HTC Hero

[Thulsa Doom]

I've seen dates ranging from 15th July to 25th July so I guess no one actually knows.

Amazon say Ã,£430 on 24th, Expansys are Ã,£405 on 2oth and Devicewire are Ã,£400 on 21st. So it's anyones guess

Ã,£430 for a phone!
I take it thats on a Talk Free 24*7 contract with 5 million free texts a month, with a monthly return flight to somewhere exotic.

[T-Bag]

Ã,£430 for a phone!
I take it thats on a Talk Free 24*7 contract with 5 million free texts a month, with a monthly return flight to somewhere exotic.

That'll be sim free for just the phone and no monthly contract. Ã,£30 a month contract for 18 months costs Ã,£540 even though the phone is free. It works out cheaper for some to buy the phone they like and get a separate contract/pay as you go.

[smilodon]

T-Bag is right.

I'd be selling an existing phone to CEX for about Ã,£200. Plus when my O2 contract comes to an end in a few months time I will get Ã,£100-150 off my bill if I don't take a new phone from them. So thats Ã,£350 off the cost of a new phone.

Plus I can get a sim only deal for about Ã,£15 a month with no contract. I'll get an unlocked and unbranded phone that is restriction free for HTC and Android updates etc.

On a related note I hate the way mobile phone companies lock down their phones for updates, especially T Mobile and Orange. As far as I understand a company like Nokia will make a phone, the N95 for example, and will release a vanilla unbranded version for full price. They also send phones to the mobile phone companies. The phone co's then brand them up and add their own stuff like a new interface, other applications etc. So the Orange N95 is different from the O2 N95.

When Nokia release an update to the phone operating system (symbian in this case) it's immediately there for users to download and install. However only the vanilla version will accept the update. The branded phones generally will refuse the update as they have been adapted and the update may break something. Also an update will probably reset the phone and wipe it's memory. This will loose the branding and also all the users contacts etc. Backups are esential. The mobile phone companies would then be hit with thousands of their dumb customers moaning that their phones have lost all their addresses, photos etc. So they don't allow their phones to be updated.

Nokia send a version of the update to the mobile companies. But as far as I am aware they just ignore them and don't ever offer an update to their customers.

As an example I used to have an unbranded Nokia N95 and my friend had one from Orange. I got updates that improved battery life, GPS lockon, updated the OS, security patched it and added a load of new features and functions. My friend never once got an update from Orange and couldn't do an update via Nokia (as I could) because his phone rejected them "There are no avaliable updates for your phone at this time". So he was locked to Version 1 of the OS where I was using versions 7 or 8.

It's worth bearing that im mind when you buy a phone from Orange or T-Mobile as debranding themn is hard to the point of impossible without a 3rd party de chip.And as you don't actually own the phone outright on a contract it's against the Terms and conditions to do it. You won't get updates ever. O2 and Vodaphone are a bit simpler to debrand although it's still technically against their rules. So there you go.

[OldBloke]

... It's worth bearing that im mind when you buy a phone from Orange or T-Mobile as debranding themn is hard to the point of impossible without a 3rd party de chip.

Which is why I spout on about mobiles.co.uk so much. They provide an unbranded, unlocked phone with their deals.

[smilodon]

Bookmarked.

Also it's not certain the Hero will be completely open to updates. it runs Google Android with a heavy HTC UI and some extra HTC features. Updates to Android might not be compatible with the version running on the Hero? However HTC seem fairly good at offering updates and the new UI shouldn't cause a problem ??

We were curious about how the lack of Google Experience branding will affect over-the-air system updates. Thus far, T-Mobile has been successful, if sluggish, about making significant improvements to the Google Android interface over the air. Our own T-Mobile G1 successfully received the Android 1.5 Cupcake update, and we updated our review recently. With so many changes under the hood, we were concerned that HTC Hero owners wouldn't benefit from Google's own improvements to the Android OS, but HTC assures us this is not the case. Because of the way Android is built to handle these sorts of interface and functionality improvements, future updates should seamlessly integrate themselves with the HTC Sense UI. Of course, we'll believe it when we see it, as always, but we'd like to think that Android is as adaptable as they say, especially with a rumored Android 2.0 Donut update around the corner.

(Source)

[smilodon]

Few more updates. It seems the Hero is out on the Orange network from tomorrow 22nd July which was the most likely original release date. There's no info on when the contract free version will hit the shops. Amazon still shows it as 15th Aug and Ã,£40 more expensive than anyone else. Mobiles.co.uk has no date at all and devicewire says it's out on 7th August :g:

http://www.pocket-lint.com/reviews/review.phtml/4178/htc-hero-mobile-phone-review.phtml a review.

