HTC Wildfire E Star: Budget smartphone debuts with underwhelming hardware

HTC has introduced the Wildfire E Star, a curious smartphone that resembles the Xiaomi 12 from the back. While the company's U23 Pro features competitive hardware, such as a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chipset and a 120 Hz OLED display, the same cannot be said for the Wildfire E Star. Instead, the Wildfire E Star is a distinctly budget affair with a comparatively outdated chipset.

Specifically, HTC has based the Wildfire E Star on the Unisoc SC9832E, a 28 nm SoC with four ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at 1.3 GHz. HTC complements the lowly chipset with a mere 2 GB of RAM too, as well as 16 GB of expandable storage. According to HTC, the handset supports up to 256 GB MicroSD cards, which are essentially necessary considering the lack of built-in storage.

Additionally, the Wildfire E Star has a 6.5-inch LCD that outputs at 1,600 x 720 pixels, presumably at 60 Hz. Moreover, HTC pairs the device with a 3,000 mAh battery that can be recharged at just 5 W, despite the inclusion of a modern USB Type-C port. Elsewhere, HTC has included 8 MP primary, a 0.08 MP secondary and 5 MP front-facing cameras. Somehow, the Wildfire E Star weighs 200 g too, even with its largely plastic construction. HTC has not revealed pricing or availability yet, but more details can be found on HTC's Africa website.

Purchase the Xiaomi Band 7 on Amazon