HTC Hero Android Phone (Meteor) – Full Review.

The HTC Hero Review….. So this review has been delayed and delayed.. Primarily because there is no screen capture utility available without “rooting” your phone. Well at least I couldn’t find one. So I have had to make do with what I could find on the Internet. I might add.. reviews are harder than they look.. I will first outline the problems with the HTC Hero Android phone and then what is good about it. The phone I am using is on the Meteor, Ireland network and has an unlimited data plan. I posted the full un-boxing photos yesterday. Look for them here - HTC Hero Unboxing – In 1000 Words or More

What is Rooting? This is the best way I can explain the term “ROOTING. “ROOTING” is where you change the user of the handset to a superuser. It’s like when you have your user account in windows and you change it from a standard user account to administrator. Suddenly, you can install and manipulate everything. Well for some reason, that’s the way Android is set up. I guess it stops regular users mucking up the device. All the apps that allow me to screen capture were for ROOTed phones only.

What is WRONG with the HTC Hero and Android

One of the biggest faults with it would be the QWERTY keypad. I felt as though it was my first time using a phone and needed some teenager to explain to me why I can’t type. What’s wrong with it? It sucks. You cannot type on it. Well I can’t. Its too darn small. However, you can easily switch to compact qwerty or phone qwerty. Both of these work perfectly. Plus the T9 works very well. You get an idea from the screen shot. The next problem is that it comes with Android 1.5 software. Not 1.6 and not 2.0. And yes this matters. I have already tested 2.0 extensively and then started using 1.5. The software just has certain niggly unfinished feelings to it. For example, the Android Market is very limited in whats available compared to the apps in the upcoming 2.0 market. Another problem, is the handset locks up maybe three times a day or more if you really push the phone. The good news on this point is that HTC have already announce the 2.0 upgrade. They say it’s almost ready. Exchange Mail isn’t great. However, if you only use personal mail, its not such a big deal. It gets even better of you have a Gmail account. But Exchange, for some odd reason keeps on duplicating the account. I did a factory reset and it did it again. Odd. Possible problem: I don’t no for sure on this one and if it turns out to be wrong, I will delete this. This is a real tongue twister. Here goes.. I have a HTC Hero on Meteor Ireland with a Data Plan.  It certain areas I cannot get a data connection. Other areas it works perfect. So you assume its the network, huh?  OK, so when I tired of phoning support and getting nowhere, I became creative. I wanted to know if the phone had difficulty find data connections or was it the SIM card. Well I have an O2 Sim card. I stuck that in and immediately got a data connection. OK so maybe its the sim or network. I took the Meteor SIM from the HTC Hero and put it in my HTC Touch Pro. Guess what? I got full EDGE data connections in the exact same spot. So.. the Hero evidently can get a data connection. The SIM card can get a connection but together they can’t. So is it the phone or the SIM? I will update you ASAP. The volume buttons on the side. They are just in the wrong place. They get in the way, since you are most likely holding the handset in your left hand and tying with your right, then you keep hitting off the Up/Down toggle. The track ball rotates randomly to the right. I read about this on other sites, so it appears to be a problem. Well, that was short, huh? Now on to the good stuff.

This is the FULL Spec sheet

Processor	Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz
Operating System	Android™
Memory	ROM: 512 MB RAM: 288 MB
Dimensions (LxWxT)	112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm ( 4.41 x 2.21 x 0.57 inches)
Weight	135 grams ( 4.76 ounces) with battery
Display	3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution
Network	HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)
Device Control	Trackball with Enter button
GPS	Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity	Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one) 3.5 mm audio jack
Camera	5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Audio supported formats	MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media® Audio 9
Video supported formats	MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media® Video 9
Battery	Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery Capacity: 1350 mAh Talk time: Up to 420 minutes for WCDMA Up to 470 minutes for GSM Standby time: Up to 750 hours for WCDMA Up to 440 hours for GSM (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
Expansion Slot	microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
AC Adapter	Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz DC output: 5V and 1A
Special Features	G-sensor Digital Compass
Protective Coating *	Treated with a layer of polytetrafluoroethylene* This feature only applies to the white colored HTC Hero. * Your phone has been treated with a special coating to keep it looking new and clean. Keep your phone dry to prevent dirt from adhering to the finish. If your phone gets dirty, you can use a lightly dampened melamine foam eraser (aka. magic eraser) to remove any marks.

