HTC Hero Android Smartphone (G2 Touch) Comments

Is there still no bluetooth file transfer on the Hero?

@Greg
I've tried to on mine and no luck. Couldn't send files from my computer to it either.

No Bluetooth file transfer unfortunely but I've heard theres an app on the android marketplace that let's you do it.

I received my hero on Monday and so far I'm really Impressed. One thing to say is that if you are someone who can stand the occasional bit of sluggishness then the hero may not be for you. As long as you don't go crazy with the widgets you'll be fine though.

Cool. There has been a lot of bitchin about slow downs/lag on line but was this only with preview models?

Not out here in Denmark, though the Magic is and its hardly cheaper (over the 6 month contract) than the Iphone 3GS. I'd be very interested in the Hero if it's a significant saving over the Iphone, but if not I'm gonna have to spring for the current champ.

Is the sluggishness only really noticable when having many applications open?

Perhaps we are seeing why Apple has not allowed background tasks?
Of course the CPU differences will show up so its not the whole story.

I'm keen to see the pricing here, could well be the phone for me.

Huh. I just ordered a Nokia 5800, but I can still return it for about a week. I'll have to think hard about whether this is worth it. It's still a LOT more expensive than the Nokia, though, about EUR 450 versus about EUR 200. And the 5800 also has the trifecta of features -- UMTS, Wifi and GPS.

have to pop into shops to have a feel. looks slightly thicker than my liking.

Looks fab, well donw HTC

Ok so just read the review. Firstly, well done on the real photos!

Had mine for two week and really love it. There is a little lag here and there but then that's the price of multitasking, which I'd rather have than not. Also noticed that a lot of it seems due to the apps/widgets you install as after a hard reset mine was once again flying. Having come from WinMo the whole OS seems lightning fast in comparison!

I know the app store has loads more choice but the market's been fine for me so far. The apps not being restricted in their functionality is what wins it for me. Really lets you tweak the phone just the way you like it.

Great review!

@ haim
It only really shows that being able to have 7+ widgets updating live really needs more power then the Qualcomm processor it uses, but for such a cheap contract phone it really does look very good :)

Why do HTC have the Sense UI as a customisation and not as an application? Free or otherwise, surely if people with the G1, Magic or whatever other Android phones come out then they could also taken advantage of the new features this brings. I know people have ported Sense to those phones, but it'd be nicer to go an official way - plus it'd also be more 'open' as Android should be. Is there a technical reason they've not gone this route?

I'm still going with the Samsung i7500 which is out this week on 02. Better camera, 8GB internal memory and AMOLED screen.

Mine is coming tomorrow, can't wait!

@HK
I think sense refers to the whole UI and not just the homescreen and widgets. They've customised a lot of other things in the OS like the dialler, contacts apps, mail client, facebook and flickr intergration. I assume the widgets could be released on the market like any others but all the other customisations are way more than just skin deep and probably involve a lot of under the hood changes. Although obviously I'm no expert.

I inferred from your review text that you think the HTC Magic has a resistive touchscreen. In fact it also has a capacitive model.

@HK I agree its annoying that the additions HTC have added are unavailable for other android phones but as it isnt a google experience phone they are free to do as they wish. I am personally hoping that someone like Samsung will have a android phone released by the time my contract with the G1 ends.

Any chance of a video review? I'd like to see some of the UI in action.

Been awaiting this phone for ages. Having read the reviews online from other sites have all said some nasty things which I reckoned was just down to the not having final hardware.

Just put in my upgrade order with Orange and, thanks to T-Mobile, got a nice deal too :)

Some of the other reviews mentioned that the Hero didn't have enough memory to run the multiple widgets comfortably? Did you find it slowed down at all when you 'used' them all?

Is it just me but is that chin looking more and more attractive! Great review, guys. Is there going to be a video review as well? Also, any word on the difference between the Orange and T-mobile offerings? What about the quality of music and video playback? Rather than just taking aim at the 3GS, HTC has stolen a march on the Samsung i7500. Distinctive styling and more reasonable contract options make the better specced i7500 look a bit bland and expensive if the rumoured O2 pricing of free with a £44 per month 18 month contract proves true. I hope O2 and Samsung haven't priced themselves too highly as the i7500 seems to tick all my boxes but the wait is killing me. As I'm also on Orange I might follow m-memmory's lead and haggle for an even better deal.

@ramania
Yes I suppose they have done more than just skin it. It probably digs under the hood of Android; though that in a way is a worry. It could make things unstable & some apps might not work at all. Some people have also said it slows it down.

