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Video review
We’ve been served some delightful tasters in the form of T-Mobile’s G1 and the HTC Magic, but now it’s time for the Android banquet to really begin. Over a dozen new Google phones are expected before the end of the 2009, and the HTC Hero, the first to heavily skin Android with a new interface, is here to set an Apple-bothering example.
While its predecessors ran Google’s mobile OS in its barebones form, the Hero glosses it with HTC’s new ‘Sense’ UI, adds multi-touch support and brings a strong feature set that includes a 5MP camera. The result is the closest thing we’ve seen to an iPhone-beating experience.
A bit chinny
Not that the Hero could quite be called ‘iPhone beautiful’. It's technically a candybar phone, but the pronounced ‘Jimmy Hill’ chin at its base makes it feel thicker than necessary and difficult to slip into tight pockets.
Still, the protrusion does have ergonomic advantages – for example, when using the trackball – and the Hero is otherwise very well built, with a Teflon-coated back panel that gives it a far more durable feel than the Magic or iPhone.
Seeing Sense
Boot the Hero up – a process that frustratingly takes over a minute – and it’s immediately obvious how much work HTC has put into revamping Android’s look and feel.
You get seven homescreens (that’s four more than the Magic), which you can then fill up with your choice of both HTC and Android widgets, and also application shortcuts.
Some of these are basic (clocks, calendars), but many are ‘live’, pulling information through from the web to update automatically. The Nokia N97 offers similar widgets on its homescreen, but the Hero’s, most notably the excellent Twitter app, are by far the slickest and most useful we’ve used.
Silky smooth interface
They also make the iPhone’s app-based approach seem a little clunky and disjointed. Rather than constantly opening and closing apps, you simply flick between screens and widgets using your finger or the trackball. Impressively, even with lots of applications on the go, there's also little noticeable lag.
Screen estate can run out fast, but a handy ‘Scenes’ mode provides acres more by letting you batch groups of homescreens under different scenarios such as ‘work’ and ‘play’. Use these effectively, and you'll have plenty of room to play with.
Social networker
This is just one of the areas where HTC’s ‘Sense’ UI adds great value to Android. It’s far from revolutionary, being quite clearly based on the TouchFlo interface it’s replacing, but brings a slickness not seen outside the iPhone.
For example, all of your contacts’ texts, emails, FaceBook updates and Flickr streams are pulled together and listed in one place. It's a shame Twitter updates aren’t listed here too, although the impressive ‘Peep’ app does handily split tweets into ‘@ replies’ and ‘direct’ messages. Android's handy notification bar at the top of the homescreen also lets you know when a new tweet is in.
Excellent keyboard
The Hero is big on social networking, but is an excellent all-round messaging device. The QWERTY keyboard matches the best for responsiveness and auto-correction, and acknowledges each press with a useful haptic vibration. Our only slight quibble is that the keyboard can be a little slow at turning into landscape mode, although this may just be an issue with our pre-production model.
Unlike the Magic, the Hero has native support for Microsoft Exchange, so setting up work e-mails is easy. It doesn't sync with Outlook, though there is a roundabout way of sending your contacts to Gmail, then get getting them to sync with the phone.
Flash web browser
Web browsing is another strength. Unlike the iPhone, it supports flash video, which understandably doesn't play as smoothly as on a laptop, but ensures very little of the web is off limits. Support for multi-touch 'pinch to zoom' gestures is also welcome, with our only quibble being that scrolling around web pages isn't quite iPhone-smooth (though again this may be pre-production cobwebs).
The GPS is quick to get a fix on your location, though you can’t use multi-touch in Google Maps. There was also strangely no Street View option on our sample, although Android has just received its first turn-by-turn software courtesy of CoPilot (from a very reasonable £26).
Review continues after the break...
Mixed musical bag
Where the Hero does lag behind the iPhone, though, is in the music experience. HTC has upgraded the software since the Magic to include coverflow-style graphics, and on-the-go playlists are relatively easy to compile. There’s also, crucially, a 3.5mm headphone jack.
But with a puny 512MB internal storage, the microSD slot placed awkwardly under the back cover and no sign of an Android app for Amazon’s MP3 store, it’s still an area for improvement.
Basic camera
While no worse than the iPhone’s, the 5MP camera is also a slight disappointment.
It certainly doesn't match the Samsung i8910HD or Nokia N97 and, while it offers decent resolution, colours are washed out, low light performance is severely limited by the lack of a flash and there’s no macro mode.
Solid battery
But this seems like small fry when the Hero is such a joy to use. The context-sensitive search button makes it a cinch to find contacts, texts and emails. Like on the N97, you can set your own photos as wallpaper. And there's a generous amount of pre-loaded software, including PDF viewer, QuickOffice (inlcuding editing capabiltities), and Footprints, HTC's slightly pointless but fun geotagging app.
With a battery life that's not class-leading but certainly adequate (we got a day and half from moderate use) all that remains is for Android's Marketplace to fill up its shelves with more compelling apps.
It's still only a tenth of the size of Apple's App store, but if the mooted augmented reality apps and shiny widgets begin to multiply the Hero will deservedly tempt plenty of people over to the robot side.
Available to pre-order from Cleverkit.com
Comments
Melancholia
2 weeks ago
Don't woryy it's a good watch. This brand do only great products. So if you have the money go for it.
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billysalup
8 weeks ago
I really like to see most of stuff from them. But the price is so expensive, so I must think twice to buy it.
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jb4522jb
10 weeks ago
The HTC is so good. It is one of the fastest phones that you can use. You will not be disappointed at all when you try it.
