We’re sensing some sibling rivalry in the HTC family, with the arrival of the HTC Wildfire into the mobile phone world. Some may call it the lovechild of the HTC Desire and Google’s Nexus One, but unlike its predecessors, the Wildfire has taken a different route down the smartphone road. As well as inheriting the fantastic qualities you would expect from a HTC phone, it’s been designed for those who want a smartphone without the complicated extras. If this sounds like your cup of tea, take a seat and let us explain more.

HTC have given users somewhat of an open book when it comes to the Wildfire. Essentially, it’s designed to be a phone that is everything you are and small enough to fit in with whatever your lifestyle may be. Running on the Android 2.1 platform alongside the rest of HTC’s finest, teamed with a 528MHZ processor, you’ve already got a player in the premier league of phones before we even get to the features! The Wildfire is one of HTC’s smallest devices too, fitting comfortably in your pocket but with every intention to make an entrance when it comes out. The 3.2 inch 240 x 320 QVGA touchscreen display takes up the majority of the front exterior making viewing crisp, clear and comfortable with the handsets bold silver highlights keeping everything around it looking pretty slick. As featured in big daddy the HTC Desire, a quick responsive optical trackpad will help you get from A to B within the user interface, Sense – if you haven’t used this before, you’re in for a treat!

HTC are particularly keen to promote the Wildfire as the ultimate social networking phone and Sense comes with some pretty nifty features to keep you in the loop. Friendstream is one of these, bringing all your Facebook, Twitter and Flickr updates to your homescreen in a single live stream. If that wasn’t enough, the Wildfire also comes with next generation caller ID which displays good-to-know info about your mates such as their Facebook status and birthday when they call. You might not have many excuses for forgetting anything now, but then again, you’ll have a phone with a unique feature! Throw in a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, and you’ll be able to capture your memories wherever you find yourself in the world. The Wildfire comes with 384 MB RAM memory and can handle an additional 32GB via a microSD card, meaning there’s plenty of room on offer.

The HTC Wildfire is more than just a phone with your social life in mind. For a start, it comes with Microsoft Exchange support as standard so you can keep the office with you on the go. With thousands of apps on offer from the Android Market, you can customise up to seven homescreens with whatever suits you best. Add GPS, 3G and Wi-Fi connections, Bluetooth and up to 490 minutes of talk time, it certainly doesn’t come up short when it comes to smartphone specs either. The Wildfire has proved it’s more than a worthy contender to bringing success to the HTC family. While it may not pack as much in as much as some of its bigger (and admittedly chunkier!) siblings, it just goes to show that sometimes good things can come in small packages too!