The iPhone 4 might be coming, but if you want your next gen smartphone a bit earlier and a lot cheaper, than you might want to consider the HTC Wildfire.
While the Wildfire looks a lot like your average smartphone, it does have a few new tricks up its sleeve. Despite the basic configuration of a 3.2-inch display, Google's Android operating system and a 528MHz processor, the Wildfire incorporates a new software interface from HTC that unifies all your social networking activities.
Basically, you can now view all your updates from Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr inside a single window, so you won't have to switch between different sites to stay up-to-date with your friends.
Another new feature is the People Widget, which combines all of a contact's activities into a single window, including the last text messages and Facebook updates. There is also something called Leap View which lets you shrink the Wildfire's home screens - seven in total, including Today, calendar and others - so you can access those views with a simple tap instead of scrolling back and forth through the menu system.
Additional features include a built-in torch and a sensor that automatically mutes the ringer when the phone is placed with the screen facing downwards.
Perhaps the only fault of the Wildfire is that it looks pretty much like other HTC smartphones. The HTC Wildfire costs HK$2,798.