The HTC Camera Experience

I am a big HTC fan. This is about my 6th HTC. But there is one thing that always, always let HTC down, the camera. Even my HTC Touch Pro camera, 3.2 mega-pixel, was so bad it was unusable. This is not so with the Hero. It has a 5.0 mega-pixel lens. And the quality is very very good on still images. If your trying to take shots of an almost 2 year old, that won’t sit still, then its not great. All of the rest of the shots I have taken have been great. There is no flash, however, so no night time memories unless there is plenty of light.

Browser

The browser and visual bookmarks are amazing. They just work so well. A bit like the iPhone browser. It renders pages correctly. Visual bookmarks is a welcome change to old hum-drum list of bookmarks. Instead you get something akin to the Coverflow feature of iTunes. Swipes left and right show snapshots of your bookmarks. It works really well and is nice a smooth. It comes with a home screen widget too, so you can flick through even faster and load them from there. The browser supports every website I tested on it. Facebook is a dream to use on it. Although, I can’t seem to figure out the zoom feature in the browser. It sometimes zooms in and doesn’t zoom back out. I am not saying it’s a fault, but more a learning curve.

Contacts, Agenda, Tasks, Social Networking and Google Mail.

This is a real strong point for the Hero. When you first setup the phone and you already have a Google account, you input these details and the phone automagically has all your contacts, calendar entries and tasks downloaded and ready to go. It even has your email account setup. By the time you have gotten to this part of the phone, all mail and contacts have been downloaded. Also, during start up, it asks for your Twitter, Facebook and Flickr log in details. So this means that the Twitter widget is up and running immediately. Take a photo and immediately have the option to share it on Facebook or Flickr. No extra confirmations or logins. Another great feature is how the social networking options integrate with your contacts list. You look up your contact on your phone and go in the detailed view. At the bottom there are tabs and one is for Facebook. Tap that and you get to add their photo and date of birth to the contact details. Seamless. It also shows you their latest updates. The other tabs so you all your interactions with that person, whether its emails, text messages or call history. Yes, I have seen features like this on Windows Mobile, but not done this well.

Messages

Text messages are grouped together as conversations. Its another feature I have seen HTC do on the Windows Platform but again, it’s done better on the Hero. I downloaded Handcent SMS  manger which made this experience amazing. It somehow has made text messaging fun. On the widget, you flick with your finger up or down to cycle through your text messages. You have a list and pen button. List will give you the normal text message interface. The pen automatically starts a new message windows. I love too how it shows the persons photo in each text. You also have to option to delete the text there and then. However, I do recommend downloading the Handcent app. Its free and has themes available for it. But makes the experience even more fun, as I said. It displays your messages in bubbles. And you can configure the colours and icons to suit each person. And set specific tones just for that persons text message.

Phone/Dialer/Contacts

Nothing over the top here. Just looks clean and polished, no extra clutter. Nice full screen caller picture when placing/taking a call. Again, nothing new but integrated well. They keypad is responsive. One thing that needs fixing, is the screen doesn’t go off when held to your face. I have accidentally hung up on someone because the hang up button is so big. Like this screenshot, select from your favourites is also a great and fun experience.

Home Screen and Hardware Buttons

The home screen is great. It has HTC’s SenseUI which is quite fluid. You can slide or roll between 7 screens. Each screen is customizable with a ton of built in widgets of various sizes and types. So I have my music player on one and weather on one. Twitter on the next. Favourite contacts on another.. etc… But it gets better. They built in Scene modes. Which effectively gives you unlimited multiples of 7 screens. You need to see it in action to understand.. But you click scene and choose another one and you can have all new widgets loaded with different backgrounds. You can have one that focuses on social networking and then one on business with agenda and mail to the forefront, with its own wallpaper look. The hardware buttons consist of four function buttons in a row being Call > Home > Menu > End Call. Then you have a track ball from Blackberry world and two more function buttons – Search > Return The top four a self explanatory. The Menu button context changes depending on what screen or app your in. The trackball Obviously moves about and works well. Its also and enter button. This is great for allowing one thumb control. The Hero is curved at the bottom, so this also helps when using one hand. The Search button is just FANTASTIC. Press it anywhere!!! On the home screen, its an automatic Google search button. Press it in contacts, and guess what! It searches any contact details. Press it is messages and its the same. Press it inside a web page and you can search that page. Press it inside Android Market and it searches apps… It is so useful.

