I have been with Voice Stream, that was taken over by T-Mobile, forever.  Every two years I get a new phone.  I was told that I could have one anytime after November 1st. 

So I checked on the Internet and saw the HTC Wildfire S Smartphone.  The price was $249.99 with $200 off it I signed up with T-Mobile for another two years.  I would then have a mail-in rebate for the remaining $50. 

I am not happy getting a phone without seeing it, and being shown what to do, and how it works.  Len and I headed up to Gulf View Square Mall, and to the T-Mobile store.

I walked in, gave the representative my telephone number, my old phone, and asked him about the HTC Wildfire S Smartphone.  First off he checked my account, and told me that I would have to pay for Internet service.  This would add $20 to my bill.  I asked him to show me the phone, explain what it did, and then I would decide whether to go for it, or get a basic phone again.

He brought out the white box, with a picture of the phone on the top.  Once opened he showed me the phone.  He used his own phone, which was a bigger version than the one I was getting, to show me the basics.  He pretty much sold me on getting a smartphone.

He told me that I would have to pay the $50 plus an $18 upgrade fee, which was fine by me.  He would print off the rebate form for me to take with me.

So with this sorted out, he burned a new sim card, opened up the back of the HTC Wildfire S Smartphone, and put it in.

He powered on the phone by pressing down on the button on the top of the phone.  He showed me that the phone was locked, and I had to pull down on the screen, to use it.

The main page has the time, the date, the town I live, or where I am, the temperature, the high and low for the day, all at the top.  It then has 8 apps.  These are the ones that were on the front, but can be changed or moved around.  Mine are messages, contacts, camcorder, camera, clock, calculator, calendar, and my account.

At the bottom center is phone, and he made a call from his phone to mine, to ensure it was working.  He then made the call from my phone.  He put on a couple of apps from the 'market', which he thought I might like, and then handed me the phone.

He gave me his card with contact information, as I am sure that he knew, that I would have questions.

I brought my phone home, and read through the start up guide, while it was charging up.  Here I learned where the home key, menu key, back key, quick search key, voulme key, status bar, and power/lock key were.

Once my HTC Wildfire S Smartphone was charged I wanted to try it out.  First off I phoned the house, and Len picked it up, so the phone worked.  When Len called me, it rang, and it told me to drag down on the front of the phone, to answer or decline.  When I dragged down it automatically answered for me. 

I had Len call me again while the screen wasn't locked.  This time it showed me the incoming call, from home, and I could accept or decline it.  So now I knew how to use the phone side of it.

The next thing I wanted to do was to have my phone on my WIFI at home.  I didn't know the network password, and it took me several hours to work it out.  Once done, when I am at home it doesn't use T-Mobile, but my Brighthouse network.

I have had a gmail account for several years, so I didn't have to set one up.  I already had the icon, so went into it, and started using it.  The same thing with Facebook, and YouTube.

I continued to play with the phone, decided to download free apps from the Market, and then couldn't find where they were.  I somehow put Slacker on a full page, and didn't know how to get it off.  I made notes of several things I didn't know how to do, and my friend's son came over to help me.  He has the same phone, but it has a bigger screen, and he was kind enough to spend a couple of hours with me.

He showed me how Navigation, Maps,  and Visual Voicemail worked.  He also downloaded Pandora for me, where I can listen to my favorite artists.  The most important one that he downloaded was Advanced Task Killer.  He told me that my apps would be up and running when my phone is on, and by using this often, I will have more available memory.

So we headed off to Kissimmee for a week. We were on the 7th floor of a building.  My Dad passed away in England, and my brother tried phoning me for two hours.  I had no reception.  In the end he had to email me the news.  I went down to the parking lot, and had to walk several hundred yards before getting a signal.

I love the phone, but I ended up calling it a stupid phone, after this.  I have had several incidents when I haven't had a signal, including Sea World, Orlando.  People around me were using their phones, but I had nothing with mine.

After Len's daughter knew I was having this problem she talked me through downloading the app for PingChat.  Now I can make contact with her, and also my grand-daughter in England, and let them know if my phone doesn't have a signal.

Another app I love is Brightest Flashllight.  We needed it the other day, and it was amazing.

With my old phone I could set the alarm, turn off my phone, and it would work.  With the HTC Wildfire S Smartphone it only works with the phone on.

In Kissimmee I used the Navigation, and I love the way you can say where you want, and it takes you there.  I also love the Maps. With both of these you can zoom in, or out, depending on what you are looking for.

The keyboard is small, and to begin with I couldn't hit the right keys.  It would bring up the letters I was typing, and what it thought it would be.  For the first couple of days it kept bringing them up in Spanish, and said to 'Add to dictionary'.  It frustrated me, because without a manual, I didn't know where to go to change stuff.  Finally I worked it out for myself.

Here are details from the website:

Size:    101.3mm x 59.4mm x 12.4mm 3.99" x 2.34" x 0.49"
Weight:    105 grams (3.7 ounces) with battery
Display:    3.2-inch touch screen
Screen:    81.3 mm (3.2")

Connectors
3.5 mm stereo audio jack
Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
Power & Battery2
Battery type:
Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
Capacity:
1230 mAh
Talk time:
WCDMA: Up to 350 minutes
GSM: Up to 430 minutes
Standby time3:
WCDMA: Up to 570 hours
GSM: Up to 360 hours
Network4
HSPA/WCDMA:
Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Platform
Android with HTC Sense
Camera
Camera
5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flash
Sensors
Sensors
G-Sensor
Digital compass
Proximity sensor
Ambient light sensor
Multimedia
Multimedia
Audio supported formats:
Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma (Windows Media Audio 9)
Recording: .amr
Video supported formats:
Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9)
Recording: .3gp
Internet
Internet5
3G:
Up to 7.2 Mbps download speed
Up to 384 kbps upload speed
GPRS:
Up to 114 Kbps downloading
EDGE:
Up to 560 Kbps downloading
Wi-Fi
IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth
Bluetooth® 3.0 with FTP/OPP for file transfer
A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
GPS
Internal GPS antenna

I love the camera, and camcorder.  I have taken around 100 photographs so far.  I still haven't worked out all the help with the photos, but that will come.  I love having them on a slideshow, and then being able to pull them closer.  It is fun to take a photograph, and share it by email, or on Facebook.  Checking it on Facebook is so neat.

The camcorder has sound when you playback, and that is a great advantage over a digital camera.

I kept most of the photos, and three videos, on the camera, and today I ran out of memory.  I didn't realize this because the camera had been telling me that I had only taken 100 out of a couple of thousand, or so.  I tried to bring them up to delete them, and it said that there wasn't enough memory to do this.  I was so frustrated.

Finally I went into setting, and then into SD & phone storage, and here I found a clean up program.  It took out enough to allow me to bring up the photos, and I deleted the majority of them.  I just kept the great ones.

I have also found out that sometimes the camera gets 'stuck in the middle of something'.  Len's daughter told me to switch it off, and then back on again.  If this doesn't work then to take the back off, and then put it back on again.  Whatever was stuck, then worked fine.

Everyday I am learning by my mistakes, or finding something new.  Sometimes I feel silly at not knowing about an app, or program, but this is my first smartphone.

Once this great-grandmother learns more about the phone, I will wonder how I ever managed without it.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 0 with rebat
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy