HTC Hero

Amalgam · 30-06-2009 7:15pm

This link was squirelled away in Engadget comments:

€459

http://www.loveno.be/nieuws/1110

Seems to be unlocked. (the phone has to be sold 'open' in Belgium I think)

As mentioned before, wish it didn't have the 'chin'. The day a totally flat Android phone comes out, I'm sold.

Professey Chin · 30-06-2009 7:17pm

Sundalic wrote: »

Very interested in this phone. Was on for getting an iphone but found out there's only Edge coverage at work and since our work internet was removed mobile internet is pretty important to me.
If I buy a sim free Hero does anyone know if I'll be able to fully set it up on 3? I asked their customer support but they seemed to think I'd only be able to use voice and text and not the internet.

You can fully set it up on 3. Ive a g1 running perfectly on 3 and the exact APN settings are around here for it somewhere

Easy Rider · 30-06-2009 9:18pm

I would be interested in moving to 3 if I get the phone.

So if I go for this price plane:

http://www.three.ie/priceplans/relax90.htm

And this add on (the Mobile broadband 10gb usage)

http://www.three.ie/priceplans/paymonthly_addons.htm

Does the 'mobile broadband' mean I can surf on my phone (not use it as my modem for a laptop for example) and the total would be 40 euro's?

Professey Chin · 30-06-2009 9:32pm

Easy Rider wrote: »

I would be interested in moving to 3 if I get the phone.

So if I go for this price plane:

http://www.three.ie/priceplans/relax90.htm

And this add on (the Mobile broadband 10gb usage)

http://www.three.ie/priceplans/paymonthly_addons.htm

Does the 'mobile broadband' mean I can surf on my phone (not use it as my modem for a laptop for example) and the total would be 40 euro's?

Yep with that add-on you can surf on your phone or tether it for use with your laptop. Same one I use

Easy Rider · 30-06-2009 11:36pm

Ultimate Chin wrote: »

Yep with that add-on you can surf on your phone or tether it for use with your laptop. Same one I use

Sweet...I pay 30 euro on Vodafone for next to nothing...plus the ability to use my mobile for my laptop if ever needed...nice...

PH4T · 01-07-2009 8:36am

Easy Rider wrote: »

Sweet...I pay 30 euro on Vodafone for next to nothing...plus the ability to use my mobile for my laptop if ever needed...nice...

Vodafone have a 1GB Add-on for €8.26 +VAT.

You can also thether your mobile with your laptop. I use it all the time with my Nokia N95 and Eee PC.

Brian Griffin · 01-07-2009 9:21am

Anyone know when an English or irish site will have colours other then white?

Easy Rider · 01-07-2009 10:53am

PH4T wrote: »

Vodafone have a 1GB Add-on for €8.26 +VAT.

You can also thether your mobile with your laptop. I use it all the time with my Nokia N95 and Eee PC.

Yeah, 1 GB, so I would pay 38 euro or pay 2 euro more for 10gb broadband.

Sundalic · 02-07-2009 12:05am

Brian Griffin wrote: »

Anyone know when an English or irish site will have colours other then white?

That's what I'm waiting to see too.

bren32 · 03-07-2009 12:31pm

Really like this phone. Does anyone know what the resolution/format video recording Android handsets are capable of?

lafors · 07-07-2009 4:58am

Mobile-Review have their review of the Hero up.
They seem to like it even though theirs was an engineering sample.

Here

Mr E · 13-07-2009 1:53pm

Thanks for the review link, lafors. They're hard to come by!

I've been watching this phone with interest for the last fortnight, and I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get it. Expansys are now listing it as having a July 20th release date (next Monday). Hopefully a couple more reviews pop up this week to completely convince me!

Dingatron · 13-07-2009 3:15pm

Good video review here. Seven days with the Hero. I think I'll ordering one in a few weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wELCCUchWhc

Easy Rider · 13-07-2009 3:49pm

Review here too, five stars http://stuff.tv/Review/HTC-Hero-review/

Mr E · 16-07-2009 10:20am

Looks like the Hero has been pushed back to August.
Expansys are saying August 1st, Amazon are saying August 15th.

http://www.expansys.ie/d.aspx?i=185805
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002BWPWRQ

Get0fix · 20-07-2009 10:49am

Reviews are looking good. Will have to see what people say once it gets released.
Any word on which Irish carrier might pick up this device?

Dingatron · 23-07-2009 2:10pm

First not so good review

http://gizmodo.com/5318860/htc-hero-review-ambitious-but-tragically-flawed

Hummm....

mobius42 · 23-07-2009 2:34pm

Dingatron wrote: »

First not so good review

http://gizmodo.com/5318860/htc-hero-review-ambitious-but-tragically-flawed

Hummm....

They only really faulted it for its poor performance (which I suspected considering its processor). That being said, I've seen numerous videos of this online and it didn't look any slower than my iPhone 3G. Maybe it compares badly with the 3GS' processor.

Mr E · 23-07-2009 2:36pm

Interesting to hear both sides of the story, Dingatron. Thanks for the link.

Pity the comments turned into "Apple iPhone vs. the World", but there was one interesting gem in the middle of the fanboism:

I found that the HTC Hero stores a swap file on the MicroSDSH Card (swapinfo.txt)...

I first used my Hero with a Class 4 card and it did have a bit of sluggish feel to it when closing out applications and then quickly opening another. (The 2GB MicroSD card that comes with the Hero was only a Class4)

But then I switched to a Class 6 card and the sluggishness seemed to just vanish!

Everything worked just great and as expected

mobius42 · 23-07-2009 4:08pm

Mr E wrote: »

Pity the comments turned into "Apple iPhone vs. the World", but there was one interesting gem in the middle of the fanboism:

This iPhone vs everything attitude is starting to annoy me. Every phone is compared to it and if a phone doesn't beat the iPhone in every way, it's deemed a failure. I understand that these phones are competing with the iPhone but they treat the iPhone as what all other phones should strive to be and I don't think that's a good metric.

Mr E · 23-07-2009 4:11pm

I see it launched on Orange in the UK today. Can't be long now until general release...

Monster 13 page review now up on TechRadar. Largely positive, but speed and camera issues popped up again.

mobius42 · 23-07-2009 8:17pm

The Engadget review is up,

http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/23/htc-hero-review/

IMO, a much better review than Gizmodo's; much more thorough. It seems that HTC should have bumped up the specs of the Hero to make it a better experience. Flash is unusable too, which is a shame.

However, I feel that if you went easy on the widgets it wouldn't be too bad and it's still the best Android phone on the market. For €500 though, I'd like to feel that I wouldn't have to restrict my usage due to lack of processing power.

Professey Chin · 23-07-2009 9:16pm

mobius42 wrote: »

This iPhone vs everything attitude is starting to annoy me. Every phone is compared to it and if a phone doesn't beat the iPhone in every way, it's deemed a failure. I understand that these phones are competing with the iPhone but they treat the iPhone as what all other phones should strive to be and I don't think that's a good metric.

Thank you!!!
My thoughts exactly

Mr E · 23-07-2009 11:18pm

The positive/negative reviews seem pretty split, its hard to know who is right.

One thing I have noticed though is a very active custom ROM scene (people tweaking files for speed). One group (google for JAChero) have the hero interface up and running on a G1. I'm still optimistic about this phone, but it might take some under-the-hood tinkering to 'fix' it.

toomuchfreetime · 24-07-2009 12:38am

Ah man i was all set to buy this phone. until i read the review
on engadget. bhlaaa. She is a beauty to look at but she is very old under the
hood if you don't mind the analogy of the phone.

Well after reading it and looking at the videos, i bite the bullet and bought a samsung i8910 from ebay coming from hong knog €470 delivered to the door. The htc wasn't up to it in the end and as the reviewer said the architecture should have been updated along the same line as the software.

Professey Chin · 24-07-2009 1:11am

Mr E wrote: »

The positive/negative reviews seem pretty split, its hard to know who is right.

One thing I have noticed though is a very active custom ROM scene (people tweaking files for speed). One group (google for JAChero) have the hero interface up and running on a G1. I'm still optimistic about this phone, but it might take some under-the-hood tinkering to 'fix' it.

I had the hero rom running on my G1 for a few hours.Slightly sluggish but impressive nonetheless.Preferred the cyanogen rom.Looks stock but its perfect

Jamie32 · 24-07-2009 11:39am

toomuchfreetime wrote: »

Ah man i was all set to buy this phone. until i read the review
on engadget. bhlaaa. She is a beauty to look at but she is very old under the
hood if you don't mind the analogy of the phone.

Well after reading it and looking at the videos, i bite the bullet and bought a samsung i8910 from ebay coming from hong knog €470 delivered to the door. The htc wasn't up to it in the end and as the reviewer said the architecture should have been updated along the same line as the software.

Well it's D Day for me! I will be ordering a smartphone tonight. Expansys can't confirm what date it will be available which is fcuking ridiculous because when they start that hearsay **** who knows how long it will drag on! They won't put it in writing either as i have sent them 2 emails in the last week, I've had to call them to get the ETA. I will be placing a "his and hers" order though and due to a nice loophole in the tax system and my own personal situation, i'll be getting them both delivered to my door with Expansys.ie for 405 euro a piece...happy days and terrific value I say
So despite any negative and positive reviews i'll be going for it, I just hope it becomes available when they they say it will. On a seperate note i'm going to be ordering a new SD card with more memory than what they supply with the device. Any suggestions of where to order same, what memory size card and what class? Amazon? Class 6? 8 or 16GB? Don't really think i'd need 32GB do you?

Mr E · 24-07-2009 12:01pm

Based on my earlier post (see post #50 in this thread), it seems a class 6 makes a speed difference to the phone (it comes with a 2gb class 4 card).

As for size, its up to you.... what do you want to do with the phone? Play music? Use GPS? Do you see youself downloading lots of apps from the Android store? Or just use the social networking bits and make old fashioned phone calls?

PH4T · 24-07-2009 12:24pm

toomuchfreetime wrote: »

Ah man i was all set to buy this phone. until i read the review
on engadget. bhlaaa. She is a beauty to look at but she is very old under the
hood if you don't mind the analogy of the phone.

Well after reading it and looking at the videos, i bite the bullet and bought a samsung i8910 from ebay coming from hong knog €470 delivered to the door. The htc wasn't up to it in the end and as the reviewer said the architecture should have been updated along the same line as the software.

Same here, and that was after giving up on the N97 earlier just to it's poxy OS. Looks like I'll just have to bite the buller and get an iPhone 3GS as no one seems to be able to match Apple's OS right now.

Jamie32 · 24-07-2009 12:49pm

Mr E wrote: »

Based on my earlier post (see post #50 in this thread), it seems a class 6 makes a speed difference to the phone (it comes with a 2gb class 4 card).

As for size, its up to you.... what do you want to do with the phone? Play music? Use GPS? Do you see youself downloading lots of apps from the Android store? Or just use the social networking bits and make old fashioned phone calls?

Thanks for the reply Mr E. I will obviously use it as a phone first of all. Would use the music a fair bit and hopefully some movies as i'll be doing a fair bit of travelling over the next few months along with the web browser (wifi). I will be downloading some apps although not a serious amount. What ya reckon on the size? I think 32GB would be wasted. What i'm wondering is would the 8GB class 6 suffice? Or should I go for the 16? Amazon the best and cheapest place to purchase?

Thanks again for the advice.

HTC Hero

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