@Martin Leventon
You mean like the Samsung i7500 I mentioned... :-)

I had the Hero on pre-order, and then cancelled when it was delayed yet again, as it no longer coincided with me going on holiday.

I'm glad I did now, as it seems this phone really needs Snapdragon. To my absolute horror, today I went out and got a 3GS instead. I'm currently updating it as I speak, but it will be interesting to see how it compares with my overall expectations of what a smart phone should be.

In person this phone is no where near as ugly as I thought it was, actually looks nice.
I just cant get past the fact that Touchflo does most of this in a similar way and the hardware is last years tech. Signing on for 18 months only to watch snapdragoon and tegra devices come out in a few months/weeks would break my little geeky heart.

Good work HTC you have gained alot of attention with this, now release the real version before christmas.

Cheers

Looks nice, even as an IPhone3g user I'm tempted. Only issue I have with HTC is how there hardware becomes obsolete, eg. The original HTC came out after the first IPhone, but even if you've got the original IPhone your still getting Apps & Upgrades. With HTC it's more of, what you see if what you get, next year we'll have a newer model, so tough.

Actually a good point Keith, hadn't thought about that. There may well be arguments about what *should* have been there from the start, but still those iPhone firmware updates have been pretty impressive so far.

Just bought an iPhone 3GS for the wife, she is well chuffed. Now will have to see when I can stretch to one for myself :( now thats love.

I was just thinking are people really that happy with the HTC hero or are we so desperate to find an alternative to the iphone that a phone will be hyped up on being a rival alone?? I currently don't own a smartphone but would like to get one I keep saying I'll get an iphone but its just sooo expensive is the HTC hero really worth it pls answer honestly!

@D3JI
Buy it over the phone from Orange or T-mobile and you'll have a week to return it. See for yourself.

@ravmania
thanks i'll give it a go

I've got one today. So far looks a lot more configurable than the iPhone which my other half has. The widget system works well. I'm a long term Nokia man so will take the 7 days to test it some more before deciding 100%

how does a retail rrp of £499 make it significantly cheaper than an iphone?

ok play are selling it for £399 but for 40 quid more you get a 16gb 3gs.i know which one i'de choose

Well got mine now and so far so good. Will take a while to learn how to use it but on a £25 per month (with internet) and the phone free with T-Mobile it is a far far better deal than the iphone!

Oh dear...great functionality, easy to use, VERY customisable.

Shame the battery only lasts half a day. Back it goes

would have to agree with old timer. battery struggled to last a whole day. but then i have barely put it down. music on for about £5 hrs, playing some games, general fiddling, web and wifi.
otherwise it is a stonking phone. especially for the price. the 16gb 3gs is about £800 on a 18month contract whereas i got the hero on a 12 month contract, overall costing about £450(similar amount of txts- both with web)
ppl can argue all they like that the iphone is better but ut aint £350 better- and 12 months down the line i can get a shiny new upgrade while ur stuck with ur last gen phone.

Have to agree with grouse above. The battery seems to last a day just..but that's with the mobile. Web constantly active, WiFi being used about 4-5 hours and the phone constantly being used for the web, games, Twitter, Facebook etc. I can cope with that no problem.my 6300 only lasted 2days and that was if I never touched the thing. Overall I'm very pleased with this phone so far. I look at its functionality as an iPhone but cheaper and that's fine by me.

@grouse. That plan sounds great. Where did you find it? Best I can get is £50 up front cost plus £20 per month over 24 months with Orange. Decent plan but don't want to commit for that long.

it was on mobiles.co.uk The deal i got was vodafone £40 a month 300mins unlimited txts + web 12month contract and free phone. if u use quidco u get £40. bringing the total down to £440.
Just checked tho and they dont seem to have it any more. maybe give em a call and say u saw that deal. i got my phone 3 days ago so it hasnt been gone long.

ps the battery has faired much better today. still 3/4 battery left with medium to lite use.

Cheers! I'll check it out.

How are the OTA updates going to work with this phone if the changes made by HTC are so deep inside Android? HTC haven't really got a great rep with WM on OTA updates.

