Okay I'm using the term review lightly here, as it's more a user experience report.
About the HTC Hero
HTC Hero is an Android phone, using Googles open source operating system for smart phones. What one needs to know about the Hero and Android is that HTC has enhanced Android or "skinned it" if you like with something they call HTC Sense. To make a long story short, HTC has added more home screens to Hero and multi touch.
HTC Sense
The slightly longer story is that Sense is marketed by HTC under three slogans "Make it mine", "Stay close" and "Discover the unexpected". What this in turns means is that HTC deliveres the Hero with spesific widget they call "HTC Widget" which integrates the phone with social media online (such as Facebook, twitter and Flickr) and makes the phones content much more readily available (messages, emails, contacts, calendar, etc).
The Techy Specs
The HTC Hero is well featured in terms of functions, the hardware that makes it awailable to you is:
[*]Operating System
[*]Memory
[*]Dimensions (LxWxT)
[*]Weight
[*]Display
[*]Network
[*] Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
[*]Device Control
[*]GPS
[*]Connectivity
[*]Camera
[*]Audio supported formats
[*]Video supported formats
[*]Battery
[*] Standby time:
[*] (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)[/*:m:24xhx1rr][/list:u:24xhx1rr][/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Expansion Slot
[*]AC Adapter
[*]Special Features
[*]Protective Coating
Initial setup
My company owns my phone number and mobile subscription, and since Norways largest phone operator (Telenor) owns 51% of the company I work for, it's no big surprise that my phone subscription is Telenor.
What was a surprise to me was that the HTC Hero was supplied with the wrong default settings for Telenor when I got the phone, so getting past the initial preference screens after first power on was surprisingly hard. Not until I had talked with Telenor customer support on my old phone, getting the right APN settings etc could I get online with the phone so that it coulg get hold of my google details and let me use the phone. If this was a user error on my part, or a flaw in the user experience design of the setup procedures of Android or the HTC Hero I don't know. Either way it was not good.
My daily use
My daily use starts early in the morning with my Hero. It rings an alarm in the morning waking me up. The alarm application has a slick and nice GUI and has all the functions you'd expect. It can have regular alarms, several of them and ad-hoc alarms. The application is somewhat slow to load at first, but when it's loaded it runs fine.
Then after having getting myself together I surf AmiBay.com and national newspapers, and when I leave the house I listen to Spottify on Android. During the day I get emails, messages and calls. I reply to them and make some of my own while I very occationally also tweet.
When I get home I sometimes play games on the phone while I watch a TV show on my MacMini with my girlfriend. So except the hours while I'm at work, the phone is in more or less constant activity from I get up until I get to bed at midnight.
My occational use
Occationally I also use the GPS in the weekends if I'm heading to somewhere I don't know. It could be a shop or a theatere. Also the camera for taking an "in the moment picture" or authoring an MMS to friends or family to document my own or others folly.
The screen
The screens seems huge on this slim and tight device. It's also bright and clear. Now it's touted by HTC to be a clean and nice screen coated to not let stuff stick to it. I dunno if I'm particularly greasy or dirty. But fingermarks do stick to it. Not so much as it does on say my PSP or other phone screens I've seen. But it's not a huge difference on the HTC. The stuff you need to see on it though, pictures, movies, programs etc is brilliant.
Input
The phone has five keys and one multidirectional trackball. The key next to the trackball is a two action key. In addition to the keys the phone is multitouch due to HTC Sense.
First off, the trackball is fantastic but utterly useless. It's fantastic because it feels so amazingly precise. And it feels robust. There are tiny tiny vibrations from the machanics of it when you use it, which gives you a clear idea that there is traction and that it works. The reason to why it's useless is that I have yet to come accross an application that needs it or even uses it much. So it's a hardware feature of the phone much unused.
The other buttons behaves much as you would expect to and navigating the device with your fingers on the screen is very satisfying and typing on the onscreen virtual keyboard that will work in both landscape mode and portrait mode is made tactile by using the phones vibrator everytime you hin an onscreen key.
What needs to be brought up here is the odd implementation of the T9 dictionary of the phone. Words that the T9 predicts are shown in boxes above the input field where you are typing, and the suggestion it will use is highlighted in green. Seems okay on paper? Well it's not in practical use. The thing is that while typing you are looking at the word you are writing in the input field, and as soon as you write the next word you move your eyes onto that word. This means that very often the phone will corrupt your message without you knowing it. Worst is that even though the word you wrote was in the T9 dictionary, the phone deemed it more likely that you were writing something else and still replaced it. This is most noticeable in my messages where in Norwegian it will often say "Før" (before) instead of "For" (for) in my messages. Also, before I added "hehe" to my custom dictionary my messages were full of references to "Heidi". I don't know any Heidi (at least not anymore
)
Experienced battery time
The battey time on the Hero seems okay on paper. And it is so too. My phone is put on the charger every night when I go to bed. And taken off charger when I wake up. Usually some time around 2330 every night the battery icon turns angry red and shouts the 15% alarm at me. On the occational days when I've used the GPS a lot, or surfed more than usual I get the 15% alaram much earlier in the evening. Say somewhere between 18 and 20.
Twice I have experienced to get a black screen due to flat battery. The first time was at the hospital when my mom was here in Oslo. It was a day with intensive phone activity, atleast 4 hours and heavy searching on the web the whole day looking up law texts, phone numbers and government contacts.
The other time was after having forgotten to close Spottify after arriving at work. It seems that even though Spottify idles (music is stopped and application sent to background) it'll eat up your battery as spicy tomato soup in no time.
Android Market
One of the things you really has to love about the Android phone is Android Market. It doesn't need much explaining I would think as most people know about App Store from Apple, and can from that divine what Google is trying to accomplish. I'm saying trying as there is still some ground to cover for Google until they can really challenge Apple. Most talked about is the visibility of good apps in Android and lack of screen shots and too short texts explaining the applications. These are issues addressed by Google in the latest update, but it hasn't reached all users yet or the HTC Hero, even though much else of the 1.6 update seems to have reached the Hero.
My biggest gripe with the Android Market is Googles inability to timely implement paid apps in the nordic region. Or spesifically in Norway. There are atleast 5 apps, if not 10 that I'd love to buy if I could, but I can't so my monies and I will not part yet.
However there are still buttloads of applications that are awesome and has to be downloaded. Here is a short list of some of them, random order or semi prioritized if you like:
Notes I've sent to HTC on Android and HTC Hero
There are many small things to note on the android. And I've collected them and emailed them to HTC. Here they are reproduced for you:
And:
Conclusion
The way the Dalvik VM works (not running java byte code) has made the Java operating system and the HTC Android phone Hero a winner in my eyes. Despite many issues and some flaws it's a promise of excellence to come and brilliance that's already here. That it has flash and is open, are two things that iPhone isn't. The way Spottify is on the two clearly demonstrates it, and makes it plain to me that Android is right the right way to do it. Android phone wise is HTC Hero is the particular implementation with it's widgets and HTC Sense that brings it together in the most user friendly way.
About the HTC Hero
HTC Hero is an Android phone, using Googles open source operating system for smart phones. What one needs to know about the Hero and Android is that HTC has enhanced Android or "skinned it" if you like with something they call HTC Sense. To make a long story short, HTC has added more home screens to Hero and multi touch.
HTC Sense
The slightly longer story is that Sense is marketed by HTC under three slogans "Make it mine", "Stay close" and "Discover the unexpected". What this in turns means is that HTC deliveres the Hero with spesific widget they call "HTC Widget" which integrates the phone with social media online (such as Facebook, twitter and Flickr) and makes the phones content much more readily available (messages, emails, contacts, calendar, etc).
The Techy Specs
The HTC Hero is well featured in terms of functions, the hardware that makes it awailable to you is:
- Processor[list:24xhx1rr]
- Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Operating System
- Android™[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Memory
- ROM: 512 MB[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- RAM: 288 MB[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Dimensions (LxWxT)
- 112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm ( 4.41 x 2.21 x 0.57 inches)[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Weight
- 135 grams ( 4.76 ounces) with battery[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Display
- 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320x480 HVGA resolution[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Network
- HSPA/WCDMA: [list:24xhx1rr]
- 900/2100 MHz[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds [/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*] Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
- 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.) [/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Device Control
- Trackball with Enter button[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]GPS
- Internal GPS antenna[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Connectivity
- Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- 3.5 mm audio jack[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Camera
- 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Audio supported formats
- MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media® Audio 9[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Video supported formats
- MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media® Video 9[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Battery
- Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Capacity: 1350 mAh [/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Talk time: [list:24xhx1rr]
- Up to 420 minutes for WCDMA[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Up to 470 minutes for GSM [/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*] Standby time:
- Up to 750 hours for WCDMA[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Up to 440 hours for GSM [/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*] (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)[/*:m:24xhx1rr][/list:u:24xhx1rr][/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Expansion Slot
- microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]AC Adapter
- Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- DC output: 5V and 1A[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Special Features
- G-sensor[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Digital Compass[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
[*]Protective Coating
- Treated with a layer of polytetrafluoroethylene[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- This feature only applies to the white colored HTC Hero.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- The back cover of your phone has been treated with a special coating to help keep it looking new and clean. Keep your phone dry to reduce the chances of dirt adhering to the finish. If the back of your phone gets dirty, remove the back cover in accordance with the instructions in the user manual and use a lightly dampened melamine foam eraser (aka. magic eraser) to remove any marks. After thoroughly drying the back cover, replace it on the phone.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
Initial setup
My company owns my phone number and mobile subscription, and since Norways largest phone operator (Telenor) owns 51% of the company I work for, it's no big surprise that my phone subscription is Telenor.
What was a surprise to me was that the HTC Hero was supplied with the wrong default settings for Telenor when I got the phone, so getting past the initial preference screens after first power on was surprisingly hard. Not until I had talked with Telenor customer support on my old phone, getting the right APN settings etc could I get online with the phone so that it coulg get hold of my google details and let me use the phone. If this was a user error on my part, or a flaw in the user experience design of the setup procedures of Android or the HTC Hero I don't know. Either way it was not good.
My daily use
My daily use starts early in the morning with my Hero. It rings an alarm in the morning waking me up. The alarm application has a slick and nice GUI and has all the functions you'd expect. It can have regular alarms, several of them and ad-hoc alarms. The application is somewhat slow to load at first, but when it's loaded it runs fine.
Then after having getting myself together I surf AmiBay.com and national newspapers, and when I leave the house I listen to Spottify on Android. During the day I get emails, messages and calls. I reply to them and make some of my own while I very occationally also tweet.
When I get home I sometimes play games on the phone while I watch a TV show on my MacMini with my girlfriend. So except the hours while I'm at work, the phone is in more or less constant activity from I get up until I get to bed at midnight.
My occational use
Occationally I also use the GPS in the weekends if I'm heading to somewhere I don't know. It could be a shop or a theatere. Also the camera for taking an "in the moment picture" or authoring an MMS to friends or family to document my own or others folly.
The screen
The screens seems huge on this slim and tight device. It's also bright and clear. Now it's touted by HTC to be a clean and nice screen coated to not let stuff stick to it. I dunno if I'm particularly greasy or dirty. But fingermarks do stick to it. Not so much as it does on say my PSP or other phone screens I've seen. But it's not a huge difference on the HTC. The stuff you need to see on it though, pictures, movies, programs etc is brilliant.
Input
The phone has five keys and one multidirectional trackball. The key next to the trackball is a two action key. In addition to the keys the phone is multitouch due to HTC Sense.
First off, the trackball is fantastic but utterly useless. It's fantastic because it feels so amazingly precise. And it feels robust. There are tiny tiny vibrations from the machanics of it when you use it, which gives you a clear idea that there is traction and that it works. The reason to why it's useless is that I have yet to come accross an application that needs it or even uses it much. So it's a hardware feature of the phone much unused.
The other buttons behaves much as you would expect to and navigating the device with your fingers on the screen is very satisfying and typing on the onscreen virtual keyboard that will work in both landscape mode and portrait mode is made tactile by using the phones vibrator everytime you hin an onscreen key.
What needs to be brought up here is the odd implementation of the T9 dictionary of the phone. Words that the T9 predicts are shown in boxes above the input field where you are typing, and the suggestion it will use is highlighted in green. Seems okay on paper? Well it's not in practical use. The thing is that while typing you are looking at the word you are writing in the input field, and as soon as you write the next word you move your eyes onto that word. This means that very often the phone will corrupt your message without you knowing it. Worst is that even though the word you wrote was in the T9 dictionary, the phone deemed it more likely that you were writing something else and still replaced it. This is most noticeable in my messages where in Norwegian it will often say "Før" (before) instead of "For" (for) in my messages. Also, before I added "hehe" to my custom dictionary my messages were full of references to "Heidi". I don't know any Heidi (at least not anymore
)Experienced battery time
The battey time on the Hero seems okay on paper. And it is so too. My phone is put on the charger every night when I go to bed. And taken off charger when I wake up. Usually some time around 2330 every night the battery icon turns angry red and shouts the 15% alarm at me. On the occational days when I've used the GPS a lot, or surfed more than usual I get the 15% alaram much earlier in the evening. Say somewhere between 18 and 20.
