Sprint HTC Hero - Questions with Build

[BPFerrari1]

I've had my Hero for about a week or so now and been browsing the forums all over to see what the general view on the Hero is.

But I have a few questions:

The phone is Google Backed, Manufacturer's Date: 10/11/2009. Hardware: 002

1) The camera makes a clicking-like noise when it auto-focuses and after taking a picture, it also makes the noise when 'refreshing' to take another picture.

2) I have dust in the lower left corner of the screen, is that where everyone else is having the same issue?

3) The battery life is quite poor for me, I installed HandcentSMS, and just use the Gmail app for email, but other than that, I'm not sure what else I should do or try to increase the battery life.

4) The brightness sensor sucks, it is very choppy; so does anyone have any good alternatives/fixes or apps to replace or better the issue?

Also, should I be worried of any of the above issues - this was I can go back to Sprint and get myself a replacement before it's too late.

Thanks.

[athlet1c]

I have heard of some units being defective. If you believe so take it back to insure. Remember its a new product which is mass produced and like anything else some models slip through.

I suggest you Root and Flash your unit to open up the best of it if you decide to keep it. I thas helped many of the problems you mentioned

[thacounty]

I don't understand the "clicking noise" but it has a shutter sound. You can change the iso settings to iso 800 to make it take better pics.

Dust in screen is a problem that needs to be fixed. I don't have the issue but there are people who have pics posted of it.

Battery life for me is better than any smartphone I have used. I suggest making sure you don't have 100% issue. Definitely as Athlet1c said, root and get a better rom on it.

I think the sensor is pretty good, if you don't like, turn it off in settings and get a brightness widget for your homescreen that you can use.

[athlet1c]

But first and far most Root. Thats like getting a BIg truck with no Rims or a Bentley with no Navigation

[bradart]

I think everyone here is forgetting that even if you don't get TEP, your phone has a 1 year manufacturers warranty. The thirty days is just to switch to an entirely different model of phone. Any issues like dust in the screen or the memory/sms/100% awake issue can and will be fixed free regardless of plan or add on for one year. Hope this helps someone.

[jesuspgt]

1: There are a couple of things you could be referring to as far as I can tell. There's first off the built-in shutter sound effect when taking a photo; to get rid of it go to the camera > Menu button > Settings > uncheck the box for "Shutter Sound."
The other thing that I believe you might be referring to is the actual physical lens sounds. Those are normal and are basically due to the fact that it's an actual auto-focus camera, which means that there are physical lens elements that move around in order to focus. This occurs when focusing to take a picture initially (obviously), but also will occur after a photo is taken because the lens parts move around after the photo to get back to what appears to be a pre-set focal distance. Same thing for when it's refreshing for another picture. I actually think that's the sound you're referring to, and if you've ever owned a camera with auto-focus it shouldn't be all that unusual. To sum up: It's normal and OK for it to do that.

2: I have had my Hero for just about 2 weeks and have not seen any dust inside the screen. Depending on the severity, may be something worth exchanging your device for.

3: The first thing I did after getting my phone was to update to the latest HTC/Sprint firmware. To do this, do Menu > All Programs > Settings > About Phone > System Updates > Select "Firmware update". If it finds one then install it. The only issue I had with battery life was when I had an app called Advanced Task Killer (or something very similar; I've long since uninstalled it). While it is a very useful task manager application, it seemed to prevent my phone from sleeping as much as I thought it should; your mileage may vary.
I use the stock HTC mail application for my work's Exchange email which gets updated every 15 minutes, the stock gmail app for my gmail, and the stock HTC messaging app for my SMS. I've found my battery life to be far better than anything my Diamond could ever offer, but do realize that my bar may have been set a bit low in that regard.

4: I've been a bit disappointed with the light sensor, It's consistently too dark for my tastes. I disabled the automatic light sensor and just left it on the default brightness that it had set; specifically I unchecked the checkbox for the light sensor and didn't fiddle with the screen brightness.
As far as choppiness, I can't really comment since I disabled mine shortly after being disappointed with screen brightness.

*****
Oh, and I concur with the others' suggestions about rooting your phone. There are lots of great guides on how to do this, and also flashing a recovery image onto your phone is a very good idea because the flashed recovery image allows you to do a nandroid backup. Even if you have no intention of flashing custom ROMs, having the ability to do the nandroid backups is an amazingly great and important thing.

[Genjinaro]

Originally Posted by athlet1c

But first and far most Root. Thats like getting a BIg truck with no Rims or a Bentley with no Navigation

LOL ^ truth!

[BPFerrari1]

Originally Posted by jesuspgt

1: There are a couple of things you could be referring to as far as I can tell. There's first off the built-in shutter sound effect when taking a photo; to get rid of it go to the camera > Menu button > Settings > uncheck the box for "Shutter Sound."
The other thing that I believe you might be referring to is the actual physical lens sounds. Those are normal and are basically due to the fact that it's an actual auto-focus camera, which means that there are physical lens elements that move around in order to focus. This occurs when .........

Thanks for that post!

The camera thing is normal, I was just worried that it may be some sort of defect or something, but it's cool.

Dust is something that is not severe, but being a new phone, I'd rather have it to be in the best condition possible aside of any other physical abuse.

I did go through my phone again, I had my Facebook linked and it was set to update every 2 hrs, I changed that to manually update since I never really checked on it anyway. I use the Gmail app for mail. And uninstalled HandcentSMS to reverted back to the Messaging app. I do have Advanced Task Killer installed and used that, with all above settings, my phone awake time was around always 25%. But I did uninstall Adv Task Killer to see what might change. Phone has been fully updated as well.

What I meant by choppiness is that th light sensor is too dark. It just wouldn't set the brightness properly in certain conditions.