I've had a go with a few iPhones as well as a N97, but I got to see gandy's HTC Magic at the dMw BBQ. It was a really great phone with some stunning apps. If the Hero is an improvement on that then I'm sold.

[Bob]

I've been reading quite a lot of reviews lately of the HTC Hero, and the only thing that worries me slightly, is that almost all of them comment on the not so powerfull CPU/memory (but again, this doesn't mean it's bad and slow, it's just that it could have been so much better).

However, I lean more and more towards this one. As I won't be running many simultaneous applications - which many of the review seems to base their tests on (as I see no use of using twitter at the same time as I do anything else, which is one example often used for what can slow it down) - I'm not sure it will matter much for me.

The general openness of the Android OS together with HTCs totally slick customization seems to be a winner!

[delanvital]

I've been reading quite a lot of reviews lately of the HTC Hero, and the only thing that worries me slightly, is that almost all of them comment on the not so powerfull CPU/memory (but again, this doesn't mean it's bad and slow, it's just that it could have been so much better).

However, I lean more and more towards this one. As I won't be running many simultaneous applications - which many of the review seems to base their tests on (as I see no use of using twitter at the same time as I do anything else, which is one example often used for what can slow it down) - I'm not sure it will matter much for me.

The general openness of the Android OS together with HTCs totally slick customization seems to be a winner!

Are you saying the CPU/memory is worse than the HTC Magic? I have the cash and was so close to clicking buy, when a friend of mine told me to wait for the Hero... AFAIK the Hero is only better, compared to the Magic?

[smilodon]

They're exactly the same MSM 7200A 528 mhz. The Hero has a more complex UI which might account for the slower speed. Then again most reviews were of pre production models so it's hard to know how close to the retail unit they were? It seems quite likely there was a firmware update whicg is why the phone didn't release on 15th July as originally intended. I'll probably drop into an Orange shop for a look before I finally decide.

[Gandalf]

They're exactly the same MSM 7200A 528 mhz. The Hero has a more complex UI which might account for the slower speed. Then again most reviews were of pre production models so it's hard to know how close to the retail unit they were? It seems quite likely there was a firmware update whicg is why the phone didn't release on 15th July as originally intended. I'll probably drop into an Orange shop for a look before I finally decide.

The hero also has 288Mb RAM as standard whereas the magic comes with 192Mb RAM standard and a high spec option with 288Mb RAM. The Vodafone supplied magic is 192Mb RAM.

[OldBloke]

They're exactly the same MSM 7200A 528 mhz. The Hero has a more complex UI which might account for the slower speed. Then again most reviews were of pre production models so it's hard to know how close to the retail unit they were? It seems quite likely there was a firmware update whicg is why the phone didn't release on 15th July as originally intended. I'll probably drop into an Orange shop for a look before I finally decide.

Review now posted at Engadget.

A few performance issues still there I'm afraid.

[T-Bag]

Review now posted at Engadget.

A few performance issues still there I'm afraid.

A 528MHz processor in a phone and it's underpowered. I had whole desktop machines that didn't come close to that, what are they doing with all that? (I'm guessing managing WiFi and Bluetooth etc uses lots of power).

Nice looking phone still.

[Dingo]

So anyway, for us old gits, apart from video\internet\social networking\moon landings\the meaning of the universe\how to cook a perfect breakfast egg and lovemaking techniques from 2000BC......will the frickin thing be able to handle a simple phone call without diverting due to "technical difficulties" in the "uploaddownloadstratospheremechanicalegomanicalhost" networks it employs......or should I just use the bl**dy landline for ease of use?



......and they say I am the idiot?, I did not just spend Ã,£400+ on a phone that, after all, is just a method of receiving phone calls, which on Skype are FREE........okay, discussion...........justify a Ã,£400 idiot.......and "cool" may not be in the answer:devil:

[TeaLeaf]

If you use it as just a phone then yep you're barking mad to buy it.  But I doubt that people interested in this are looking for it as a 'telephone only'' device as you well know.

[Gandalf]

If you use it as just a phone then yep you're barking mad to buy it.  But I doubt that people interested in this are looking for it as a 'telephone only'' device as you well know.

Agree, however, unlike the iPhone the HTC Magic that I have is a fantastic phone with great voice quality. I've also never experienced any dropouts or loss of signal. (Though vodafone does have the best coverage so this goes some way towards that)