HTC Hero Reviews

[bradart]

Originally Posted by cac2us

I guess "Documents To Go" "Claims" to function as word processor and spreadsheet "Viewer",
unless you purchase the software...
I belive Office Mobile IS FREE...
Sounds like Droids doin the scamm...

Your joking, right?

[takmsdsm]

Just purchased mine yesterday, passed down my EnergyROM Touch Pro to my best friend as a christmas present, and have started customizing it already.

Pros so far:
Battery Life - Wow, i played with it for 6 hours straight on the original charge, before it died. That was 6 hours of texting, downloading, syncing, and just general tomfoolery. so far so good.

The UI is pretty smooth and amazing. I need to load a media player that will allow divx playback to see how performance is for that.


Cons so far:
Not really a con, but the onscreen keyboard will take some getting used to.

dialpad buttons getting pushed while using the phone next to face. I am sure there is a fix somewhere.


I have been using WM phones for the last 5 years, and Palm phones for 4 years before that. Thanks WM for the memories, you were far less frustrating then Palm was.

[tommy_riley]

I had a PPC 6700 a few years ago for a time, but WinMo was just WAY too buggy and unreliable for me to keep the phone - I cannot miss calls because the OS is all funked up and having to reset a phone every day to ensure stability is unacceptable for me. So I went back to "regular" non-smart or Operating System phones for a few years. About 8 months ago I jumped in and bought an HTC Touch Pro, as I thought the WinMO OS phones HAD to have come a ways since my last experience. It was much better - faster, sleeker with the TouchFlow3d, and the phone looked NICE. However, the keyboard hardware problems, battery life, and occassional instability (especially if you install anything other than stock programs/ROM) are starting to really bug me again.

I am considering going with a Blackberry 9630 Tour - however I am also looking at the HTC Hero - it has my attention. I am skeptical of the virtual keyboard (like HW keyboards, but I also like them to WORK (bad HTC Touch Pro!)), speptical of another buggy OS that will cause me to miss calls, or have to reinstall crap every few days because the phone has become to unstable. And the biggest thing is that no phone I have had, has had a good browser experience yet (HTC touch pro - web pages are too big, too small, zoom doesn't work right, etc. BlackBerry 8830 (my work phone) has problems loading just about any webpage that has scripting on it...just loads and loads and loads)...webbrowsing is usually dog slow for me as well...

Anyway...I'm so on the fence on going with a BB 9630 Tour, or an HTC Hero. I was almost set to go with the 9630 Tour until I saw this thread and the people who have gone from HTC Touch Pro to HTC Hero....I really like TouchFlow3d and it looks like HTC Hero has it's own great version of something similiar....so on the fence...

Should I go with a BB for the stability and additional battery life, or will I be happy with the large screen, android functionality, and won't be too bothered with the battery life on the Hero, not to mention no HW keyboard, or the possibility of missing calls due to buggy os....

Let me hear more reviews, and more comparisions between the HTC Touch Pro and HTC Hero - if the Hero is that much better experience then the Touch Pro, and it is decently stable, I may just go that route.

Sorry, I know my message is slightly off topic, but this is me asking for help on whether to lay down a few hundred bucks on something that I will just want to ditch in 6 months possibly...

[takmsdsm]

I think both the TP and the Hero are stable. I love both. I dont know what else to tell you. Go play with them in the store and see which one you like better.

[tommy_riley]

I ended up buying the HERO today. So far I am liking it alot - have to get used to my fat thumbs hitting the wrong letters on the virtual keyboard and there are a few obvious minor over-looked missing things that I'm sure will be corrected in future releases of the HTC Sense and/or Android OS itself (example - not being able to change speed dial #2 away from sprint customer service (or at least I cannot figure it out)).

The OS and sense overlay both seem to be pretty stable so far - it's nice navigating around menu's without having the system lock up on me randomly (like the touch was doing) and it just feels like a more "complete" experience. Also feels more like a phone that has added applications and services. Rather than an operating system that happens to have a phone ad-on.

It would be great if the new release of android would allow for applications to save off to the SD card - instead of only allowing for my own media to be on the SD card. again, small gripe right now, but might be a bigger issue later.

The web browsing experience was MUCH better as well. With the HTC Touch Pro - the first few times I went to Bank Of America to try and login and save my username/pw and view the web site in mobile view - it took several tries to get everything right - and was a slow clunky process to get it the way I liked it.

With the Hero, the first time I loaded the page, the experience was completely correct - images, input boxes, everything felt like it was working exactly as it should be, usernames/pw's saved off easily and bookmarked and future visits to the site all working without trying to fiddle with zoom, mobile view vs regular webpage view, etc.

[bradart]

Originally Posted by tommy_riley

The web browsing experience was MUCH better as well. With the HTC Touch Pro - the first few times I went to Bank Of America to try and login and save my username/pw and view the web site in mobile view - it took several tries to get everything right - and was a slow clunky process to get it the way I liked it.

With the Hero, the first time I loaded the page, the experience was completely correct - images, input boxes, everything felt like it was working exactly as it should be, usernames/pw's saved off easily and bookmarked and future visits to the site all working without trying to fiddle with zoom, mobile view vs regular webpage view, etc.

