At last the phone we've been waiting for has finally arrived. The HTC Hero (advertised as the HTC Hero Graphite by Orange and G2 Touch by T-Mobile) has emerged blinking into the light, complete with the new Sense UI, to unleash a smackdown on the iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre. Android upgraded, this is the most powerful Google OS phone yet.
UPDATE: We've installed the new firmware on the HTC Hero, and it promises to fix a lot of the problems we've spoken about in the review. Check out our updated findings to see if it makes the step up.
If there's one thing you can say about HTC it's that when it announces a phone, the launch is typically not that far behind, and it's achieved that with the Hero, coming weeks after the announcement, in a similar way to the HTC Magic, its second Android phone.
It's not actually a Google phone as such, as it's not branded and co-designed by the big G. But it still has all the Android hallmarks, and then adds a whole new dimension with the Sense UI from HTC.
In the UK, T-Mobile is set to re-badge the HTC Hero as the T-Mobile G2 Touch, but don't worry, it's still the Hero. It's just T-Mobile renaming it for their own promotional purposes.
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The overall look of the device is a bit Marmite-esque. The jutting lip and functional appearance certainly won't see it winning any style awards, but at the same time it's well laid out and fits comfortably in the hand, with the extra coating on the back making it harder for it to slip to the ground.
The seven buttons on the lip (including trackball) are swiftly becoming recognisable as the 'Android' set, thanks to HTC dominating the OS early on. The power key is again on the Terminate button, which also serves as a sleep button.
This can get a little annoying as the default action for most is to press this to end an application, but you do soon get used to hitting the Home key instead.
We love the fact that Android's use of the menu and search keys will bring up different options in different home screens, meaning the user quickly feels at home even in new and alien applications.
There's no front facing camera on this phone, something that's becoming increasingly popular on today's mobile phones as the public realises video calling is really no fun at all, and mobile networks realise there's more money to be made in mobile broadband than sending moving pictures of someone's face.
The rest of the design is thoroughly minimalist, with only a (rather easy to accidentally hit) up and down key in one single block on the left hand side. This means there's no dedicated camera key - rather you have to click the trackball to take a picture.
In the box
We were given the basic box to review the phone with, so we can't know for sure if we got all the pieces you'd expect from the final retail unit.
However, given how minimalist the contents of the HTC Magic were we can only assume that the same is true for the HTC Hero. There's a USB cable, a connector to turn this into a plug, a UK adaptor, the phone itself and some headphones with music controls/hands free kit. Not the biggest booty in the box, but nice and functional (and fairly well aping what you can find in an iPhone kit too).
The headphones aren't of the best quality, as they're not even in the ear buds, but they do control the music well with the forward and back buttons halfway along, and are a good length.
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buginson
February 16th 2010
3. This was an upgrade from a Windows mobile 6.1 Samsung Omnia for me.
I love the Hero and have now had it for nearly 3 months. I bought it on T-mobile (known as the G2 Touch rather than the HTC hero) and although it had old laggy software on it, this was soon upgraded via the HTC website. It wasn't a difficult thing to do. After the software upgrade the phone now runs nearly flawlessly. HTC, Google and T-mobile should be upgrading the software to Android 2.1 next month (the same as the Nexus One Google phone) So it will be almost like having a new phone, again!
The touch screen is extremely smooth, way better than the Samsung Omnia and matches the iphone in sensitivity. There are seven home screens that you can customise to your hearts content and some really cool HTC widgets built in. Backgrounds, ringtones, message tones are all customisable and you can even have different styles depending on where you are, for instance, a work screen with tools for work, and at a click of a button change the seven screens to fun and games that you have chosen for when you finish work. This makes the phone really powerful on the customisability scene. There is also flickr/facebook and twitter built in. The best part of this phone is the applications you can buy or get for free from the android market. Most apps have lite versions (FREE) and generally the paid ones are no more than 2GBP. Some apps for instance use the GPS and compass built in as a radar. I now know where the local pubs are just by looking at the compass. You can download a metal detector, scan bar-codes of products in shops to find them cheaper on-line, find the local cabs with one click of a button, watch BBC iPlayer, Use Satnav and even point your phone at the sky, day or night, and it will show you, on screen, where the star/planet is and its name. A truly awesome piece of kit! New gadget apps being developed for it all the time! There is also multi touch, much like the IPhone, where you can use two fingers to zoom in on a picture or a webpage, which works a treat but is not at present supported by all the apps that could use it.
The only issues I have had are,
1. Battery life. The battery life was all over the place at first, but after a while I soon found out it was a bug in the software that didn't allow the phone to sleep after I had used it to send a text. This is fixable with an after-market sms program off the android market, and is free. After which the battery life improved greatly. I also purchased a bigger battery for the phone which is twice the size, 3000mAh, that, although added a slight bulge to the back of the phone vastly improved the life under heavy use.
2. Camera. Although the camera is great for taking shots during the day, it is awefull at night. This is due to the lack of a flash of any sort and the 1.5 software at present. At the time the Hero was developed, Android was in its infancy, and at that time the android software didn't know what a flash was, so HTC didn't add one to the phone. Shame really. Not HTC's fault but google for not developing Android more, before it released the brand. Still this can be improved slightly with an app called Camera zoom FX that costs a couple of GBP but helps the situation by giving you options to change brightness and contrast, etc.
3. Bluetooth. This can only be used at present for hands free. The update next month will fix this and allow you to receive and send files via Bluetooth thank goodness!
Good points.
1.Smooth screen (after update)
2.The amount of free apps you can get for it.