Twice I have experienced to get a black screen due to flat battery. The first time was at the hospital when my mom was here in Oslo. It was a day with intensive phone activity, atleast 4 hours and heavy searching on the web the whole day looking up law texts, phone numbers and government contacts.
The other time was after having forgotten to close Spottify after arriving at work. It seems that even though Spottify idles (music is stopped and application sent to background) it'll eat up your battery as spicy tomato soup in no time.
Android Market
One of the things you really has to love about the Android phone is Android Market. It doesn't need much explaining I would think as most people know about App Store from Apple, and can from that divine what Google is trying to accomplish. I'm saying trying as there is still some ground to cover for Google until they can really challenge Apple. Most talked about is the visibility of good apps in Android and lack of screen shots and too short texts explaining the applications. These are issues addressed by Google in the latest update, but it hasn't reached all users yet or the HTC Hero, even though much else of the 1.6 update seems to have reached the Hero.
My biggest gripe with the Android Market is Googles inability to timely implement paid apps in the nordic region. Or spesifically in Norway. There are atleast 5 apps, if not 10 that I'd love to buy if I could, but I can't so my monies and I will not part yet.
However there are still buttloads of applications that are awesome and has to be downloaded. Here is a short list of some of them, random order or semi prioritized if you like:
- Spottify. Requires a subscription to the premium service. Money well spent![/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Barcode scanner. Funny. It actually works with most barcodes. Allthough not the one on the braclett on my moms arm in hospital[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Meebo IM. Best instant messager on Android![/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Robo Defence FREE. Oh why don't we have market in Norway, this one is must have![/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- SCUMM VM!!!!!!!! Need I say more???[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Soltaire. Four card games. Aces![/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Flying Aces Lite. Land planes. Awesome complex and simple.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- TiltMaze[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Bonsai Blast. A+++. I'm hooked[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- VLC Remote[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Bombjor. Burst balls of same colour when they align horizontally or vertically atleast three in a line.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Layar. Cool. Enhance reality with geotagged data from the internet.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Chain Explosion! Fun, but only the demo is available in Norway :-([/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Currency. Don't need much explaining. This one is called FX Currency and is the best one I found.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Digital Clock. Alarm clock. More trust worthy than the build in Alarm application.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Metal detector. Fun, use the compass to detect metal. Freak out your friends.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- Tricorder. An actual star trek tricorder app![/*:m:24xhx1rr]
Notes I've sent to HTC on Android and HTC Hero
There are many small things to note on the android. And I've collected them and emailed them to HTC. Here they are reproduced for you:
- BUG - While using search in the browser in landscape mode, the window is jumping.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- BUG - If you remove headphones while an incomming call is ringing, and you answer the call. You will not get any sound.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- FEATURE - T9 dictionary should show in the input field what it's going to fill in for you.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- BUG - T9 should not override your text if what you write is valid. Ex “Før” when writing “For”.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- FEATURE - When completely silent is selected, apps should be forced to be silent too.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- BUG - Sometimes messages in conversations are shown in the wrong order.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- FEATURE - Which volume setting controls alarms. Often alarms will not ring, it also seems like the built in alarm application simply doesn't wake up some times.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- FEATURE - Why cannot “Peep” (twitter client) use # favs?[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- FEATURE - Why is the browser so slow to reload pages when you co back?[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- FEATURE - Please give us a widget which allows direct input of URLS[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- FEATURE - Bookmark widget does't support ordering of bookmarks the same way browser does.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- FEATURE - Bluetooth support for exchanging files and contacts is missing.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- BUG/FEATURE - More video formats. Often only the sound and few first seconds of a WMV file will play.[/*:m:24xhx1rr]
- FEATURE - HTC must lean hard on Google to bring paid apps to Norway![/*:m:24xhx1rr]
And:
arnljot said:
Conclusion
The way the Dalvik VM works (not running java byte code) has made the Java operating system and the HTC Android phone Hero a winner in my eyes. Despite many issues and some flaws it's a promise of excellence to come and brilliance that's already here. That it has flash and is open, are two things that iPhone isn't. The way Spottify is on the two clearly demonstrates it, and makes it plain to me that Android is right the right way to do it. Android phone wise is HTC Hero is the particular implementation with it's widgets and HTC Sense that brings it together in the most user friendly way.
