HTC intros another entry-level smartphone, the Wildfire E2 Play

I think it’s safe to say that HTC is on fire. After launching the Wildfire E3 Lite last week, the Taiwanese company is back with yet another entry-level Android smartphone, the Wildfire E2 Play. Judging by the pace at which HTC has started to churn out these cheap devices, it feels like the handset make has a new strategy for its smartphone business.Either way, the important thing is that Wildfire E2 Play is a slightly improved version of last week’s Wildfire E3 Lite. For starters, the Wildfire E2 Play sports a huge 6.82-inch IPS LCD HD+ INCELL display with 60Hz refresh rate and 450 nits (in comparison, a flagship’s display has a brightness of around 1,500-2,000 nits).

But the main selling point of HTC’s new entry-level phone is probably the quad-camera that includes 48MP + 5MP + 2MP + 2MP sensors. A secondary 8-megpaixel front-facing camera is included too, along with rear-facing fingerprint sensor and AI face unlock.

The massive 4,600 mAh battery promises up to 11 hours of video playback, up to 19 hours of audio playback, or up to 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing. Performance-wise, the Wildfire E2 Play is decent enough for an entry-level phone.

Although the 1.6GHz octa-core Spreadtrum T606 processor is far from being impressive, the Wildfire E2 Play packs 8GB RAM and 128GB internal memory (expandable up to 256GB via microSD), which is quite unusual for a cheap phone.

Unfortunately, HTC insists on pushing out phones with Android 12 instead of including the latest version of the OS, Android 13. The Wildfire E2 Play is no exception, and we don’t even know if the phone will ever get Android 13 at some point in the future.

Other highlights of the phone include dual-SIM support (both featuring LTE), 3.5mm audio jack, USB Type-C, Bluetooth 5.0, and GPS with GLONASS. The HTC Wildfire E2 Play will be available in Black and Blue, but no info about price and availability has been announced yet.