I remember all too well from back in the day. Despite the inclusion of a complementary 2GB microSD card, the phone’s internal 512MB of storage makes it difficult to download and store just about anything without partaking in some serious digital file juggling.

…the Wildfire S offers a number of notable hardware features that have since gone extinct.

The phone lacks a front-facing camera, though it does ship with a single 5-megapixel rear-facing shooter. The lens includes autofocus and a dedicated LED flash module, which is nice, but it can only shoot in 480p resolution at up to 24 frames per second (fps). Photos and videos taken on the device are predictably grainy and watercolor-infused.

On the other hand, the Wildfire S offers a number of notable hardware features that have since gone extinct on modern smartphones. It was nice to reacclimate myself with the trusty 3.5mm headphone jack, the built-in FM radio tuner is much appreciated, and the front-facing notification LED is neatly tucked away within the phone’s earpiece grille.

Remember when Google’s Nexus 5 turned the Android world on its head?

Back in 2013, Google teamed up with LG to release the Nexus 5 — the phone would briefly go on to set the Android world ablaze.

Android has come a long way over the years

Android 2.3 Gingerbread was once cutting-edge, but now it feels like a museum artifact

Pocket-lint / Google

Out of the box, the Wildfire S shipped with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, with HTC’s custom Sense UI 2.1 over top. The phone later received the 2.3.5 software update, but it never made the jump to the next major version of the Android OS.

At the time, Sense was a genuine selling point for HTC phones — so much so, that the rear panel of my unit is flanked with a proud message proclaiming its inclusion. Android was notoriously rough around the edges in the early 2010s, and the Sense skin provided a visually refined and pleasant user experience that arguably still looks nice to this day.

At the time, Sense was a genuine selling point for HTC phones.

HTC’s iconic flip weather clock is confidently perched on the main home screen page, and I had forgotten just how charming of a widget it truly is. I also enjoyed reverting to dedicated capacitive navigation buttons, which I’ve always found fun to use.

Of course, it’s just about impossible to do anything internet-related with the phone these days. The phone’s Android Market ( the precursor to today’s Google Play Store) is unresponsive, the YouTube app throws up a network error message, and the internet browser struggles to display websites.

For as rudimentary as the software package is — there’s no multitasking or app switcher to speak of — I still find the experience to be a charming one. The basic Android UI paradigm is present and accounted for: the quick settings and notifications menu, the app drawer, the Settings app layout, and the home screen all draw a clear delineation between the past and the present.

Using the Wildifire S also reminds me how much I miss HTC as a phone maker.

14 years on from release, the HTC Wildfire S is in an entirely unusable state. Aside from the rose-tinted memories the handset provides me with, it stands as a testament of just how far the smartphone industry has come in only a few short years. Using the Wildifire S also reminds me how much I miss HTC as a phone maker, and how much I wish they still had skin in the Android game.