The first Wildfire from HTC spread almost like its moniker, so popular did its blend of HTC Sense, durable form factor and affordable pricing prove. Now that it's burnt out, however, it needs a successor to carry the torch. Rising from the ashes is the Wildfire S.
The handset carries on the legacy well enough, with an impressively solid chassis, great social features and responsive touchscreen. The market's changed since the first Wildfire blazed its trail into history, though. With dual-core 'superphones' to contend with, it's hard to consider a 600Mhz processor hot stuff.
And while HTC's Sense interface proves as compelling as ever, the lack of grunt means missing out on Flash support for iPlayer and the like.
All that wouldn't matter if the Wildfire S only required liberating a token sum from your account, but you'll need a fair few sheets burning a hole in your pocket (around £220 SIM-free, or £15 a month) to lay claim to this little fella.
In the highly competitive market of 2011, that makes the Wildfire S a tricky proposition. Beginners will be well-served by the Wildfire S's rounded package, but you can certainly get a lot more for not much extra cash.
No 2 : LG Optimus Black
The LG Optimus Black has some great things going for it – a sleek, lightweight chassis and lush 4-inch NOVA display in all its colourful glory. It might not have much more than that but it's a slick, capable handset that does well in the core smartphone media categories.
If you like gimmicks, you'll probably love the Gesture UI, though we thought many of the options – such as tapping to skip music tracks – were a little pointless when you really got down to it.
Overall though, and despite running Android 2.2 (with an upgrade promised at some point), we'd say the LG Optimus Black's worth the money if you're looking for an efficient, easy to use device that's easy on the eye and light on the pocket coming in at a very palatable £20-£25 per month.
No 3 : Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc
Could Sony Ericsson finally be about to deliver on the promise of, well, every smartphone it's ever made that wasn't quite good enough? Maybe it was stupid to hope, but we did anyway.
An attractive design with a curved back that's just 8.7mm thick in the middle? Check. Impressive new Exmor camera technology? Check. Good spec list, including HDMI output? Check. Superb video player? Check.
The hardware is extremely impressive, both in terms of looks and performance. Forget the fashionable dual-core phones – when done right, a single-core 1GHz processor can do it all, although busy, dynamic websites will cause the phone to chug a little.
As it is, we're prepared to overlook the Xperia Arc's few minor flaws (small buttons, odd text entry) thanks to its stunning good looks, superb screen and very decent photo performance. You can't help but love it once you've held its magically thin body and gazed adoringly into its dazzling Reality Display.
No 4 : INQ Cloud Touch
The Facebook phone. Well, no, it isn't. Nothing is really, but it is the new mobile phone to try to take the title.
It's an Android 2.2 phone with an overlay created in conjunction with the social network. We found that it certainly felt like a budget phone – but it's supposed to, and it wears the moniker with pride.
Those looking for one of those new and fandangled 'Facebook Phones' should definitely take a good, hard look at the Cloud Touch - while technically it's nowhere near as gifted as some of the competition, the overlay and thought process gone into INQ's customisation is something we're already big fans of, and it's only going to get better.
No 5 : HTC Incredible S
Incredible by name and only slightly less so by nature, this phone is HTC's entry into the underpopulated 4-inch touchscreen arena. In fact, it's among the first UK handsets to fill that niche, but more are on the horizon.
It's blessed with HTC's slick Sense UI and a high-quality screen, but is this latest mobile phone's foibles enough to warrant waiting for its incoming competitors, or the HTC Desire S?
No 6 : Samsung Galaxy Ace
With a middle-of-the-range spec, 800MHz processor and iPhone-aping looks, it may be hard to see why it's worth buying into the new Galaxy Ace. However, its Android 2.2 (Froyo) OS makes a considerable difference and is, in fact, this phone's ace (yes! We said it) in the hole.
It won't cost you the Earth either, so look deeper and you may find just what you were looking for.
No 7 : Motorola Atrix
Smartphones have long been encroaching on the computing market, but the Atrix is annexing new turf. How? By including a built-in desktop OS and the ability to turn your phone into a so-called webtop computer.
What's more, the dual-core 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM that come stuffed into the Atrix should mean a blisteringly fast smartphone experience too. Follow the link to find out more about the Atrix's brand of magic.
No 8 : Samsung Galaxy Mini
Samsung loves a budget phone, and more to the point, it loves spewing out loads of them on Android. Not content with the Galaxy Ace, it's also brought the Galaxy Mini, Fit and Gio to the party, complete with budget stylings.
The Galaxy Mini suffers slightly from a low-grade processor - it may be only a smidge over £100 on PAYG, but the juddering might irritiate a few, and the screen is a low-res affair to boot.
However it's small and pocketable and a great starting point for a first tome smartphone buyer that wants to learn the Android system before moving up to something with a little higher-spec - plus it's running the latest version of the Google OS too.
No 9 : HTC Sensation
The HTC Sensation is meant to be the new alpha smartphone from the Taiwanese firm, and it certainly lives up to expectations.
With a 1.2GHz dual core processor from Qualcomm and a whopping 4.3-inch high-res qHD screen, this is the phone with best specs yet from HTC, plus it's the first smartphone with the new HTC Watch movie download service.
Is it better than the Samsung Galaxy S2? We think it's just a shade behind thanks to a slightly larger chassis and less advanced screen technology, but that's going to be a debate that rumbles on and on.
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Comment whats No 10....!
