I have owned HTC's hero for 5 days now. I have been staggered by the fun I have had with it.
This review is an honest punter's opinion. I'm not interested in listing the technical aspects. I would suggest that if you want that, you go to a respected website. As a punter, though, here are my ... Read review
HTC's first Android smartphone to feature HTC Sense, the HTC Hero features a 3.2" ... more
HVGA display, integrated GPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, 5MP camera and expandable MicroSD memory for a seamless experience.
Postage & Packaging:refer to website Availability:refer to website
Advantages: You never need to go on your pc again. Disadvantages: Not for the technophobic amongst us!
I have owned HTC's hero for 5 days now. I have been staggered by the fun I have had with it. This review is an honest punter's opinion. I'm not interested in listing the technical aspects. I would suggest that if you want that, you go to a respected website. As a punter, though, here are my comments, hopefully turning a complex sounding piece of kit into plain-ish English.
To make the most of the phone you really do need the following:_ ...phone is designed to be "always on" i.e permanently connected to the web. It is a compete waste of this phone - and your money - to not use it for that purpose. # a desire to muck about with lots of web pages and virtual gizmos. # A Google account to allow you to personalise a lot of the functions
Looks The phone looks very sleek. It has (on the brown one) soft touch feel to the plastic. I believe Orange ... more
I have owned HTC's hero for 5 days now. I have been staggered by the fun I have had with it. This review is an honest punter's opinion. I'm not interested in listing the technical aspects. I would suggest that if you want that, you go to a respected website. As a punter, though, here are my comments, hopefully turning a complex sounding piece of kit into plain-ish English.
To make the most of the phone you really do need the following:_
A contract which gives unlimited internet access!!!!!!! This phone is designed to be "always on" i.e permanently connected to the web. It is a compete waste of this phone - and your money - to not use it for that purpose.
a desire to muck about with lots of web pages and virtual gizmos.
A Google account to allow you to personalise a lot of the functions
Looks The phone looks very sleek. It has (on the brown one) soft touch feel to the plastic. I believe Orange are doing a graphite coloured one which sounds nice, and you can get white. The brown looks classy and it feels good quality - much better than the flimsy Sony Ericsson w910i I owned last. Nice big screen and obvious small buttons. Volume control on the side. 99% of the interaction is through touch - your finger, not a stylus. I don't know why people bang on about the so-called "ugly" lip at the bottom. If you hold the phone sideways to take photos, video or if you are a thumb texter, the lip make incredible good sense. Something to hang on to.Functions It takes a while to boot up but when it does, you are into a virtual Alice in Wonderland scene. I have spent at least 20 hours playing on it in the last 3 days.
Set Up The phone takes you through a set-up process. If you have a wifi router, you can set that up. It likes you to have a Google account and it actually is useful to do so. Google Maps does automatic location detection and gives you all the fun stuff associated with that - where is the nearest coffee shop? etc. If you get Gmail your emails are 'pushed' to the phone in real time. You don't have to sync. As long as you're on the internet, of course. I have also set up push email from my yahoo account. All chat stuff comes in too - facebook etc. You are given a tiny wee notification symbol at the top of the screen and you just drag it across the screen to open it.
Internet The phone connects to the web really easily. Literally just touch the icon. You can bookmark your favourite sites and create a home page. The sites have full functionality.
Android This is quite techie, so I'm avoiding a lot about it but there are these clever wee programmes (called 'apps') which you can stick into the phone. So far I've used a real time road report app ( a bit boring as I wasn't going anywhere!) and a hilarious one called shopsavvy. You can compare prices of an item locally. Basically you point your camera at the barcode and it finds it and it's best price both locally and on the internet. What a wheeze in my local supermarket! The camera locks on to the barcode. Sticking an app into your phone is simple. There is a Market function on your phone which you tap, it takes you straight to the website, choose from the huge list and click 'download'.
Scenes This is another fun aspect of the phone. When you boot up the phone you have a home page. You can customise it. Then, by dragging your finger sideways you find that your homepage is actually 7 pages wide. You can add widgets, apps etc to those pages. As if that's not far too much already, you can choose from a group of homepages. You can have a work scene (with the 7 pages of relevant widgets), a social scene ( with links to your chums, facebook bebo, flikr etc etc), a travel scene (with weather, road reports, Google maps etc) It just goes on and on.
