HTC Hero Andorid Review | Specs

HTC Hero Andorid

Design wise, the HTC Hero brings even more style to the Android family. Breaking with the full QWERTY heritage but keeping the trademark angled chin, the Hero continues the tradition of slim full-touch phones much along the lines of HTC Magic that we also recently reviewed.

But today's story is a Hero's tale, and you can bet we've got one here to inspect. Let's kick it off with a rundown of the key specs and the main letdowns that we've found so far.

Key features:

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
3G with HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps
Heavily customized (in both graphics and performance) Android OS v1.5 (Sense UI)
3.2" capacitive touchscreen of HVGA resolution
Qualcomm MSM 7201A 528 MHz CPU, 288 MB RAM
5 megapixel autofocus camera with video recording
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and GPS receiver
Trackball navigation
Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and turn-to-mute
Digital compass for automatic navigation of maps
Multi-touch zooming in gallery and web browser
Standard miniUSB port for charging and data
Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP)
microSD card slot with support for up to 8GB cards (2GB one included)
Standard 3.5mm audio jack
Direct access to the official Android repository
Web browser comes with full Flash support
Smart dialing
Tethering support right out-of-the-box

HTC Hero Android

Verdict

Pros:	3.2" capacitive touchscreen of HVGA resolution 5 megapixel autofocus camera with video recording Trackball navigation 2GB microSD Card included
Cons:	No Divx or Xvid Support,No TV-out port 15fps video recording is below par Poor MP4 playback
Outline	It's nonetheless the best HTC and Andorid OS have churned out to date.

HTC Hero Android Specs:-

2GNetwork---------->GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

3GNetwork---------->HSDPA 900 / 2100

Available------------>Available. Released 2009, July

OS------------------->Android OS, v1.5 (Cupcake)

CPU----------------->Qualcomm MSM 7200A 528 MHz processor

Dimensions-------->112 x 56.2 x 14.4 mm

Weight-------------->135 g

Display-------------->TFT capacitive touchscreen, 65K colors
Size----------------->320 x 480 pixels, 3.2 inches
Internal------------->288 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM

Cardslot------------->microSD (TransFlash), up to 8GB

WLAN--------------->Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g,

Java---------------->via Third party Application
Camera------------->5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus

Secondary---------->No

Video--------------->Yes, CIF@15fps
Bluetooth----------->Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infraredport-------->No
AudioJack---------->3.5 mm audio jack
USB----------------->mini USB v2.0
Battery------------->Li-Ion 1350 mAh

Stand-by----------->Up to 440 h (2G) / Up to 750 h (3G)

Talktime----------->Up to 8 h (2G) / Up to 7 h (3G)

Price --------------->670 USD approx

Reviews

HTC and their Hero are finally bringing the fledgling new Android OS up to speed and up to par. Not that a Hero is badly needed to save the day for either HTC or the Android OS, but inspiration is always welcome. Having made their name in Windows Mobile, HTC probably most appreciate the creative break from the Microsoft mobile OS that's become a habit (and a curse) for them. It would be too much to call it a plan B, but after all business is propelled by competition - even if it's household.

Design

The Hero is an attractive handset. Without the chin and sporting rounded corners, the smartphone has a smoother, streamlined look. It's also quite compact at 4.46 inches tall by 2.2 inches wide by 0.54 inch thick and weighs 4.5 ounces. It fits nicely in the palm of your hand and even though it shares a similar shape to the MyTouch 3G, the build quality of the Hero is much better. It doesn't feel slick or plasticky, thanks to the soft-touch finish throughout the body of the phone as well as the brushed metal plate just under the front display.

Touch screen
Speaking of the display, the HTC Hero features a 3.2-inch, 480x320 capacitive touch screen, which isn't any different than the others and still shows images and text beautifully. A built-in light sensor automatically adjusts the display's brightness so you can read the display no matter what environment you're in, but like many others, the screen tends to wash out in bright sunlight.

There's also a built-in accelerometer that automatically changes the screen orientation from portrait to landscape mode when you rotate the phone, but be aware that it only works in certain applications, such as e-mail, photos, and the Web browser. There's a slight pause during the transition, but there were never any significant delays, and the screen never froze during the transition while we had it for review.

Keypad
For text entry, the HTC Hero features a virtual QWERTY keyboard in both portrait and landscape mode. However, instead of the standard Android keyboard, HTC has swapped it out for its own, which is fine by us. The buttons are larger with more spacing between the keys, and they provide haptic feedback when pressed (you can also turn this feature off).As expected, the keyboard in portrait mode is fairly cramped, and we often had mispresses. Still, more often than not, we resorted to switching to landscape mode to avoid frustration.

Multimedia
The multimedia capabilities of the HTC Hero are largely unchanged from the MyTouch 3G aside from the camera. The Hero gets a nice upgrade to a 5-megapixel lens and offers video recording capabilities and geotagging. To complement the geotagging, HTC offers its Footprints app, which we first saw on the HTC Cruise and enables you to capture the coordinates of where a photo was taken, add voice and text notes, plot them to Google Maps, and export them. It's a nice way to capture moments along a trip or save some of your favorite spots for shopping, dining, and so forth. Other features of the camera include zoom, autofocus, flicker adjustment, ISO settings, effects, and more.

Final words

If you go back to page one of this review, you'd probably be over and over that long list of disadvantages in disbelief. We did but hell… in HTC Hero we still trust. Really, some of them are big enough like the flawed video playback (which seems more of a software issue to us), the poor video recording (anything lower than VGA@30fps hardly cuts it anymore) and the slow file reindexing. And those are just the lame implementations of features that are already there - just don't get us started on MISSING features. But still the HTC Hero is no unlikely hero in our tale, if you would forgive us the pun.

Video Review

source phonearena

HTC Hero Official Page: [LINK]

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