3.Decent (daytime) camera.
4.Customisable home screen widgets.(make it personal unlike the iPhone)
5.Good web browser built in.
6.HTC weather.
7.Reasonabaly finger friendly (I have fat fingers) No stylus needed.
....................
Bad points.
1.Still running on android 1.5 (This will change in March with update).
2.No way at present to send files via bluetooth (this will change in march 2.1 update).
3.Battery issues (Will be partially fixed in March and worthwhile getting an extended after-market battery).
4.No led or zenon flash for camera. (no good for night shots).
Overall i'm very satisfied with Google and HTC's product here. It gives me more or less what I want in a mobile phone and puts me off the IPhone completely. Unless Apple do something big soon and drop the price of the IPhone, I would personally say that they are going to loose to Android, the way things are going. I feel this phone works better for me than the IPhone at present, but I'm seriously looking forward to the software update next month, when the HTC Hero will be running the latest 2.1 software. (much like upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 in one swoop if you don't understand my meaning)
When I comes to my next upgrade my next phone will be... Another Android phone!! I seriously recommend the brand!
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obertelli
January 27th 2010
2. I had this for a week (as a T-Mobile G2) before sending it back.
Make no bones about it, it IS a gorgeous gadget. Highly intuitive to use with an excellent screen which shrugs of fingerprints thanks to an oleophobic coating.
Mine had none of the delays or lags that the review mentioned. Social networking and full address book integration is pretty well seamless and there were a lot of excellent free apps including some highly addictive games. The SatNav was fast and accurate and even worked in my house, something which my dedicated in car SatNav is incapable of. The battery had to be charged daily, not unusual for a smartphone, but I for one would happily accept a bit of extra bulk in exchange for not having to nervously look for a charging socket at the end of each day.
I was sold the phone on the basis that it had Bluetooth voice dialling, an absolutely vital feature for me which I'm sorry to say new phones increasingly lack. I quickly discovered that the only thing my Bluetooth earpiece could do with this phone is to dial the last called number and answer incoming calls. The hugely annoying lack of an increasingly vital feature, especially one present on every dumbphone I've had for the last seven years is simply unacceptable. It has caused me to immediately return a number of contract phones recently which I was promised had it. The Hero/T-Mobile G2 was different though: it was so good that I was tempted to keep it anyway in the hope of an update to the Android OS.
In the end, it had to go back. T-Mobile and HTC technical staff gave me conflicting advice, but basically the phone is either incapable at the basic hardware level of BT voice dialling or the BT operating stack in Android simply isn't present. The phone ships with Android 1.5; v1.6, 2.0 and 2.1 lack the facility and although it may possibly be implemented in Android 3.0 I can't wait that long. There are no practical workarounds or apps to solve this either: the closest is an app which uses the trackball as a microphone activation button and it's the phone's own microphone which has to initially respond to the voice command. Not good unless you're in the quiet cabin of a Rolls or a Lexus. It's made worse by the fact that in order you use the app the phone has to first be touched to awaken it from sleep mode, so although it is irksome and clumsy it's also a totally illegal way to voice dial in those places where legislation forbids the driver to touch the phone whilst driving.
There was one other matter which was the final nail in the coffin: I am a very heavy texter, I exchange jokes with around thirty people four to five times daily and each text is around three standard SMS in length. This phone doesn't like that...As a "benefit" to the user it automatically converts anything longer than two SMS into a single MMS. That's fine if you pay to send texts as one MMS can cost the same or less than three SMS, but my plan included unlimited free SMS so the "benefit" was going to cost me far more than my monthly contract value. There is absolutely no way to override this, and I've since sent back an HTC Magic which plays the same revenue generating sneaky trick on the user. SMS cost network carriers virtually nothing, but they certainly make sure that all-inclusive contracts charge extra for them so there is already a decent profit from them.
On other matters, the camera IS rubbish, but I expected that as it's the same on every HTC phone which I've owned. To be fair, other phones may have better cameras, but it's all relative as even the Sony Satio with it's much-heralded 12MP camera still takes truly awful photos compared to my five year old 5MP digital compact. The phone is good enough for taking snaps at a suitable resolution to send to friends and social networking sites, and that's all any phone needs. Would have been nice for HTC to break old habits and at least include an LED "flash" though.
On balance, if you don't need Bluetooth voice dialling (nor Bluetooth file transfer), don't need to send long SMS regularly to lots of users, and are happy to use the in built camera as intended but only in brightly lit environments then this phone is for you. It's absolutely the closest to an iPhone killer that I've ever used and if the design had paid closer attention to the two main points which I have mentioned then it would have torpedoed the good ship iPhone. To use another nautical analogy, HTC have spoiled the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar...
Despite it's serious failings for me, it's the only phone which I've genuinely missed after returning it.
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murrydroid
December 15th 2009
1. I upgraded from a Sony C902, and found an unlocked phone available on Orange and Vodafone through carphonewarehouse stores.
After searching around for a smartphone and not wanting an iPhone, i went for the HTC Hero over the others from HTC, and am loving it.
It does everything i need it to do. It syncs excellently with my google apps and i especially like the facebook integration with my contacts list.
I like the UI, much better than the iPhone, and i havent had the lag that other people mention, tho i have the 1.5 firmware and the updated ROM, (and the Hero will be getting Android 2.1 soon, cant wait)
the camera isn't the best, but then the pics on my Sony c902 were never as great as the ads would let you believe, and the flash on there was useless, usually missing the event i was taking anyway.
It may not be the iPhone beater to some, it is to me, but it beats other smartphones and the blackberrys easily.
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