Basically, I just want to run around the country handing them out to everyone. However, at £400 a pop, maybe not. The phone seems expensive to me. £400 for a mobile that will be redundant in a year is outrageous. But then all these hi-tec phones are outrageously expensive. It's not actually JUST a phone anyway, it's a mini computer. And an addiction.
Advantages: Well made, interface is surprisingly good, Android apps are excellent Disadvantages: Battery life could be better, no bluetooth data transfer capability
...new avenues. Luckily the HTC Hero presented itself to me as a viable option and despite having seen the television advertising campaign a couple of months prior and mocking it's cringe worthy 'Hero' branding I still took the plunge as it posed the most impressive package from the choices available to me. Out of the box: At this time I was still adamant that I wanted and IPhone and realised that the HTC Hero was easily fetching £300 on auction sites. ... ...took the plunge on the HTC Hero and I no longer suffer from IPhone envy. Orange has announced that they will be releasing the IPhone 3Gs on the network by the end of the year and despite this revelation I am still very happy and content with my Android phone and the constant development of the Android Market will ensure longevity. ...
conradburns 09.10.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of HTC Hero
Advantages: Too many to list in this small space... Disadvantages: A little sluggish
== The HTC Hero ==
I test and review a lot of mobile phones, but in a mobile phone market dominated by Apple, Blackberry, Samsung and Nokia, I can't help but have a soft spot for HTC; I think it is a British thing, a love for the underdog… But as much as I admire HTC, I can't help but worry that in trying to take on competitors like the iPhone their new HTC Hero is punching above its weight. So I turned it on to find out…
== Appearance ==
When ... ...to try to improve it, HTC call this new tweaked system 'Sense', and I was very impressed. Obviously the home screen was the first thing that I got to have a look at when I turned the Hero on, on top of a customisable wallpaper, you can add a range of shortcuts and widgets, including Android widgets, to a choice of seven home screens, which can be interchanged with a simple swipe of your finger. As well as a large choice of home screens, you can also ...
Luc2oo9 27.08.2009 (11.09.2009)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of HTC Hero
Advantages: Everything! Disadvantages: Non that spring to mind to be honest.
I have, like many other people, owned a Mobile Phone for quite a few year, however I have never come across a phone that has ticked all the boxes for me.
Quite simply I am in awe of this fantastic little phone. Not only is it light and quite compact, its also fantastically easy to read the stuff on the screen. The apps available for it are also on the increase as the new Android platform takes off.
Installing any apps you want is just a simple ... ...with the touch of the finger. It even installs the app for you!
Customisation is the key here as this is so simple. Just move what you want around the 7 homescreens. To be honest, there is so much, you will be playing with this gem for weeks.
I cannot compare this to the iPhone as I have not had one, or even used one, but for me this phone is a keeper.
Superb! ...
Advantages: Quality of the phone and touchscreen, WIFI, Expandable customizable homescreen Disadvantages: Price, no flash for the camera
...use this phone to it's full potential! The thing that makes me think that the new iphone is better than this HTC Hero is that with the iphones you can have loads of applications to choose from, but with the Hero you're limited to what google has to offer. ...
ho11y 05.09.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of HTC Hero
Advantages: customizable UI, 5.0 megapixel camera and high resolution display. Disadvantages: It is mostly oriented to appearance rather than performance.
...in London in June, the HTC Hero is one of the best spec'd HTC Android devices to be launched across Europe.
The HTC Hero is a purely touchscreen device that features a 3.2-inch TFT-LCD display with a 320 x 480 resolution, 5 mega-pixel auto-focus camera, 3.5 mm audio jack, and a custom built HTC user interface. The Hero's interface is one of the bests i have ever seen as it allows user to customize making the phone unique to all users. Here's the ... ...proc running Android at 528MHz
512MB/288MB ROM/RAM
3.2-inch TFT-LCD display with a 320 x 480 resolution
900/2100MHz HSPA and Quad-band GSM
Trackball
Internal GPS
Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP support
802.11b/g WiFi
3.5mm Audio Jack
5 megapixel auto-focus camera
microSD expansion
G-sensor.
The G-sensor is just an accelerometer which allows the device to perform some actions as turnig the display 90 degrees according to the movement. ...
sime92 16.08.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of HTC Hero
Advantages: Good OS, comfy feel, robust, useful GPS Disadvantages: Battery life, weak processor, lots of "Force Close" issues
I have been a G1 owner for several months now, and I can say honestly that it provides a fantastic, easy mobile experience. The operating system, Android, is top notch, on a par with iPhone OS I'd say! The screen is responsive to the lightest touch, all of the physical keys are built well and seem robust. I have dropped the phone several times and it has made some scratches, but nothing major, it appears to be a pretty strong phone! However, there are some flaws that I should point out: First, though the OS is very impressive, it is slowed down by the phone's hardware, and I understand this flaw also affects the G2 (HTCHero) and the HTC Magic. A bit more processing power would be appreciated, as there are a lot of times where the phone slows noticeably. The battery life is far less than satisfactory. I can run the phone fine for a day ...
kreejo 07.08.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of T-Mobile G1
Advantages: Nice design, has a QWERTY keyboard, easy to connect Disadvantages: Bad camera, you need a Google Mail account to use the phone (you can make one on it, however)
, a keyboard, and of course a memory card slot and a camera. The camera isn't as good as some phones, but it is not really a phone made for multimedia purposes. Unlike the iPhone, without doing a complicated process which voids all warranty called rooting, there is no way to rotate your phones screen without opening the small keyboard. The T-Mobile G1 is also called the HTC Dream, the phone created by HTC. In retrospect, this phone is pretty old, with the G2 (HTC Magic) and the G3 (HTCHero) out in England, a lot of other Android-ready phones are being made whilst you read this. The G1 is the only one available on T-Mobile and all are locked onto T-Mobile, whilst the G2 is locked to Vodafone and the G3 is locked to Orange. So, in my opinion, if you'd like an easy-to-use phone with a sleek interface, get this. If you want something more new, get it ...
HabsAZillion 13.09.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of T-Mobile G1
and well made.
As well as looking good the GD900's keypad is also a touch sensitive control pad, allowing you to navigate items with a simple swipe of your finger. Anyone familiar with either the iPhone 3GS or HTCHero will be aware of the useful multitouch function, which the GD900 utilises on both its 3 inch touchscreen and tempered glass touchpad, allowing you to zoom into pictures or those tiny internet links by pinching your fingers together.
Touch Screen Typing
Some of the touch-sensitive features of the GD900 are very good, in particular the one that LG seem to be most proud of, what they call 'Gestures'. By drawing a shape on the screen you can launch an application of your choice, your web browser for example. However, while I had the phone the same problem arose time and time again. With two touch ...
1 x data port - 11 pin HTC ExtUSB, 1 x data port - 11 pin HTC ExtUSB
1 x headset jack - mini-phone 3.5mm
Miscellaneous
Included Accessories
Power adapter
Battery
Technology
Lithium Ion
Capacity
1350 mAh
Talk Time
Up to 470 min
Standby Time
Up to 750 h
Multimedia features
Playback Digital Video Formats
MPEG-4, H.263 video and AMR audio, WMV (Windows Media Video), H.264
Manufacturer's product description
HTC Hero is the first phone to embody HTC sense - an intuitive, seamless experience built upon three fundamental principles - make it mine, stay close, and discover the unexpected. With HTC Hero, personalization reaches a level never before possible. Rather than burying important content under layers of menus, the HTC Hero lets you put it at glance view, with a selection of widgets that can be placed right on the home screen. The widgets themselves can be personalized with a variety of designs and sizes that best match your personality. With scenes, a profile feature, HTC Hero becomes multiple phones in one. Create and switch between scenes that reflect different moments in your life. Your Hero becomes a weekend phone that helps you relax with your choice of tunes, catch up with your favorite friends and capture some memories with HTC Footprints. And when you go on a trip, your phone becomes your personal guide and gives you instant access to local time, weather and maps.