I've had the HTC Hero for 9 days now. Bought it from Handtec for £400. Using it on Three network Pay as You Go Sim. £5 top up gives 150mb internet allowance and £5 for 2GB a month, which is plenty. I've browsed and downloaded quite heavily on the device and used 70mb so far.I'm very pleased with it. Bluetooth Transfer is possible. Havnt owned a Android phone before but I'm glad I got it. The processor could be speedier and when there are multiple browser pages open, plus other apps, you may notice some lag, but htis is acceptable. To call the phone a slouch would be a gross exageration. The lag isnt too intrusive and it's not been a problem. My only critisim is of the camcorder quality. Stills shots are good in outdoor, well lit enviroments. THe camcorder is of poor resolution though. Overall, I'm glad I bought it and could recommend it. No phone is perfect, despite critisims above and in other reviews, it is still an excellent handset and in the top three handsets out there. Android marketplace is excellent. HTC Interface is slick, fluid and highly customisable. Call quality is outstanding. The build quality is excellent, feels just about hte righ tweight ot me, not too light or heavy, very solid well designed deveice. 9/10 from me

Nice "real live" user review Caleb. Very useful as my I think I'm gonna get the Hero. I'm sick of waiting for the i7500! What did you think about the music playback. Can I trade in my Ipod Nano?

@Gordon, @ Ed
What do the guys at TR know about the incredible delays from Samsung/O2. There are rumours that the i7500 has failed it's accreditation. Is this true?

hey geek i use my hero for music all the time and it is pretty gd generally. very like the touch in many of its controls. one of my favourite things about it is the on the fly playlists which u can make as many as u like. the sound quality is perfectly acceptable to (with decent headphones of course)and transferring music couldn't be easier- drag and drop.
the only real downside in my opinion is the battery life which if listening to music all day struggles to last the day. would say u probably have about 8-10 hrs playback time depending on what u r doing. Oh and the supplied 2gb card is easily filled so u will want a bigger one.

oh yeah and that deal i mentioned earlier is bak up now.

Cheers grouse. It's nice to know I can cut down on the amount of stuff in my pockets. Anymore stuff and I'd have to buy a man-bag :)

Tested both the iphone 3gs and hero.
The iphone was super slick, no juddering on scrolling and everything seemed to work. Email setup required only my email address, it did the rest. Had no problem with itunes(never used it before) and generally pleasant experience. Did actually really like the video camcorder on it as the quality was fairly decent and thought it would come in handy when out and about with the kids. App store has some good apps, though everything seemed to cost. Home screen a bit boring really though, as can't really do anything with it, and I missed some physical keys(the only button on the iphone takes you back to the home screen). Battery life seemed to drain alarmingly I thought, seeing as it would lose 10% on a short casual browse.

the Hero on the other hand isn't quite as slick, as it sometimes judders when scrolling from one page to the other. I also found it juddered in the contact list, though once you put a contact in, I tended not you use it. I just clicked phone and started typing the name and the phone narrows down the choice for you just above the keypad. I love the open widgets, much better than the iphone where you have to come out of an app to go into another. In a way any slight lag on the hero is still quicker than doing the above. One quick scroll and you can see the weather, photo's, music, stocks etc.....easy.
I found typing on the phone very easy too, and liked the fact the keypad would change from caps to lower case(unlike the iphone which only showed caps). the autocorrect worked well too.
the app store is good, with a lot more free stuff on it, though not quite as polished as the apple app store. I'm guessing with that the number of android phones coming out that the number of quality apps here will grow exponentially as more developers get interested(as well as c**p ones). the camcorder on it isn't great though, but passable and the camera you have to hold still. Photo quality was passable but pictures came out darker than the iphone. The battery seems to last longer too
In the end I liked both phone so it came down to price for me. The iphone was £175 for the 32GB, £45 a month and o2 charge £10 a month insurance. Over 18 months that worked out as £1165. For that you got 1200 mins, 500 texts and unlimited data.
I got the Hero on orange for free for £35 a month. Insurance is £6 with orange. For that I got 1200 mins, unlimited texts and 500 mb data(you can bargain if you phone against t-mobile rate). Over 18 months that works out £738
So for £427, it's no contest really. I stuck with the Hero and sent the iphone back. Admittedly, I don't have 32Gb storage on the hero, but I can get a 16gb card for £35. With the spare cash I can get the ipod touch 32 gb if i really want and still have over £100 in change.
And with the htc update due in sept, i think the lag issue is going to be resolved, which make the hero even better value

Wow I can't believe that I just bought a mobile telephone THAT DOES NOT SUPPORT BLUETOOTH FOR FILE TRANSFER!!!! Why was this not mentioned or tested in this review? How could something like this be overlooked? You might think no big deal but don't underestimate how handy Bluetooth is for transferring files quickly between handsets. I wanted to do this the first day I bought the device only to my horror to find out that this is not possible without possibly hacking the OS or using another protocol.

HTC's specifications of the HERO (http://www.htc.com/www/product/hero/specification.html)states "Connectivity Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets". I'm sure every person that has already or will purchase this handset will think OK it's got bluetooth I can swap pictures, songs, data, videos and other files with all my friends.
THIS IS NOT THE CASE!!!!!!!!!!

The response from HTC to this HUGE lack of functionality with it's HERO is that the problem lies with Android and that any fix may not even be released to the HERO! How comforting is that to everybody who has just bought one! I'm going to try returning mine or exchanging it for a bluetooth compatible handset.

Disappointing HTC and disappointing Trusted Reviews for not testing this!

Lag issue is going to be fixed soon.

http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/The-new-ROM-for-the-HTC-Hero-appears-in-a-video-article-a_6550.html

yup whats with so called the best OS these days... took the iphone like 3 yrs to implement file-transfer-bluetooth (among other simple yet important features), and the android doesnt even have it (again among very useful perks i found out).... phone as modem ? i'm thinking of just sticking with my current phone who's got everything...

Sonisoe, you have to remember that Android as an OS is still in it's first gen of handsets and as such a feature such as bluetooth data transfer can be excused for now though it is puzzling as to why this wasn't included when they designed the OS but oh well.

As a new HTC Hero user myself, I'm enjoying it! Got it on T-Mobile and ported my number over from O2. Internet speed is faster than what I experienced with my HTC Touch Diamond on O2 in the same areas but then you could attribute that to all the iPhone users on the network (if you're being generous).

Was going to buy it sim free but couldn't get the cash together before buying it so decided to get the FlexT tarrif at £40 a month including the internet bolt-on ('unlimited' I'm told...but whatever...) but the deal clincher for me was that it included calls to 08 numbers which I previously wasn't aware of! Anyway, signal is good, internet speed is good, loving the good (free) apps and UI and am patiantly waiting for HTC to release their new ROM update for the increased speed.

Battery life is about 1-2 days at the moment depending on use. The battery hasn't been primed and will take a week or two to 'break in' but I read that after this it improves. However, it's sufficient since I have it updating my Exchange email and Hotmail every 15 minutes, plus weather. I used the My Tracks app to track a walk I made which lasted two hours with the GPS and HSDPA turned on. Afterwards I checked the battery meter and it was at 7 bars out of 10. Take that as you will but with 2 hours of GPS usage and 30% battery life gone I call that magical! Granted I was sometimes in buildings for about 30-40 minutes where the GPS couldn't get reception but it kept on trying and that's gotta account for something right? Will keep on testing the GPS drainage on the battery though since that's only one test.

Anyway, as I said, loving it! Have an iPod Touch but since I can download podcasts etc. on my Hero using the free 'Listen' app I'm considering retiring the Touch. Will need to test out the battery life with the normal music/podcast usage I would do on the Touch but if it lasts along with My Tracks running I see no reason taking the Touch with me on walks anymore!

It's a small world eh? I used to work alongside the guy who wrote this review - although that's going back over 10 years now.

Anyway, back to the phone. I've had my HTC Hero for a few weeks now, the Titanium model on Orange, and I absolutely love it. There's a subtle heaviness to the phone that sits well in the hand and the user interface is an absolute dream.

All it takes is the right application to do bluetooth file transfers, so don't be put off by the fact that this doesn't come out of the box.

Sure, it's a shame that it doesn't have a flash for the camera, but as camera phones go it takes a decent picture - even the digital zoom isn't too bad (I don't like digital zooms anyway)!

More importantly there's finally a phone on the market to challenge the iphone!

I have just taken delivery of this phone and I will be returning it at the next opportunity. The phone drops the call because its receiver is not sensitive enough, it's slow- the processor is just not up to the task, and the bluetooth needs pairing to the car every time you get in the car!

Bball Tom said he got his for "25 per month (with internet) and the phone free with T-Mobile". How did you get that deal???. The cheapest plan I can see that gets Phone FREE is £25 +£5 internet (here http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-phones/phones/pay-monthly/t-mobile/g2-touch/combi/plans/)

Solved! ....to get the cheaper deals at Tmobile then sign in to your T-mobile account online...Once you do that you will see the unique deals applicable to you.....

Here's a cautionary note for you.
How can T-mobile have 2 phones called "Touch"?

"G2 touch" (A.K.A Hero) (ANDROID) & "HTC Touch 2" (Windows)

see here https://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-phones/phones/android/tmobile-g1/ and here https://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-phones/phones/windows-mobile-phones/

How totally stupid! So don't fall into the same trap as me. I have just cancelled my order because I wrongly ordered the windows phone. I told customer care the reason of the confusion & sillyness to name both models "touch"