• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

6 months later: too many places to go wrong

navethechimp

Newbie
Nov 11, 2009
14
0
I have now had my HTC Hero with Sprint for about 6 months now and I feel like I should do a sort of informal review / trash talking session. Considering 2.0 should be coming out relatively soon, I need to vent before some of these problems are fixed! Overall I think the phone is amazing. The app selection is phenomenal and it has overall contributed to the quality of my life. This is my first smart phone and the amount of features blows my mind, but each of those features creates new opportunity for something to go wrong. And I think that they have in many places.

So I have taken note of many of the problems that have either driven me absolutely insane and made the phone nearly dysfunctional or slightly annoyed me. Most of these are simply problems that I have not found a solution for.

Bugs?
  1. Powering on while battery is dead wipes memory (like a factory reset). This is extremely problematic since the power button is extremely sensitive in pockets. I have experienced this over 8 times on two different HTC Heroes from Sprint. Here is a thread I started prior to realizing the the power button actually must be pressed after the phone has powered down from running out of batteries. http://androidforums.com/sprint-htc-hero/16765-uncontrollable-factory-reset.html
  2. Phone doesn't start ringing until too late, making the overall ring time very short
  3. Headphone detection dysfunctional if phone powered up with headphones plugged in
  4. Events created on my phone in the calendar app repeatedly give me a notification, and neither dismissing or snoozing prevent it from re notifying me every 10 minutes for the rest of the events duration. Events created on the web interface do not give me these types of notifications, only SMS when it is the selected reminder type.
  5. Problems with autocorrect, such that when autocorrect adds characters (like youre to you're), backspacing back to that word often leads to character indexing problems.
    • Open a text message, and do a word with a subtle misspell, for instance "I like yourr" and when it should display "you're" as the word it is going to correct to, hit space, it corrects it, then hit backspace, because maybe you were actually trying to say "your", it adds an extra y before the word. Another instance: type "My name is JT," you'll see it updates the "JT," to "JR," and if actually did want to say "JT" but you were to fast and hit space, backspace to correct it, and it will eliminate the space before "JT". Not a huge problem, but when you're typing fast and you accidentally hit space to let it improperly autocorrect, it is quite annoying.

Inconveniences
  1. Inadequate button lock, so an annoying security unlock is necessary to prevent in-pocket activity
  2. Vibrate is too weak, and it is often indiscernible from tactile noise, which leads to several problems
    • false positive: renders the user paranoid and extremely receptive to any similar tactile response from that area
    • miss: the vibrate isn't immediately noticed or not noticed at all and when it is, at least one of the rings is wasted as a check against a false positive
  3. No global control over notification bar so it can get out of control and often redundant when using apps that don't have a notification toggle
    • For instance, I listen to the Android music player and last.fm to scrobble the tracks most of the day, and they both are listed on the top notification panel, and when I drop it down, I get the artist song information listed twice. Neither app provides me options to disable this, so there should be a global setting (for the phone, or an app) to only allow certain notifications or something to that effect. This is especially problematic when I have GPS, WiFi, am listening to music, and I get a text or something. The notification panel is completely overloaded with crap I don't need to see, and it prevents me from seeing what I do want to see (namely that I got a text).
  4. while phone is ringing other screens (e.g. contacts page) come up way too easily and blocks visibility of incoming call information
  5. HTC weather widget is essentially worthless because it doesn't properly update
  6. Can't change which calendar an event belong to from the phone, but only for a preexisting event
  7. My Contacts should be the only group selected for the contact list by default, and changing this option should be more intuitive

Many of these problems have a combination effect, for instance: a short ring time coupled with a delayed response due to the indiscernible vibrate leads to a rushing to get the phone out of your pocket, increasing the likelihood that you'll accidentally touch buttons on the screen that bring up things that block the incoming call information, and if you're concerned with wanting to know who is calling prior to answering it then you have to close the screen that popped up (which is somewhat slow when there is an incoming call) and by the time you can see who is calling you and process that, the call has long since gone to voicemail.

This may be the worst case scenario but something similar happens to me very frequently.

To what extent these problems pertain to Android in general, my phone specifically, or to me specifically, I do not know. I have not searched extensively for threads about the individual problems, so I do not expect solutions from this thread, but feel free to go at it if you're bored. :cool:
 
I have now had my HTC Hero with Sprint for about 6 months now and I feel like I should do a sort of informal review / trash talking session. Considering 2.0 should be coming out relatively soon, I need to vent before some of these problems are fixed! Overall I think the phone is amazing. The app selection is phenomenal and it has overall contributed to the quality of my life. This is my first smart phone and the amount of features blows my mind, but each of those features creates new opportunity for something to go wrong. And I think that they have in many places.

So I have taken note of many of the problems that have either driven me absolutely insane and made the phone nearly dysfunctional or slightly annoyed me. Most of these are simply problems that I have not found a solution for. Even though I find it absurd that one must download a Task Killer to save their phone from excessive slowdown, at least there are solutions.
You shouldn't need a task killer. Read the sticky at the top of the forums.
Bugs
  1. Powering on while battery is dead wipes memory (like a factory reset). This is extremely problematic since the power button is extremely sensitive in pockets. I have experienced this over 8 times on two different HTC Heroes from Sprint.
    Never experienced this one.
  2. Phone doesn't start ringing until too late, making the overall ring time very short Check out this link... http://androidforums.com/sprint-htc-hero/19422-ringer-lag-rings-other-end-few-times-before-ringing-hero.html
  3. Headphone detection dysfunctional if phone powered up with headphones plugged in
    Try unplugging your headphones if you know you are turning your phone on.
  4. Events created on my phone in the calendar app repeatedly give me a notification, and neither dismissing or snoozing prevent it from re notifying me every 10 minutes for the rest of the events duration. Events created on the web interface do not give me these types of notifications, only SMS when it is the selected reminder type.
    No idea, no notifications used here....
  5. Problems with autocorrect, such that when autocorrect adds characters (like youre to you're), backspacing back to that word often leads to character indexing problems
    Example? Not sure what you are referring to specifically.

Inconveniences
  1. Inadequate button lock, so an annoying security unlock is necessary to prevent in-pocket activity
    Download "LockPattern OnOff" from the market.
  2. Vibrate is too weak, and it is often indiscernible from tactile noise, which leads to several problems
    • false positive: renders the user paranoid and extremely receptive to any similar tactile response from that area
    • miss: the vibrate isn't immediately noticed or not noticed at all and when it is, at least one of the rings is wasted as a check against a false positive
    I hear this a lot but find mine to be very sufficient.
  3. No global control over notification bar so it can get out of control and often redundant when using apps that don't have a notification toggle
    Examples? Not sure I know what you mean.
  4. while phone is ringing other screens (e.g. contacts page) come up way too easily and blocks visibility of incoming call information
    Never had this problem....
  5. HTC weather widget is essentially worthless because it doesn't properly update
    Don't use a weather widget. Try checking the market for a different weather widget??? Or walk outside ;)
  6. Can't change which calendar an event belong to from the phone, but only for a preexisting event
    My life is simple enough to not need the calendar :p
  7. My Contacts should be the only group selected for the contact list by default, and changing this option should be more intuitive
    Unfortunately (or fortunately) this phone requires more thought/work then... let's say... the iphone. Fortunately (or unfortunately) it can also do more, differently then the iphone as well. The iphone is the most intuitive phone I've ever used (and I've owned a TON) and this one is not nearly as "user friendly" but I LOVE it!!!

Many of these problems have a combination effect, for instance: a short ring time coupled with a delayed response due to the indiscernible vibrate leads to a rushing to get the phone out of your pocket, increasing the likelihood that you'll accidentally touch buttons on the screen that bring up things that block the incoming call information, and if you're concerned with wanting to know who is calling prior to answering it then you have to close the screen that popped up (which is somewhat slow when there is an incoming call) and by the time you can see who is calling you and process that, the call has long since gone to voicemail.

This may be the worst case scenario but something similar happens to me very frequently.

To what extent these problems pertain to Android in general, my phone specifically, or to me specifically, I do not know. I have not searched extensively for threads about the individual problems, so I do not expect solutions from this thread, but feel free to go at it if you're bored. :cool:

Responses above in RED, bold and italics.

We are all here to help, but let's try one question at a time ;)
 
Upvote 0
We are all here to help, but let's try one question at a time ;)

As I said, these aren't questions, but rather a sort of consolidated review of the problems I've noticed that maybe others haven't, yet find interesting. For instance, when I specify the condition for the headphone detection failure, I do realize that all I have to do is change that condition. Unplugging the headphones isn't that hard, but it is a serious problem that HTC needs to consider and I wanted to complain about. :p Nevertheless your other suggestions sound helpful. I'll start checking them out.

I updated my OP to elaborate on some of the issues I wasn't clear about.

Thanks!
 
Upvote 0
The case of any word being followed by a punctuation mark is pretty bad too. I use a lot of words not in the dictionary, so any time this is followed by a period, which is quite probable I have to retype the word. For instance "Stop acting like a dork." corrects to "Stop acting like a fork.", which is almost funny enough to leave as is, but if you hit backspace to correct it you get "Stop acting like adork".
 
Upvote 0
The case of any word being followed by a punctuation mark is pretty bad too. I use a lot of words not in the dictionary, so any time this is followed by a period, which is quite probable I have to retype the word. For instance "Stop acting like a dork." corrects to "Stop acting like a fork.", which is almost funny enough to leave as is, but if you hit backspace to correct it you get "Stop acting like adork".

Just tried this and that didnt happen to me. I am using handcent (dont think it matters though?). And when I hit back space it went back to what I originally typed "dork" and added it to the dictionary.
 
Upvote 0
It is not "dork" that causes it, but "dork.", or some other non-dictionary word followed by punctuation and hitting backspace after you do the punctuation prior to hitting space to accept the change.

I just verified that it also happens in Handcent, as well as on the Eris.


I verified it on my Hero.. HOWEVER... if I added the word dork to my dictionary.. it no longer happened.

Several of you're issues can simply be solved by adding the words.. or downloading other apps from the market to do the job you're looking for. (calendar for instance). Now before you say that you shouldn't have to download other apps.. no app is going to be perfect.. HTC did a good job of providing basic tools to get the job done. once you start looking for options beyond the basics, then you need to install different apps.

Take a PC for instance. Windows comes with notepad and wordpad.. but if you want to do more than just basic writing, then you need to install a better app for the job like Open Office or MS Word..

there are work around/solutions to other issues (as pointed out above) to most issues. The few that are hardware related (vibrate, headphone, dead battery issues) those of course can't be fixed by installing a better app. maybe the headphone issue will be resolved, who knows. I don't use headphones so have never had that issue. Mine also vibrates strong enough for me to notice.. all I can say on that one is that each phone will be a little different..after all, it's man made therefore not perfect.

For the dead battery resetting the phone.. I don't let mine go dead. the battery is a Lithium Ion battery, it's CAN'T build up a memory effect like older NiMH or Ni-CD batteries did. I mainly don't let mine go dead simply because if it's dead, my phone is useless.. I need a phone at all times (work related)..

now you've said that this is your fist smart phone..and that it has added to the quality of your life.. having had smart phones in the past, (last one was a Treo 755p) I can tell you that the little issues with this phone are exactly that... little issues.. I see too many people (not you, a lot of others) that seem to forget it's a phone... with a bunch added extra features that are similar to a computer.. but its not a full sized computer and can't perform like one.

maybe it's time for someone to start a thread on everything the Hero (or any smart phone) does right! Then maybe we can show that there is some positive sides to these phones (and there are plenty of positives)
 
Upvote 0
I agree the vibrate needs to be much stronger/more noticable. I came to the Hero having used Blackberrys for the last 5 years and I guess they spoiled me. I rarely ever turned on the ringer on the BBs because I could both feel and hear the vibrate well enough that I didn't need the phone to ring. I carry the Hero in a belt case and hardly notice at all when it vibrates.

I haven't had a problem with any of the other issues you mention except headphone detection and I adapted to that one quickly. I think every phone I've ever used had a ring delay - I don't notice this one to be any worse than the others.
 
Upvote 0
maybe it's time for someone to start a thread on everything the Hero (or any smart phone) does right! Then maybe we can show that there is some positive sides to these phones (and there are plenty of positives)

Amen. :D

But, in spite of so many people complaining on these forums, I bet if they were to be in a conversation with an average joe they'd be rallying for it with all their might. Perhaps the nature of forums and the nature of... joes...?
 
Upvote 0
I think every phone I've ever used had a ring delay - I don't notice this one to be any worse than the others.

Using the link provided by kemplar about solving the ring delay helped me quite a bit. I got an extra ~4 seconds from it.

Called customer service, told them what the problem was, the guy started researching it in his little computer, told him not to worry about it because I had an idea what to do and that I just needed the MSL number, he had no problem doing it, and solved it within 5 minutes.
 
Upvote 0


Powering on while battery is dead wipes memory
(like a factory reset). This is extremely problematic since the power button is extremely sensitive in pockets. I have experienced this over 8 times on two different HTC Heroes from Sprint. Here is a thread I started prior to realizing the the power button actually must be pressed after the phone has powered down from running out of batteries. http://androidforums.com/sprint-htc-hero/16765-uncontrollable-factory-reset.html

Dunno. Haven't had my battery go dead yet.


Phone doesn't start ringing until too late
, making the overall ring time very short

He's right...this ring-start lag does often occur on this phone.

Headphone detection dysfunctional
if phone powered up with headphones plugged in

Don't use headphones, but if true, this is a real problem that should be fixed.


Events created on my phone in the calendar app repeatedly give me a notification
, and neither dismissing or snoozing prevent it from re notifying me every 10 minutes for the rest of the events duration. Events created on the web interface do not give me these types of notifications, only SMS when it is the selected reminder type.

Yep. This sometimes happens. Not sure if it's connected to Google calendar online or not.


Problems with autocorrect
, such that when autocorrect adds characters (like youre to you're), backspacing back to that word often leads to character indexing problems.

Not really a bug as much as a programming choice by the autocorrect programmers. Not a real issue for me personally. Other phones' autocorrect software have similar quirks. It's a really touchy subject how autocorrect should work. Every manufacturer takes a slightly different path.

Inconveniences

Inadequate button lock
, so an annoying security unlock is necessary to prevent in-pocket activity

He's got a point. Not a major issue for me, though.

Vibrate is too weak
, and it is often indiscernible from tactile noise, which leads to several problemsDisagree.

No global control over notification bar
so it can get out of control and often redundant when using apps that don't have a notification toggle

Missing the point. What we REALLY need is the ability to dismiss INDIVIDUAL notifications, like on the Pre. The Hero forces us to dismiss all or none. Bad decision by HTC and Google. I think that's partly what you meant. If not, then it's a more important point than yours.

while phone is ringing other screens (e.g. contacts page) come up way too easily
and blocks visibility of incoming call information

Yes.


HTC weather widget is essentially worthless
because it doesn't properly update

Agreed. It IS worthless. The HTC widgets often do not update properly and it's a huge pain in the ass. Sometimes it says I'm in a city in China and gives me the weather there. Other times, it simply says "current city" and/or never updates from a city I was in three hours ago...even if I have the settings to 15 minute refresh or something. Really annoying.


Can't change which calendar an event belong to
from the phone, but only for a preexisting event

True, but few phones offer the ability to move events to different calendars. The Pre's calendar is definitely WAY superior to the Hero's and may do this....I can't remember at the moment. I've owned both phones and can attest to the fact the WebOS calendar is WAAAAAY better than anything else on the market in smart phones. The Pure Grid calendar on the Market starts to come close, but it still needs a lot of work to come close to the WebOS/Pre calednar.


My Contacts should be the only group selected for the contact list by default
, and changing this option should be more intuitive

Dunno
.

See red text above.
 
Upvote 0
My phone reset to factory settings after it died and I plugged it back in to charge and turned it on. I was extremely pissed, I lost EVERY contact, every app I downloaded, everything I customized. The only thing it kept was my pictures and videos. Strange. I posted my complaint about that on here http://androidforums.com/htc-hero/4...actory-settings-like-i-just-got-store-gr.html and someone linked me over to this thread. Glad to see my phone isn't the only Hero to do this. I thought I had a faulty phone for a while, now it seems to me that this is the one serious bug they need to fix.
 
Upvote 0
My phone reset to factory settings after it died and I plugged it back in to charge and turned it on. I was extremely pissed, I lost EVERY contact, every app I downloaded, everything I customized. The only thing it kept was my pictures and videos. Strange. I posted my complaint about that on here http://androidforums.com/htc-hero/4...actory-settings-like-i-just-got-store-gr.html and someone linked me over to this thread. Glad to see my phone isn't the only Hero to do this. I thought I had a faulty phone for a while, now it seems to me that this is the one serious bug they need to fix.

I suggest when you make your contacts again, make them Google Contacts. They'll back up to your gmail, and sync back to your phone should it reset.
 
Upvote 0
Angel, I'm sorry that you lost your contacts from the memory wipe, but I must admit that I'm glad its not only me that this is happening to. When I had it happen on TWO different Heroes, and still no one knew what I was talking about, I almost started thinking I was crazy!

Not really a bug as much as a programming choice by the autocorrect programmers. Not a real issue for me personally. Other phones' autocorrect software have similar quirks. It's a really touchy subject how autocorrect should work. Every manufacturer takes a slightly different path.

No. Replicate it on your phone and you will see that it is NOT a programming choice, but a failure to notice a bug. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever anyone would intentionally make it remove the space before your word so that it abuts your previously typed word.
 
Upvote 0
  1. Vibrate is too weak, and it is often indiscernible from tactile noise, which leads to several problems
    • false positive: renders the user paranoid and extremely receptive to any similar tactile response from that area
    • miss: the vibrate isn't immediately noticed or not noticed at all and when it is, at least one of the rings is wasted as a check against a false positive.
Try Smart Vibrator. It won't make it stronger but can make the vibration longer so you have more of a chance to feel it.

Smart Vibrator v2.0.1 Application for Android | Tools
 
Upvote 0
I have now had my HTC Hero with Sprint for about 6 months now and I feel like I should do a sort of informal review / trash talking session. Considering 2.0 should be coming out relatively soon, I need to vent before some of these problems are fixed! Overall I think the phone is amazing. The app selection is phenomenal and it has overall contributed to the quality of my life. This is my first smart phone and the amount of features blows my mind, but each of those features creates new opportunity for something to go wrong. And I think that they have in many places.

So I have taken note of many of the problems that have either driven me absolutely insane and made the phone nearly dysfunctional or slightly annoyed me. Most of these are simply problems that I have not found a solution for.

Bugs?
  1. Powering on while battery is dead wipes memory (like a factory reset). This is extremely problematic since the power button is extremely sensitive in pockets. I have experienced this over 8 times on two different HTC Heroes from Sprint. Here is a thread I started prior to realizing the the power button actually must be pressed after the phone has powered down from running out of batteries. http://androidforums.com/sprint-htc-hero/16765-uncontrollable-factory-reset.html
  2. Phone doesn't start ringing until too late, making the overall ring time very short
  3. Headphone detection dysfunctional if phone powered up with headphones plugged in
  4. Events created on my phone in the calendar app repeatedly give me a notification, and neither dismissing or snoozing prevent it from re notifying me every 10 minutes for the rest of the events duration. Events created on the web interface do not give me these types of notifications, only SMS when it is the selected reminder type.
  5. Problems with autocorrect, such that when autocorrect adds characters (like youre to you're), backspacing back to that word often leads to character indexing problems.
    • Open a text message, and do a word with a subtle misspell, for instance "I like yourr" and when it should display "you're" as the word it is going to correct to, hit space, it corrects it, then hit backspace, because maybe you were actually trying to say "your", it adds an extra y before the word. Another instance: type "My name is JT," you'll see it updates the "JT," to "JR," and if actually did want to say "JT" but you were to fast and hit space, backspace to correct it, and it will eliminate the space before "JT". Not a huge problem, but when you're typing fast and you accidentally hit space to let it improperly autocorrect, it is quite annoying.

Inconveniences
  1. Inadequate button lock, so an annoying security unlock is necessary to prevent in-pocket activity
  2. Vibrate is too weak, and it is often indiscernible from tactile noise, which leads to several problems
    • false positive: renders the user paranoid and extremely receptive to any similar tactile response from that area
    • miss: the vibrate isn't immediately noticed or not noticed at all and when it is, at least one of the rings is wasted as a check against a false positive
  3. No global control over notification bar so it can get out of control and often redundant when using apps that don't have a notification toggle
    • For instance, I listen to the Android music player and last.fm to scrobble the tracks most of the day, and they both are listed on the top notification panel, and when I drop it down, I get the artist song information listed twice. Neither app provides me options to disable this, so there should be a global setting (for the phone, or an app) to only allow certain notifications or something to that effect. This is especially problematic when I have GPS, WiFi, am listening to music, and I get a text or something. The notification panel is completely overloaded with crap I don't need to see, and it prevents me from seeing what I do want to see (namely that I got a text).
  4. while phone is ringing other screens (e.g. contacts page) come up way too easily and blocks visibility of incoming call information
  5. HTC weather widget is essentially worthless because it doesn't properly update
  6. Can't change which calendar an event belong to from the phone, but only for a preexisting event
  7. My Contacts should be the only group selected for the contact list by default, and changing this option should be more intuitive

Many of these problems have a combination effect, for instance: a short ring time coupled with a delayed response due to the indiscernible vibrate leads to a rushing to get the phone out of your pocket, increasing the likelihood that you'll accidentally touch buttons on the screen that bring up things that block the incoming call information, and if you're concerned with wanting to know who is calling prior to answering it then you have to close the screen that popped up (which is somewhat slow when there is an incoming call) and by the time you can see who is calling you and process that, the call has long since gone to voicemail.

This may be the worst case scenario but something similar happens to me very frequently.

To what extent these problems pertain to Android in general, my phone specifically, or to me specifically, I do not know. I have not searched extensively for threads about the individual problems, so I do not expect solutions from this thread, but feel free to go at it if you're bored. :cool:

I agree with @andy d. While you have valid concerns, you should post this on Sprint & HTC forums too.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones