Review: Sprint HTC Hero

Great reviews here. I upgraded from a Blackberry and for the first two weeks I did my very best not to really hate this phone. Forget the features. Yhey are great. Can't deny Googleworld and Android. No question. It's the little things that seemed to be a big disappointment. Starting with the touchscreen keyboard. Even at the expanded view you would have to have the fingers of an infant to accurately text anything on this keyboard. I have slightly larger hands and I can't find an edge of my finger small enough not to hit nine keys at once. A feature exists to intelligently guess what word you want, but the keys that reside along the edge of the phone are the hardest to reach. A real pain in the arse. Now the most important feature I need in a phone. Bluetooth. If I'm the only one having this problem, someone please speak up. But I have the most expensive S9-HD Motoroloa stereo bluetooth headphones and this phone just does not like them at all. To activate the headset on any phone I have ever owned, all I had to do was turn it on and BANG, I had sound. Not with the Hero. I have to go through a litany of on/off/ shut down, reboot and every which way to finally get it to turn on. Turn it on..the sounds goes off. Turn it off and it searches for the phone. A real pain. I love all the other funtions, the phone is great, email, text, IM everything at the touch of a button. Still trying hard not to hate this phone. Oh, please no suggestions to bring it back. Been there. done that. Second one in 18 days, still no bluetooth. I'm planning on hiring a 18 month old secretary to do my texting for me, though.

Got my HTC Hero yesterday at Best Buy and didnt even Pre order it. I traded in my Instinct HD for it. So at my best buy I was the first HD sold, first one returned then the first Hero out the door.

Its my first android phone and it blows the instinct out of the water in basically everything except for the camera, but I'm not buying a phone as my primary camera anyways.

There is no lag, it just transitions so smoothly, downloading apps is a breeze, setting up the phone is super easy and I'm not to tech savy.

The only I have to say is the keyboard is smaller on the Hero than the HD, but I like the feedback and word prompts on the hero, so in time I will adjust quickly. Also BB was not able to transfer my contacts over for some reason so I had to do it manually. I also like that you can link your facebook friends profiles to their contact. My wifes pre does this but its an all or nothing or at least thats the only way we could do it. This one you can take each friend and link it only if you want.

Overall I am very happy with the phone and looking forward to learning alot more about it.

Oh one more thing I did not get a Micro SD card adapter with mine. Did anyone else? Share your thoughts at http://www.HTC-Hero.com a dedicated site for HTC Hero. Take Care!

Great reviews. I would really like to know how the Hero plays videos from the SD card. Does it do as good a job as the iPhone or the iTouch? I plan to get this when it comes to Verizon next month.

Great Review Dave! It looks super hip, especially for midlevel technophiles who are good with customizing and playing with devices. Do you think the ease of use is to the level of accessiblity for "the masses"? I think that's the advantage that the iPhone has had for so long. Has the Hero surpassed the iPhone in ease of use?

Great vids David. I'm seriously considering ditching my Instinct for this handset. So much potential.

More Please! The more video's you can post the better. Until Oct 11th and BestBuy calls me with my pre-sale phone I have to love vicariously through you and your wonderful posts... I feel like a crack addict... need more!

Wow lot's of unboxings lately. Now lets start seeing some REVIEWS!!! :-)

hi dave. can you tell us how the integrated buttons are on the device such as the menu, home, search, and back button?

i have the diamond and it's terrible in terms of the buttons and accuracy.

An android convert!!!! YAY!!! lol Welcome to the dark side David!