Once you have the HTC Hero in your hands, you can say at first sight this is the first 100% HTC ANDROID project, as one of HTC members said.
In fact it’s the first device delivered by HTC not including the “with Google” logo on his back, what makes the Hero more independent from Google services than was Magic or G1.
GUI
With the introduction of HTC Sense, HTC gives Android their own look and feel, very close to the look and feel of their Windows Mobile devices, but integrating much better with the most basic applications of Android such as calendar, dialer, etc…
HTC Sense makes the device look more elegant than original Android and includes some functional improvements as well. For example, the number of desktop tabs. Pure Android devices as G1 or Magic have only three tabs for placing all your shortcuts and widgets, what becomes insufficient after the first weeks (well… at least for me), but HTC Sense provides up to 7 tabs for placing your favorite shorcuts and widgets.
And there is a lot of widgets to put on! It’s specially remarkable the great widget collection included in HTC Sense. Quantity and quality! Stocks, clocks, calendar, twitter, and more… This is one of my favorite things in HTC Hero.
Hardware
Looking at hardware design, HTC has tried to improve their previous models and to include something new. The most impacting thing is the Teflon layer that is covering all the external surface except for the screen. I really like it. It makes the Hero very comfortable in your hands. And, of course, harder to scratch.
The 3.5 mm audio jack is one of the improvements we expected and here it is. No more problem deciding listening to music or charging your device.
But there are a couple of things I don’t like. The first is the new layout of hard keys, that makes usuability go one step back in my opinion. Specially the ‘Back’ key, that becomes more difficult to use for right-handed people. The second, the curvature in the area of hard keys. I guess the goal was to make more usable the keys, speciallly with only one hand, but I think the only result is that HTC Hero is very uncomfortable when you left it on a table and try to use it with a single hand.
Maybe it’s just a matter of taste.
Software
Talking about productive software, I must confess I was a bit dissapointed with the software shipped with Android (at least on Magic). No PDF viewer, no documents editors, no task manager, … HTC has addressed this issue in some extent shipping on the Hero applications such as QuickOffice, Stocks, Footprints, PDF Viewer, Peep, … This provides a better experience with the device and can make life easier to some users as they won’t need to Android Market for getting some important applications.
A separate mention is deserved for web browser, due to the prominent place it takes in such a connected device. Two very important milestones have been reached with HTC Hero: multitouch and Flash. This allows a much better experience browsing the ‘desktop web’.
Moreover, some other little but yet appropiate improvements in the browser makes the experience better than in the original Android browser. And so it happens with the virtual keyboard, that shows a better performance and usability.
Another interesting point of HTC Hero is the management of social networks, integrated in system settings and in the configuration wizard for initializing setting at first start up. This allows you to manage your Facebook, Twitter or Flickr accounts in a very easy manner.
And last but not least, the mail application shipped with HTC Hero includes Exchange support out of the box.
Other features
Of course, HTC Hero includes all features already available in HTC Magic like A-GPS, compass, YouTube application, accelerometer,… that have become a commodity in this kind of devices.
To sum up here’s a list with pros and cons of HTC Hero, but, better than all I can say, you should look at the video review we posted yesterday.
Pros
- Great widget collection
- Improved virtual keyboard
- Flash support
- Multitouch
- HTC Sense makes GUI more elegant and usable
- New 3.5 mm jack for headphones
- 5.0 megapixels camera
- Exchange support
Cons
- New keys layout
- Curvature makes difficult to use on a table with a single hand
July 30th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Great review! Congratulations!
September 12th, 2009 at 10:21 am
That’s a nice review. Short and sweet. No one actually focuses more on the cons of a device. Its a very usual nature that taking a lot about the pros of something that make the cons silent. I am very much looking forward in getting one of these in my hands and have actually made arrangements for that too. I wanted to know more about the cons of the device. I will buy this what-so-ever because I believe that no device is perfect and HTC Hero is way ahead of others in its class. More focus on cons should help buyers get a better idea about the phone. Anyways, I really appreciate your effort in explaining everything. Thanks!