GOOD TO KNOW:
- 3.2-inch, 480 x 320 capacitive touch screen
- 5 megapixel camera
- Android platform as operating system
I'd be lying if I didn't mention that I was suffering from immense separation anxiety when it came to actually switching off my dear iPhone and using the HTC Hero in order to do this review. To be honest, I ended up carrying both phones with me for the duration, just in case I needed my darling little iPhone, light of my life.
The Hero is definitely a sleek, shiny and very professional looking phone, except for the 'chin' as it's become fondly known. But that's my opinion. Many others love this cheeky little phone's 'chin' and the fact that it brings the speaker closer to your mouth during phone calls.
The Hero feels very solid but has a Teflon finish in matte black which I wasn't too fond of. Maybe I'm just a tad to OCD for this phone, but I got slightly annoyed with the fact that the matte black kept on picking up and showing quite clearly every single finger print it possibly could. I kept trying to clean it. The display on the Hero is gorgeous though. Using a similar smudge resistant material as the iPhone 3GS in order to repel oil.
Yet another slightly annoying feature is the layout of the hard buttons. The four across the top didn't bother me too much, but the placement of the "back" key is a little bit inconvenient. It basically forces your hand into an uncomfortable and unnatural position, considering that you use the key a lot. Another thing that I immediately picked up was that the phone took forever to start up. In fact, as a test I started up my iPhone 3GS and the Hero at the same time. The Hero took roughly twice as long to complete start up. That being said, once I actually started playing with the phone I have to admit that I was impressed.
The capacitive touch screen works well, applications are easily accessed and the setting up your e-mail accounts is done in two ticks. I was very much impressed with the 5 megapixel camera and the joys of having a scroller ball. I found that my typing was slightly slower on the Hero due to the slightly smaller size of the letters on the touch screen keyboard, but this improved as I used the phone more often. I was also very impressed with the battery life. You have to understand, I use my phone A LOT. Texting, phoning, tweeting, Facebooking and sometimes even blogging and I'm glad to say that the Hero made it through an entire day without dying on me. That takes some doing.
A fair word of warning though. Once you've set up an e-mail account as your 'marketplace' ( otherwise known as your application store) account you can't change it to anything else. This may sound like something small and inconsequential, but it affects a lot of things. Your market place account is the e-mail account that the Hero will sync with. In other words, even though you have added all your e-mail accounts in order to receive your e-mails on your phone, the Hero will only sync contacts/calendars/etc with your marketplace account.
Another feature that I enjoyed, as a very active Twitter user, was the Twitter client, Peep, created by HTC for HTC. The application lives in two places on the phone; the first is a variable sized widget for your home screen which allows basic functionality like reading recent tweets and updating your status. The second is a full-on app which offers options along the lines of Twitter for the iPhone. While the application is excellent at what it does, scrolling can sometimes be stuttery, and it often takes some time to refresh its content. Another notable application is Footprints. It allows you to snap a pic and geotag your location, then gives you the option to sort the content as favourites, restaurants, shopping, etc. It's actually a very smart concept, and if you're prone to travel or are planning a trip, along with the 5 megapixel camera, it's an awesome addition to the phone.
Basically what I'm trying to say is this: the HTC Hero was great to play around with, for a few days but I wasn't overly heartbroken when I had to return it. If there's an iPhone-killer out there, for me, this just isn't it.
Turn ons:
- Its sleek and professional design
- Simple to use
- Capacitive touch screen
Turn offs:
- The matte black finish attracts marks
- It takes forever to start up
- Unable to change market place e-mail account without resetting the phone
