HTC Wildfire vs HTC Tattoo vs HTC Smart

From budget to high-end devices, HTC has recently launched a slew of smartphones in the Indian market. The HTC Wildfire, HTC Tattoo and HTC Smart are offered at a price tag of Rs. 17,000, Rs. 16,990 and Rs. 9,990, respectively in India.

HTC Wildfire and HTC Tattoo are offered at a similar price bracket and HTC Smart at a budget price. But how do they differ in terms of features and value for money to the users? We compare these devices to help you make an informed decision while buying any of these handsets.

Screen
The one major shortfall of the HTC Tattoo is the size of its screen. At 2.8-inches, it's noticeably smaller than the HTC Wildfire's. It's also resistive, meaning you'll have to prod and poke it much harder to get a response.

The HTC Wildfire's 3.2-inch capacitive screen is much better to use, and heaps more responsive. It really helps having a large screen when you're typing away. The HTC Smart's screen is a struggle to use, mostly because it too is resistive, making any on-screen typing a laborious task.

Hardware
The HTC Wildfire definitely wins in the hardware category too. Although the HTC Smart isn't unattractive, it feels bulky and busy in comparison to the Wildfire's minimalist styling.

There's only one hardware key on the front of the Wildfire - and that's the optical trackpad. The HTC Smart and HTC Tattoo are both littered with different sized buttons below the screen, and this is something we feel is unnecessary on a touchscreen phone. It also looks messy.

Inside the three phones, you'll find varying degrees of power. The HTC Wildfire and the HTC Tattoo both feature a 528 MHz processor, and although they might not be up to the standard of the HTC Desire or HTC Legend, they still beat the HTC Smart hands down, as the latter only packs in a 300MHz processor. It's enough to power a couple of applications, but is nowhere near as whizzy as the Wildfire and Tattoo's.

In terms of photography skills, the Wildfire wins here too. It features a 5-megapixel camera with flash and is massively talented at taking photos. The HTC Smart and Tattoo also include a camera with flash, but both are only 3.2-megapixels, meaning you won't be able to create close up, poster-sized prints without a grainy overlay.

Platform
The HTC Smart is the odd one out here. Operating on the Brew OS, it's not as user-friendly as the Android OS on both the Wildfire and Tattoo. That said, it is very simple and this will definitely be a plus for users that don't want all the extras that come with a fully-fledged smartphone.

The HTC Wildfire runs on Android 2.1, while the Tattoo runs on 1.6, so functionality is most certainly limited on the latter. However, HTC has hinted that it's working on a 2.1 upgrade for the Tattoo, but judging by the time it's taken for the Hero to see an upgrade, we aren't holdng our breath.

Without the newest version of Sense, the HTC Tattoo misses out on all the best bits of the revamped Sense interface including a newsreader application and improved email client. The most impressive aspect of Sense is missing too - the 'Leap' function that allows you to instantly access one of the seven homescreens.

Applications
The HTC Tattoo and Wildfire are again ahead here, thanks to Android apps being freely available on the Android Market, which means there's an ocean of applications ready to go as soon as you boot up the devices.

The HTC Wildfire even allows you to share applications with your friends using a built-in application, which will apparently become available on older handsets at some point in the future too.

Brew, on the other hand, doesn't have such an established app framework and is therefore way behind in the apps arena. Most applications are preinstalled on devices, although you can customise your homescreen with your favourites thanks to the Sense UI.

Verdict
The HTC Wildfire wins against the Tattoo and Brew-based HTC Smart easily. It's the best-specced device, running on the latest version of the Android OS and it has a tip-top UI.