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vickychao
13 weeks ago
An extraordinary life. The figure of the author can change someone's life. Hopefully other writers could change the world with his writings. cpalead
kimpelegrim
16 weeks ago
I'm worried (when buying a new phone and don't really know the brand too much) about the File Extensions the phone supports because I don't want to find myself spending 300 to 500 dollars for a phone that can't play .avi movie files (just giving an example).
petermarco
17 weeks ago
I don't really get about the HTC phones. I mean somehow I don't really attach and attract with that phones anyway. I never try to liking it.
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JeffryJordan
18 weeks ago
Sie können auch Aktionen mit Preisnachlässen und Schenken Geschenk-Karten, vor allem, wenn Ihr Unternehmen groß genug ist und haben bereits einen Sozialfonds oder Ihr Unternehmen ist neu, aber haben Sie die Kapitalrücklagen ausreichend sind.
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gaudenzi90
20 weeks ago
It's not easy to convey in a few words the incredible quality of the HTC Hero, but your review seems to do this job quite well. Definitely the most important "rival" of the iphone, today. A lot of functionalities and options for an awesome modern product. A++
Gaudenzi F. - tech savvy, owner of a bunch of blogs and websites on shopping, fashion and style.
carmassi
24 weeks ago
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27 weeks ago
Perhaps, as a man, always through a time as this. I hope, in time everything will end well, and benefit all parties. memory foam mattresses
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27 weeks ago
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GunneRobert
1 year ago
I've had my.HTC for a long time now and I.havnt got flash player , I.tried to.download.it from adobes website but.it.says.its.Nt available on my.hero, this is.very annoying because I.can't. watch YouTube vids or play flash games , can you help ?
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1 year ago
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gbritton
2 years ago
Ive had my HTC Hero (Tmobile G2 Touch) for almost a week now and its amazing! The idea of having all your contacts information live in one place is fantastic, why no one had done this before is beyond me, something so simple (as an idea not in the practical sense) has pushed me to believe this is a true iphone beater. All week the lads at work have been playing with it and two chose to upgrade to it instead of the iphone from just a 10 minute "demo". Android and HTC can only get better...
My only gripe, and it isnt a major one for me, is the fact there is no flash for the camera. If this was included, this would be the ultimate phone. I have heard rumours that this will be sorted on the next HTC Android phone and im positive i will upgrade to that when it comes to my contracts renewal.
All in all i would definitely suggest this phone to anyone who wants a UI to rival iphones without having to pay the INSANE premium on top of your contract.
jwilone
2 years ago
Good Morning,
I have had my Hero for 4 days now and i have to say I’m in a state of limbo....yes it is a great phone but I’m struggling to be very positive about it....I want too, as i came from the Iphone and wanted the hero to be better but it’s not as simple to use as the Iphone, yes it is very adaptable, you change the appearance of it, so it’s the only one like it in the world but that gets boring after a while.
I had problems with downloading applications as i didn’t have a G mail account and when finally i did set up an account, the only way for the phone to connect to my G mail account was to do a factory re-set…that advice came from Orange, so i wasn’t too impressed with that.
Not to impressed with the phone manual, or lack of one but finally found it when i plugged the Hero into my computer, which did crash a few times before installing.
Good points have to be the web browser, no problems viewing pictures ect
Battery life for me...I’m happy, yes it is multitasking but i haven’t had to charge it every day so far like my previous phone.
The touch screen is very good, i have to say I’m impressed with the ease of movement between the 7 screens, I’m struggling to fill them, and maybe that’s why my battery life is good.
I'm still trying to work out how to have a facebook page on one of the screens which is connected all the time, I’m sure I’ll work it out in time.
I’m not going to harp on about Iphone versus the HTC Hero; they both have good and bad points.
Even though i started this little rant being slightly negative, i have to say i think i will warm to the HTC Hero..i have to..i have it for 24 months ;-)
boredofthis
2 years ago
What a great phone....but
Had mine 2 days now and whilst most stuff works just fine there are a couple of quibbles
1. Bluetooth...only seems to work with voice devices not other phones...bit annoying if you want to sync your old phone's contact/calendar details especially as it doesn't sync with MS Outlook.
2. Emoticons...they helpfully pre-install reday made emoticons on the keyboard, but only using the actual punctuation not the emoticon...pointless watse of time and no value to the user.
3. Mine has come with its instruction manual not fully loaded on to the MicroSD card...tried it on a couple of PC's and the same thing...although there are 12 chapters of techy info mine ends at chapter 9...unhelpfully where they start to discuss data transfer.
Other than that its a nice well made phone with lots of bells and whistles...shame they had an attack of the iPhones and got a few simple things wrong at the start.
dmhepworth
2 years ago
What a brilliant phone!
I managed to get the phone on Wednesday 22nd from the Orange shop in Hempstead shopping centre Gillingham.
I have been looking at all the reviews on line for the last have few months and have been driving the wife crazy talking about it. My verdict is it is an iPhone beater!
Battery life does suck but that's because it is multitasking (take that iPhone!) Mind you I have been using it a lot since demonstrating it to the guy in the shop. He nearly bought one himself!
If like me you didn't want to be a sheep and go baaaaiPhone! This is the phone to get. The last touch screen phone I had was a Motorola a1000 which if you are old enough and techie enough you will remember it predated the iPhone but was just too far ahead of it's time!
It's great to have such an advanced phone which not many others have!
bauhiniac
2 years ago
Through Group Test: Apple iPhone 3GS smartphone contenders,
The HTC Love: Large, responsive touchscreen. Android OS better than ever. A compact, robust and beautiful phone
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nathan.lr
2 years ago
will you be putting up a full hands-on video review online? hope so!!!!!