You could gett the ballin-a$$ bank of america app

[xweaponx]

Originally Posted by tommy_riley

I had a PPC 6700 a few years ago for a time, but WinMo was just WAY too buggy and unreliable for me to keep the phone - I cannot miss calls because the OS is all funked up and having to reset a phone every day to ensure stability is unacceptable for me. So I went back to "regular" non-smart or Operating System phones for a few years. About 8 months ago I jumped in and bought an HTC Touch Pro, as I thought the WinMO OS phones HAD to have come a ways since my last experience. It was much better - faster, sleeker with the TouchFlow3d, and the phone looked NICE. However, the keyboard hardware problems, battery life, and occassional instability (especially if you install anything other than stock programs/ROM) are starting to really bug me again.

I am considering going with a Blackberry 9630 Tour - however I am also looking at the HTC Hero - it has my attention. I am skeptical of the virtual keyboard (like HW keyboards, but I also like them to WORK (bad HTC Touch Pro!)), speptical of another buggy OS that will cause me to miss calls, or have to reinstall crap every few days because the phone has become to unstable. And the biggest thing is that no phone I have had, has had a good browser experience yet (HTC touch pro - web pages are too big, too small, zoom doesn't work right, etc. BlackBerry 8830 (my work phone) has problems loading just about any webpage that has scripting on it...just loads and loads and loads)...webbrowsing is usually dog slow for me as well...

Anyway...I'm so on the fence on going with a BB 9630 Tour, or an HTC Hero. I was almost set to go with the 9630 Tour until I saw this thread and the people who have gone from HTC Touch Pro to HTC Hero....I really like TouchFlow3d and it looks like HTC Hero has it's own great version of something similiar....so on the fence...

Should I go with a BB for the stability and additional battery life, or will I be happy with the large screen, android functionality, and won't be too bothered with the battery life on the Hero, not to mention no HW keyboard, or the possibility of missing calls due to buggy os....

Let me hear more reviews, and more comparisions between the HTC Touch Pro and HTC Hero - if the Hero is that much better experience then the Touch Pro, and it is decently stable, I may just go that route.

Sorry, I know my message is slightly off topic, but this is me asking for help on whether to lay down a few hundred bucks on something that I will just want to ditch in 6 months possibly...

My mother has the BB Tour and my father has the 1st Gen BB Storm.

I REALLY like the Tour. Its a comfortable phone in the hand and very capable. And that trackball... its just so nice to have.

But again... I am a HTC man... and now I have a trackball

[shaakezula]

just got my hero yesterday from bestbuy..$99 with my 150 upgrade.. i was eligible for a no deposit 3rd line added to my family plan so i bought the hero on the new 3rd line (for $99) otherwise it would have been (179$ with upgrade) since ive been with sprint for 7 years..they also knocked off 25$ per month on my bill for a loyal customer thing...sweeet...after playing with the fone and reading the htc hero forum here for a few days i was sold..i have had 3 YES 3 touch pro's replaced and REFUSED to get a 4th reburbished one...

so after a day of playing with the hero, i have to go along with others in this thread and say the battery life has far surpassed my expectations, after watching youtube vids for a while, messing around with it all day, still had PLENTY of juice left this morn when i woke up..

the fone just seems to glide from interface to interface...i dig the way the widgets are set up for quicker access to what you need and i'm finding the app store very useful as well along with several links provided on this forum i've found..

so far i have had NO issues with receiving pic. mail that others have been having here in the forum..(yes with wifi turned off) had an issue sending pic mail but it was resolved with some advice i found here on the forums surfing...

so far i've had no issues using the fone, no dropped calls..the ringer is LOUD as hell which i dig..after reading many threads in here i found out how to add custom ringtones and custom textes..just have to make sure textes are in wav format n ringtones in mp3 (wav will usually have a larger kb ratio)

overall in 2 days i'm VERY impressed with this fone and the os...speaking of..i dig the OS..and have no issues with it whatsoever...

THE ONLY cons i have (along with others im seeing) is the whole not being able to store apps on the micro sd card (WITHOUT having to root the device) that's a big con for me after having a mogul and t/pro for so long..i'm not technically savvy enough to even attempt to root my phone, i'll just have to see if i can pay someone to do it in my town...

my only suggestion for ppl planning on buying the hero..
1. go to a store and play with it 1st
2. read the hero forums and try and get an overall feel for the device and what
the common isues pros AND cons are
3. if you've been a winmo user for a while be PREPARED for a huge learning curve..
i've had it two days and still learning everyday =)

[ben-]

Love it!! Came from a Touch Pro, was looking forward to the price of the TP2.
The Hero is an amazing phone its light looks good and is very responsive, If your worried about nto having a physical keyboard with big fingers DONT BE. once I calibrated the screen im texting better than i was with the attached keyboard.

If your due for an upgrade and sitting on the fence about it, just do it youll be pleasantly surprised.

[xweaponx]

Originally Posted by ben-

Love it!! Came from a Touch Pro, was looking forward to the price of the TP2.
The Hero is an amazing phone its light looks good and is very responsive, If your worried about nto having a physical keyboard with big fingers DONT BE. once I calibrated the screen im texting better than i was with the attached keyboard.

If your due for an upgrade and sitting on the fence about it, just do it youll be pleasantly surprised.

Agreed. Keyboard calibration is just too cool.

I too came from a TP,... a Mogul before that... and a Apache before that.

You will not miss the physical keyboard unless you have a fetish for tactile buttons...