Review: HTC Hero It Is

Yes, I upgraded my phone, and I went with the HTC Hero (via Sprint). Here is Gizmodo’s take on the Hero. I am having a TON of fun with this thing. Let me try and break this thing down in a semi-organized fashion:

1. The Hardware: Physically, it looks like a typical touchscreen phone. As mentioned in the Giz article, they got rid of the ‘chin’ HTC is known for when bringing the phone to the US. I don’t honestly care about that, but there you go. The screen does show some smudges, but you can’t tell when the screen is on, so no biggie to me. And that screen – videos look great, text is sharp and readable down to very small sizes, it’s great.
2. The Software: It’s currently running Android 1.5, but HTC let it be known that Android 2.0 is forthcoming, as soon as they port the SenseUI over. That, by the way, is beautiful. It looks modern, and the seven screens you have or widgets and buttons come in very handy. Heck, I could use MORE.
3. The Speed: This was a concern with the European version, but I can confirm it’s not here – apart from a few isolated times (usually when doing something really intensive like watching a movie while goofing with the screen a lot) things are snappy. Remains to be seen how well it works with 2.0, though.
4. The Keyboard: Okay, it doesn’t have a real one, just a virtual one. And you know what? I don’t care. That was my biggest concern, but I am doing pretty good with the VK. Just let the autocomplete help you, it’s pretty darn smart.

Is there anything I don’t like? It’s a bit clunky to find the speakerphone while I’m on the phone, but part of that was me jumping right in before I read the book. ;) I wish the battery lasted longer, but I am fixing that up a bit – more to come on that. I’m going to do a seperate post on the apps I’m using. If you have any questions about the Hero or Android in general, comment away – I may take them and answer in that next post though, FYI.