Since august I have been sporting the HTC Hero Android smartphone. Ever since I got my grabby gagdet hands on the device I have been itching to write down my 2 cents on the thing and now I’m finally writing it, I’m late to the party I know, but there are a couple of reasons I ended up writing this late. Reason number 1. was that I wanted to write it based on the firmware update that HTC released shortly after release that made the whole user experience drastically better by making everythin faster. Reason number 2. was that in order to aply this update I had to use a windows PC and I did not have this handy until recently. Ok, here goes my review:
Finally I review the HTC Hero (because I knew you where holding you’r breath)
The Design - I really like “the lip”
My model is the white one, it has a layer of teflon to deflect nasty stuff like smudges and scrapes. Having been using the phone for over two months now without any visible permanent markings I would say this works well. I have been carefull not to put it in my jeanspocket with keys and change so that may just be sensible use and not magic materials.
Regarding the infamous “lip” that the body sports I have to say I love it. It makes the device rest nicely in the hand and also I now the orientation of the phone instantly when picking it up from my pocket. It also gives a slite flip-phone feel when using it for calls. Also as the last point regarding “the lip” is that it makes it a HTC Hero and not a HTC iPhone Wannabe, wich is very nice and to me quite important in design terms. In short I love the look and feel of the HTC Hero.
The Hardware – It’s OK
The hardware on the HTC Hero is identical to the HTC Magic with 2 exceptions, 5mpx autofocus cam (not 3.2 mpx static focus) and has more RAM then the Magic (but store bought Magic models have the same RAM now I read in this wiki article). It’s basicly the Magic only more pretty is what I tell myself. The Hero comes with the Sense UI, but I heard that you can update you’r Magic to this so again it’s all about the design. In terms of pure power the Hero is no winner and no looser. The screen is nice, the CPU is ok, the camera is ok, the onboard memory is the biggest problem. As of writing you can not use the SD storage to save applications, no news on when this will come to Android (or from HTC?) but hackers have solved this so I would expect this to come. In any case the onboard space is the biggest drawback for the Hero, otherwise it’s a ok smartphone hardware wise.
The Software – It’s FRIGGIN SWEET!
So the software is what really makes the HTC Hero being worthy of the title “Gadget of the year” by Stuff Magazine (not smartphone number 1 tough). Running on Android 1.5 and sporting HTC Sense it is really a friggin smart phone. I cannot stress how important it is to update to the latest HTC firmware tough. The sense ui is based on 7 screens that you fill with widgets and shortcuts to programs, you start at the middle screen with three screens to the left and three to the right (no adding or deletion of screens sadly). Before the update the movement between these screens would be terribly laggy at times and this made the whole phone seem terrible sluggish (wich it was). Now the screens are much more responsive and you can just fill them up with widgets and cool stuff. The HTC widgets really stand out from the Android ones with being more appealing to look at. The real deal of the sense UI is that you end up with a fully customized interface that does what you want it to do and in the end feels really personal, a really nice feeling if I say so myself. The Android OS has it’s kinks and strange “why isn’t this built in?” moments like there not being any way to check data traffic use (but this is logged so all you need is a market app like NetCounter). Most of these lacks are picked up by Android Market apps, a market that is full of nice and usefull apps and games and also tons of terrible ones, just like on the iPhone. All in all I like the Android OS more then iPhone because there are apparently no restrictions on the apps. Many of them improve on system apps like sms, mms, browsers, mediaplayer etc. wich means that if I don’t like the built in programs I can 9 out of 10 times just replace them with a few clicks. Also you can easily download and install apps that are not on the Android Market, there is no restriction there either. You still have to root (give yourself super user rights) the phone to run apps that mess with super sensitive stuff that can brake the phone, but all in all the market and app policies are much less restrictive then on the iPhone. Sure there aren’t 10000 fart apps yet, but it’s getting there fast enough.
Software wise then the Hero is in my mind just genius and perfect for my taste and preferences. Integration with Google Apps (gmail, calendar, maps) and social apps (twitter, facebook, flickr) is also supersweet and very nicely done.
Nice OS – Open Source OS
The Bad – Windows? Really?
I wanted to update the firmware on my phone to the latest greatest version that fixed the one big flaw with the Hero, the speed. To do this you HAVE TO HAVE FRIGGIN WINDOWS. I do not have Windows. I have 2 macs and a couple of Ubuntu servers. After much hassle I borrowed my girlfriend’s computer with Vista and did the upgrade using the terrible process of downloading HTC Sync (for windows only) and the firmware update (wich required opening the phone and reading the serial number). This was not a smooth and nice process (even tough the actual updating itself was ok enough). HTC should ideally have made it possible to load the ROM from the SD card or at least have a Mac and Linux client solution. This is in my mind the biggest flaw with the Hero as of writing.
The Conclusion – A Nerd Class Hero
I love the Hero, pure and simple. I would recomend this phone to anyone that is considering buying a smartphone. It’s no iPhone and it never will be, but it makes up for this in spades with the Sense ui, google integration and much less restrictive policies when it comes to software on and off the official market. I can’t wait to se what HTC will do with Android in the future and I’m excite to se what other companies will do with it.
Android and Hero as pictured in my mind
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