Is The HTC Hero Really a Hero?

Price
Reliability
Features
Overall (3.5)

I’ve been using the HTC Hero for a couple months now and am finally ready to give a review on it. I’ve added and deleted apps. I’ve tweaked pretty much every setting I could. I’ve put it in debug mode for some playing. I’ve also had to restart it from scratch a few times due to some excessive tinkering.

What I Like About the HTC Hero

The thing I like about it most is that I was able to finally use a great smartphone on the Sprint network. I know that means nothing to many of you, but I ‘ve been waiting so long for a great  smartphone on Sprint. I’ve been tempted so many times to switch to AT&T and get an iPhone, but I’ve held off because I really wanted a phone with apps on a more open developers platform.

As for real things I like about the HTC Hero, I think I most like that it seems to get good signal strength pretty much everywhere I use it.  This includes some areas of town that are notorious for dropped calls. I have had 1 dropped call in 2 months, and that is something I am pleased with.

The phone itself is nice and sturdy. I’ve been worried that the trackball might become loose feeling, but I have not experienced that at all. The camera, a 5 megapixel camera does an adequate job for a camera that has no optical zoom. Digital zoom leads to pixelation, but that is expected no matter which device you use. The camera does an adequate job in video mode as well.

The OS is obviously Android based, and some features I would like are locked down.  I think though that as more people use Android devices, the networks will have no option except to open more features.

You should note that if you want to tether the HTC Hero to your PC and you are on the Sprint network you will need a workaround.  Tethering, while talked about in the manual, does not work on Sprint without rooting the device or installing some clever software (PDANet for Android — review will be live shortly).

The only real downside I would prescribe to this phone is that the battery needs to be charged daily. For those of you with iPhones this may seem like a no brainer. For those of you using standard cell phones though, this may be a big change in mindset. I charge mine overnight every night, and it needs it. Of course that may be because I use it a lot, but I think if you get one, you will use it more than you  expect as well.

Be prepared to tinker some when you install the HTC Sync software.  Since I do not use MS outlook for email, it offered me virtually no benefit, and I have actually uninstalled the sync component of the software.

Overall, I believe the HTC Hero is a great introductory Android based phone. You can find it new for anywhere from $99 to $279 depending on your network and possible service term extensions.

Now, I need to find another Android to review! Anyone got any ideas?