HTC Wildfire

HTC Wildfire
HTC widgets: Bookmarks, Calculator, Calendar, Clock, FM Radio, Friend Stream, Mail, Messages, Music, News, People, Stocks, Weather, Settings (such as Profile, Ringtone, Wi-Fi™, Bluetooth®)...
Available colours: Black, Red. Bronze, White
CPU Processor 528 MHz
Price: ~$430 (w/o contract)

Design:
It is a light weight beautifully designed phone, with a 3.2" capacitive touch screen with pinch-to-zoom.

Screen:
Screen resolution is a pathetic 240 x 320 QVGA. When screen is set to greater brightness, screen looks slightly pixelated.

HTC Widgets
The widgets which I love are clock, calendar and calculator.
There are few design that you can choose to put on your home screen for clock and calculators.
The Calendar is great as besides its beautiful design, it allows us to put full month's calendar on your home screen.

HTC home
HTC home's menu only allows us to view icons of 12 apps (4 columns, 3 rows) at a time , which I feel, can be increased.
HTC home also allows the saving, customisation of scenes, or simply use the preset scenes.
HOwever, this can be rectified by using Launcher Pro (which is downloadable in android market).

Battery life:
With a single charge and normal usage, the battery can last between 2 to 3 days, which is a plus point, as compare to Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

Apps:
Launcher Pro is a great app. It allows customization for the number of home screens (max 7) and hiding apps that you seldom use, so that your menu will not be packed with unnecessary apps. It also includes dock, which looks like what Apple Mac have in their OS.

Camera:
5mp, geotagging, with autofocus and flash.
I think the camera is relatively fine. It is able to take sharp pictures at times but when hand is slightly shaky or when distance between phone and camera is too close, picture might be unclear.
I was quite disappointed with its videoing function. Most of other phones, which are older and cheaper (eg. Nokia 6288 and SE C902) allow zooming in and out while videoing, but it is not allowed in HTC Wildfire, which is a shame.

*Most photos posted on my blog are taken by HTC Wildfire. =D

Value for money:
I think Wildfire is value for money, though it is definitely not as good as HTC Legend. It is suitable for users who have a tighter budget but wishes to try out Android phones. I love this phone as it allows users to customize their home screens. However, the cons of Wildfire is its screen resolution and videoing function.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Price: ~$600 (without contract)

Design:

Xperia X10 definitely looks gorgeous with the 4 inch capacitive touchscreen. Therer are 3 buttons below the screen - namely the menu, home and back/cancel buttons from left to right. Feels sturdy in my hand. However, the back cover is made of plastic, which I personally feel would be better if substituted with metal.

Performance:

With Snapdragon 1GHz processor, the smartphone functions with minimal latency. However, battery life ought to be improved. With a need for charging every 1.5 days on standby, with minimal usage.

Operating System:

Initially Android 1.6. But now, upgrade is available in most countries to 2.1 Eclair. As it stated that it is in phase A, I believe there will be a next update on the Android OS. By the way, there are news stating that it will include multi-touch in the near future. However, the multi-touch support would not be perfect as compared to Iphone and other multi-touch enabled devices.

Apps:

One of the phone's highlighted apps is Timescape. It's an app that links up facebook, twitter, gmail, recent music played, calls recieved or missed and sms received. It allows users to view what their contacts have updated in the following social websites. In short, it is an all in one apps to find out what is happening around users and their friends. However, updating the timescape might not be successful despite numerous attempts. I wonder if the problem lies with my telco provider for not providing me good download speed or it's just Sony Ericsson not doing a good job in this app.
With Android market, I had downloaded numerous apps. Its simple and useful for finding the right tools for you.

Camera:

8.1 megapixel. Stunning shots for a mobile phone. Auto focus with HD video capturing. What more could I ask for? Its good.

Value for money:

This phone is considerably value for money as it has a 8.1mp camera and android 2.1 Eclair. However, if you are always traveling around and utilising your phone to the maximum, the battery life would be a hindrance to your needs.