Market Apps

This is what sells Android a thousand times over. In the 1.5 Firmware, the Market App is a bit rubbish. I tolerate it because I have played with the 2.0 Firmware Market App and its a much better experience. That said, the amount of apps available is amazing, given that the Android software is only just gaining ground. Now, I know there are plenty of iPhone users who will say their market place is much better. I sort of agree, but iPhone has been around a long time. Android is gaining quickly on them.

Some notable apps I have downloaded.

Compass – Just that.. but its fun Metal Detector – It really works.. its amazing Feedr – An excellent feed reader Facebook App – It is better than actual Facebook… Call Location – Tells me where and what network a person is calling me on. Bar-code Scanner – When shopping, scan a bar-code and look up online what the going price for it is. Layar and Wikitude  – Amazing Augmented Reality App – Read about it here – My favourite apps so far Phonolyser – Analyses your phone usage so you know what plan/tariff to be on. Much more including CoPilot Navigation software and wpToGo – Blog editor on the go.

Call and Sound Quality

So far, call quality is very good. Sound quality is a little on the low side. There is a small problem that I have read elsewhere. I have experienced this problem – Slight crackling when the volume is turn up too high. I know, why not turn it down. But that’s not the point, internally, the levels are off and it is something that needs fixing. Overall, I wouldn’t say its annoying.. just a shame..

General Interface View

Overall, the interface feels polished and smooth. It all integrates extremely well. In fact, I’d go so far as to say its beautiful.. Its simple and yet so extensive with the scenes mode. The pull down tray handles all messages and status updates. The pull up tray takes you to your install apps. Otherwise they are out of your way at all times. The clock is great. Tap it and you have World Clock, Stop watch, Timer and Alarm clock. All in one place. The Music tab is really simple and easy to use. Gathers all you albums into the library. Sounds good and integrates into the home screen and screen-saver. It has a nice Coverflow for your album art. Generally, making changes or entering data is quite simple and easy.

Battery Life

I am used to heavy powered handsets. I expected this one to be bad. And I guess on some counts it is. But I have WIFI on all day long. And I get one full day out of the phone. This is because, from what I can tell, Android has some sort of WIFI power saver in place. When I am not actively using the phone, it turns WIFI off and on as it needs to check for email and feeds, etc…

PC Sync

This feels more like something they forgot to do. It works and does what it is supposed to do but there are no extras. Noting fancy. It allows you to sync your Contacts, Calendar, Tasks and Email. You can also install apps directly.

Overall Opinion

Overall, I absolutely love this phone. I love the Android software and know its only going to get better. If apps are the big thing on iPhone, then I predict that Android will eat iPhones marketplace in 2010 and over take all of them in 2011. Why, because Android is open source. Its free and Google encourage development. I can’t remember a handset, interface and features that have excited me as much as this. And that’s despite the faults that I have mentioned. Its all but guaranteed my migration from Windows Phone and Nokia are only keeping me because my N86 is fantastic for photos and music, but that’s all.. The browser experience is so far the best I have seen and yes I know it doesn’t have pinch like the iPhone. But how it displays a page is more important to me. The auto rotate feature is good, although a little slow. Incidentally, auto-rotate works nearly everywhere. The track ball and other keys work really well and make for a great one-handed experience. As far as I can see, they took the best from the iPhone, Nokia, Blackberry and Windows Mobile and lumped it together. After all  this is Google. Whatever they do works out.. Just check out their new Navigation software.

So should you buy it?

Hmmm.. yes and no. If you a hardware junkie like me, you will not be disappointed. Go and buy it now. In fact, I have that issue with Meteors data connection. if it can’t be fixed, then I will return the contract and gladly pay full price for the handset. But if you are the type who doesn’t care about cutting edge, then I would wait. Only because, HTC have not given a date on the 2.0 release. They could release it next week or next February. February, of course, will see the launch of quite a few Android handsets. I will post details soon. I hope you enjoyed this article. I know I left things out but if you would like me to elaborate on anything, just comment below and I will gladly fill in the blanks. I already cut quite a bit from it. For more photos of the handset itself -HTC Hero Unboxing – In 1000 Words or More Please consider commenting and offer your thoughts  below.

_____________________________

advertisement

[ad#banner2]