Some tips for getting your HTC Wildfire to work

I upgraded my phone to a HTC Wildfire having previously owned 2 windows mobile phones. A HTC Touch and T-Mobile MDA Vario III.

I have waited patiently for many years now for the mobile to work as a phone and for all those gadgets on the phone like web browsing and calender to work effectively. Reading the various reviews I got the feeling that the HTC Desire was the one for me.

The thing is that I waited for over a month for a HTC Desire with T-Mobile and there was no guarantee about getting one  .. something to do with a problem manufacturing the screen I was told, so in the end, I was offered a HTC Wildfire so went for that one at a reduced rate. Its nearly the same as the Desire, but smaller and the processor is not quite as faster.

My key requirement beside the functionality of the phone is to synchronise with Exchange for contacts, diary and tasks

What I think of the HTC Wildfire

I spent the first week getting used to Android and downloading loads of new apps. Everything started well. Liked the inteface compared with the windows mobile. Right smaller size compared with Touch. Responsive. So got exchange email working, synchronised all the contacts and the diary ... It worked in the car (Audi A6 with MMI interface). Was feeling pretty pleased. Downloaded more apps via market place ... Started to realise that the exchange tasks couldn't be sychronised on the phone ... so looked for a solution. Found Touchdown by Nitro. Brilliant another download and one that looked great .. Very happy at this point with the HTC Wildfire. Interesting though that the phone seemed to be grinding to a halt. Very hard to find people and contacts were taking ages to come up on the screen. Synchronisation with the car stopped. Wasn't easy to text .. and then the bluetooth started to stop and then start again. Now really not happy at all with the HTC Wildfire ... another one that just doesn't work.

What I did next

After loads of tinkering with the settings and searching the internet for ideas, the only thing I could think of was to go back to basics. The factory reset and start again.

So, HTC Wildfire Back to Basics

I needed to think about what I really needed. So, here is my list.

I went about setting up the phone trying to make sure that everything important to me is set up and working.

HTC Wildfire Top Tips (at least what I found useful so far)

• Aftering installing K-9 mail and Touchdown I felt that it was using too much processing power and memory so only use one email client. I used the standard one with the phone. I means I won't get all the benefits that the others apps could bring, but at least I can the phone is responsive
• Turn off any synchronsation if you don't need it. So, in my case
  • Sync ON
    • Exchange ActiveSync (mail, contacts, calendar)
    • Google (mail only)
  • Sync OFF
    • News
    • Stocks
• Only install applications that you really need on the phone. So all the nice to have apps that I found on market place didn't get installed a second time around
• People App - Only view exchange contacts
• Turn off the phone based widgets that encourage synchronisation
• Use Shortcuts to create a series of direct dials to save you looking for people you ring regularly

A working HTC Wildfire phone

I can report that synchronisation between phone and exchange is now working correctly, although I would still really like to see exchange tasks working on the phone. If anyone has an idea on that please do let me know? The phone is working in the car the too without the bluetooth starting and stopping. So that is a relief. It is also responsive compared with the old windows mobile - there was always a delay with taking a call for some reason. I can only conclude that there was too much going on in the phone with the original HTC Wildfire setup. Phone calls, texting and email working brilliantly at the moment. Providing the phone keeps working like it is then I think the temptation might be to add more apps, but there is a risk it will go back to the old ways of being non-responsive.

So in conclusion happy with the HTC Wildfire now ... at least for the next 12 months anyway

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