HTC Hero or Nokia 5800 ExpressMusic

Dcully

Hi folks im in the market for a decent phone, sick of my ancient bog standard phone
I think ive narrowed my choices down to the HTC Hero and the Nokia 5800 ExpressMusic.
Both are of similar cost and tarriff, ie Hero is metor and the 5800 is Vodafone.
Anyone have and thoughts on which is should opt for?

Finally am i correct in thinking i can connect both to my eircom broadband wireless router for web browsing?
Sorry to be a noob but i truely am a noob with smartphones.

apope8

Hi There Efioanaes

I have a 5800 awhile now and i can honestly say it is the most useless piece of trallop i have ever owned ha harsh but fair! Very buggy. And the os is a nightmare. I am waiting for the nexus one to come out to replace my 5800 so if it was up to me between Symbian (nokia) or Android (Htc hero) i would def go with android. The only good thing about my nokia is that they recently gave free maps and gps for life which is really good. But apart from that i cant really think of anything else i like about the phone.
The nokia 5800 has no problems connecting to my wi fi network at home i am not to sure about the hero. I'd imagine it can connect fine!

Aaron

Bluefoam

Am a huge fan of the hero. Using it since November. Still not bored of the features. It has WiFi so you shouldn't have any problem using a wireless router to access the internerd...

Alanstrainor

The two phones are not in the same league imo. The hero seems to be far superior in almost every way. I've had my 5800 for about a year and it really was buggy, although that has been largely fixed with firmware updates, however i doubt the latest firmware is available for vodafone phones. But the OS is poor, the touch screen isn't the best. For what it is it's an good handset, but the hero wins.

DemoniK

I had 5800 unlocked - never connected to a provider here.
Firmware tended to be buggy sometimes, but generally fixed quite quickly. I believe those provided by vodafone, etc., tend to get upgrades less often.
Connecting to Wifi was pretty easy.
Resistive touch screen though can be a bit painful to use.
The sound is extremely good if you intend to use it as an MP3 player.
Lack of apps, annoying Nokia Music, and other niggles just frustrated the hell out of me.. A potentially great fun let down by a few minor issues.

I since upgraded to the HTC Hero.
Touch screen is way better
Lots of apps, and the Android/Sense UI is a joy to use.
Some minor niggles - e.g. every calendar event beeps, and there is no way to stop it either.
Sound isn't as good as the 5800, but does me for the odd few tunes. Lack of decent software to control the sound output also.

Overall I prefer the Hero. You should go into meteor or similar and get them to show you the 2 phones before you decide

Johnny Storm

I have a 5800 and my wife has a Hero.
There's a steeper learning curve with the Hero. If you're OK with actually RTFM then you'll be OK with it.
In general IMHO any phone with buttons will be better for making and receiving calls than a touchscreen phone.
5800 currently has free navigation. Hero does not. Hero undoubtably has more technical potential for advanced apps but OTOH Nokia has some pretty cool apps available now.
Based on our experiences, the Hero seems slightly buggier than the 5800

nmesisca

RikD wrote: »

I had 5800 unlocked - never connected to a provider here.
Firmware tended to be buggy sometimes, but generally fixed quite quickly. I believe those provided by vodafone, etc., tend to get upgrades less often.
Connecting to Wifi was pretty easy.
Resistive touch screen though can be a bit painful to use.
The sound is extremely good if you intend to use it as an MP3 player.
Lack of apps, annoying Nokia Music, and other niggles just frustrated the hell out of me.. A potentially great fun let down by a few minor issues.

I since upgraded to the HTC Hero.
Touch screen is way better
Lots of apps, and the Android/Sense UI is a joy to use.
Some minor niggles - e.g. every calendar event beeps, and there is no way to stop it either.
Sound isn't as good as the 5800, but does me for the odd few tunes. Lack of decent software to control the sound output also.

Overall I prefer the Hero. You should go into meteor or similar and get them to show you the 2 phones before you decide

I disagree with most thing you say on hero.
sound is as good as the 5800, at least to me. lack of decent software for sound control? I suggest you look better. AudioHack always works.
If you're not rooted do yourself (and your phone) a favour..

Bob_Harris

From looking on ebay the unlocked Hero is nearly double the price of a 5800, so if you can get the Hero at roughly the same price as the 5800 you are doing well (depending on the tariff of course)

I have a 5800, and I find myself using it less and less due to it being a pain in the hole to use. The default web browser and Opera Mobile 10 keep crashing, general usage is sluggish, the touch screen is not bad but not great, and there are no exciting or particularly useful apps.

For me I use it for nothing more than the basic mobile phone functions and as a sat nav (which I rarely need).

If you google "HTC Hero android 2" it seems you can get Android 2.1 on the Hero, which is good news for Hero owners.

Android seems to be the way to go, if I was buying again I'd go with the Hero.

Solair

The Hero and the 5800 are most definitely not in the same league. It's like comparing the 5800 with an iPhone, and the Hero has many features that make the iPhone seem old-fashioned and sluggish.

Advantages of the Hero over the 5800:

1) Way better and more intuitive interface.
2) Far more powerful.
3) Great graphics.
4) Much better apps (more like the iPhone) - the only downside is that the paid apps are still not officially available in Ireland thanks to Google being ridiculously slow about opening up the full Android Market.
5) FAR better email client with the phone.
6) Capacative rather than pressure-sensitive touch screen. It's much nicer to use than the 5800.

... the list is endless.

The only downside is Meteor, their support is terrible and their data network doesn't work properly with the Hero i.e. there are blocked ports or something preventing google sync + various twitter apps working over their 3G network.

They work perfectly over WiFi.

There's also a problem with the Hero dropping off the Meteor 3G network completely and requiring a reboot to connect. It's appears to be a quirk fo the Meteor network and a quirk of the Hero clashing.

Nexus One users are reportedly having similar issues on Meteor too.

If you are getting it, I'd suggest getting it unlocked and using it on Vodafone or O2, at least until we know that Meteor have ironed out their problems.

Dcully

Thanks a lot folks,

If you are getting it, I'd suggest getting it unlocked and using it on Vodafone or O2, at least until we know that Meteor have ironed out their problems

Ok im a noob at this so im guessing unlocked means not locked to any network?
Do retailers sell unlocked phones and do the likes of vodafone offer you a tarriff even if you dint get the phone from them?
Apologies if these are silly questions but as i say im a noob

nmesisca

Efioanaes wrote: »

Thanks a lot folks,



Ok im a noob at this so im guessing unlocked means not locked to any network?
Do retailers sell unlocked phones and do the likes of vodafone offer you a tarriff even if you dint get the phone from them?
Apologies if these are silly questions but as i say im a noob

most of them are already unlocked in ireland. I am not sure about Meteor though. If its not, you can request for it to be unlocked, although they may ask you for 10-15euro for the pleasure :rolleyes:

Solair

As far as I am aware, Meteor's bill pay phones are generally unlocked, but you are subject to a 12 or 18 month contract (depending on your plan). So, they really don't have to bother locking them as you can't leave anyway without paying a large cancellation fee.

So, locking the phone is a bit of a waste of time.

It's handy though as at least you can use your handset with a prepay sim if you're in a country with unfavourable roaming rates.

The HTC Hero on Meteor is also running genuine, unmodified HTC software. Many of the larger networks like to run custom software on phones i.e. horrible branding stuff..

If you buy your Hero on something like Expansys.ie or any of those sites, just make sure it's unlocked "SIM free".

The Hero is an absolutely fanstatic handset though and I couldn't recomend it more.

It's a shame that Meteor hasn't ironed out its network issues though. It's spoiling what is almost an iPhone killer!

There are a couple of negatives to the HTC Hero:

1) You obviously can't sync your locked iTunes music to the phone. However, I am not a big fan of a music player built into your mobile anyway. I prefer to carry a seperate iPod as there's no point in killing your mobile battery.

2) It has no FM radio, similar to the iPhone in that regard. The 5800 however does have a decent FM radio with RDS. Although, it wouldn't exactly clinch the deal for me.

In general I would recomend the HTC Hero on Meteor, but for the time being you're going to be stuck with using it on EDGE (fast 2G connection). You have to turn the 3G off when you're not using it otherwise the phone gets randomly booted off the Meteor network.

It's very annoying, but because the handset is so good, that I would nearly say it's worth the hassle, particularly if you have WiFi at home / in the office.

Quite honestly I couldn't praise the HTC Hero enough.

nmesisca

Solair wrote: »

As far as I am aware, Meteor's bill pay phones are generally unlocked, but you are subject to a 12 or 18 month contract (depending on your plan). So, they really don't have to bother locking them as you can't leave anyway without paying a large cancellation fee.

So, locking the phone is a bit of a waste of time.

It's handy though as at least you can use your handset with a prepay sim if you're in a country with unfavourable roaming rates.

The HTC Hero on Meteor is also running genuine, unmodified HTC software. Many of the larger networks like to run custom software on phones i.e. horrible branding stuff..

If you buy your Hero on something like Expansys.ie or any of those sites, just make sure it's unlocked "SIM free".

The Hero is an absolutely fanstatic handset though and I couldn't recomend it more.

It's a shame that Meteor hasn't ironed out its network issues though. It's spoiling what is almost an iPhone killer!

There are a couple of negatives to the HTC Hero:

1) You obviously can't sync your locked iTunes music to the phone. However, I am not a big fan of a music player built into your mobile anyway. I prefer to carry a seperate iPod as there's no point in killing your mobile battery.

2) It has no FM radio, similar to the iPhone in that regard. The 5800 however does have a decent FM radio with RDS. Although, it wouldn't exactly clinch the deal for me.

In general I would recomend the HTC Hero on Meteor, but for the time being you're going to be stuck with using it on EDGE (fast 2G connection). You have to turn the 3G off when you're not using it otherwise the phone gets randomly booted off the Meteor network.

It's very annoying, but because the handset is so good, that I would nearly say it's worth the hassle, particularly if you have WiFi at home / in the office.

Quite honestly I couldn't praise the HTC Hero enough.

I would argue that point 1 is actually a benefit :rolleyes:

Kintarō Hattori

About 5 months ago I took a Bill Pay upgrade with Meteor and went for the 5800 which cost me €50 or €60. Anywhoo they then took on the Hero but it was incredibly expensive so I wasn't too bothered. Now it's way way cheaper. Is there anyway I can buy the Hero from them cheaply, say moving to a more expensive plan? Or do I just need to wait out the time with the 5800.

fuelinjection

Am very happy with the Nokia 5800. I have tried an iPhone and i get the madness and obsession around it but will not pay the money for it.

If you keep the Nokia up to date (theres a good thread on here about it) then most of the bugs get fixed if you keep up to date with the Nokia firmware.
Nokia has great sound, maps, apps, speakers, youtube, screen is great with latest update. You can buy it unlocked from the Meteor website.

I don't know much about the Hero to be honest, but I read that it is an iPhone competitor.

Bob_Harris

nmesisca wrote: »

I would argue that point 1 is actually a benefit :rolleyes:

Yeah it's hardly a valid "negative" to the Hero. Not everyone is tied into apples way of business anyway :pac: