HTC Hero review

HTC takes aim at the iPhone again - but is the Hero a hit or a miss?

The HTC Hero review
The HTC Hero review

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HTC promised TechRadar it would be making more of an effort with cameras on its phones, and the HTC Hero has come with a 5MP effort, compared to the 3MP snapper stuck to the back of the Magic.

It's often said that more megapixels don't make a better camera in a phone, and that's sorely evident in the HTC Hero. The lack of flash is always going to make it hard to get sharp pictures, but even with good light and the AF working overtime on the camera, even the best efforts came out blurred.

The htc hero camera

There aren't any other picture taking options on there either, so night mode is out of the question, meaning this is strictly a day time camera.

So essentially the only upgrade on offer was more megapixels - and for some reason it seems to have actually made the photographs slightly worse.

See how the HTC Hero compares to the Olympus SP-565UZ

The htc hero

WASHED OUT: Colours on the HTC Hero look pale and lifeless compared to the Olympus

The htc hero

The htc hero

NOT SO BRIGHT: The cloudy sky and landscape aren't clearly defined with the HTC Hero's camera

The htc hero

The htc hero

INDOOR PROBLEMS: Pictures taken indoors suffer horribly from leaking light and give poor colour reproduction

The htc hero

The video camera is a bit 'standard mobile' as it only records in 352 x 288 resolution, which is far below the iPhone 3GS' VGA 30fps effort. The footage is of average quality, and it's certainly not enough to make you think this could be you only avenue for shooting footage when out and about.

It also takes a few seconds for the video to fire up, meaning that whatever you're looking to catch on camera might have already gone by the time you've taken the phone into camcorder mode and then focused and THEN started recording.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.