First 24 hours with the HTC Hero – Review

Available from – http://www.clove.co.uk

Price – £340 + VAT

Following Shaun’s review of the HTC Hero, the temptation was too great. I phoned Clove and at 9am the next day my white HTC Hero arrived. The very first thing I did was put the Hero on charge. The next task was to reformat my 8gb mirco SDHC card with my laptop. However, I actually ended up formatting my laptop’s E drive and deleting all my pics, apps (from palm, windows mobile and symbian) docs, entire music collection and anything else stored on there. The next 3 hours were spent trying to recover what I could. Clearly the HTC Hero was too much of a distraction, so much so I selected the wrong drive to format!

Anyway, with my Hero fully charged, I copied the files from the included 2gb card to my newly formatted 8gb card. I installed my T-Mobile sim and turned on the Hero. Within minutes I was up and running.  In fact the initial setup was a breeze. I logged into my Google account, and all my email, calendar and contacts were effortlessly just on my phone.

Over the course of the last 24 hours I have been experimenting and playing with my new toy. My initial thoughts and findings are as follows:-
Android OS – Wonderful platform and with loads of potential. Gaming is not at the level of the iPhone but the other apps are of reasonable substance in the market place.

Speed – The Hero is fast and I mean fast.  I discovered early on that when you exit the apps via the menu button to go back to the home screen, they are not closed and still running and therefore taking up memory. The cure is to install an app call “TasKiller” free in the Android Marketplace.  Since then, my Hero is super fast, no slow downs at all. I also have found I only need 3 home screens. The main one as per shot above, programs incl tasks, and people and system widgets eg wifi on/off.

Browser – This is much better than anything else I have used. It is very very quick, and of course has flash incorporated.

Integration – HTC have done a great job of integrating the functionality of Android making the whole using experience superb from email, contacts, calendar and social websites.

Data Entry – I use the iPod Touch a lot and I am fast on that. On the Hero I am even quicker. Personally I believe capacitive screens are a must for data entry and are faster than a thumb qwerty keyboard. I have used both and I average over 80 words a minute on a PC, 55 words on a qwerty thumboard and so far 60 words per minute on the Hero.

Software – I have bought Copilot 8 (Live). The installation of maps and software all installed completely over the air using my wi-fi connection. Copilot 8 was only £25. Other freeware installed via the Marketplace app direct on to my device includes Beebplayer (BBC Iplayer unofficial version), Blackjack Free, Compass, Jewellust lite, Magic 8-Ball, Papijump, Papimissile, PktAuctions Ebay, Robo Defense Free, Shazam, ShopSavvy, Google Skymap, Suduko Free, TasKiller, ThrottleCopter, TV Guide Free, Google Voice Search and XGalaga.  All these above are making my Hero even better. And this is only in 24 hours! Google Voice Search is surprisingly accurate BTW.

Battery Life – I have been web browsing with the GPS and Wi-Fi on since 10am this morning. It is 2.45pm as per photo above. Battery life is circa 60% approximately.

Camera – I have not had the time to use this a lot, but I am impressed by the shutter speed and time in between taking shots.

Music – Audio quality is great and having a 3.5mm socket is fantastic.

Summary

I have never been so excited about a new phone. It is fun to use, easy to enter data, and highly useable with great potential.

And thanks to Clove Technology for their great and quick service!

Highly recommended.

Review by Gavin Fabiani-Laymond