Mini-Review: HTC Hero for Sprint - PhoneDog Cell Phone News & Articles
The thing about cell phone reviews is that they're usually written after no more than a week or two of using a particular device. Anyone who's ever owned a cell phone (or any daily use gadget) knows that the longer you stay with a cellie the more you get to know its ins and outs, strengths and weaknesses, and particular quirks. As such, a "professional review" written after only a week or so of testing simply can't tell you what six months' worth of talking, texting, and tweeting on a handset can.
But you don't want to wait six months to read my review of Sprint's Hero, so here goes: After a whopping five days with my review unit (my second unit, actually - the first arrived the day before with an utterly destroyed display), I have no trouble proclaiming Hero the best Android phone to ever be released anywhere. I'll also tell you that having spent all of two hours playing with the Motorola CLIQ at a press event a few weeks back, that title could well be up for grabs whenever T-Mobile and Moto see fit to start sending CLIQ loaners out to us media types.
What makes Hero so great? Multitouch. Yeah, the Sense UI is cool. Yeah, the five megapixel camera is a nice upgrade from the 3MP shooter found on the G1s and myTouch 3Gs of the world. Yeah, we finally have an Android phone with a standard headphone jack. But it's really the multitouch display that makes Hero heroic.
Okay, HTC's customized virtual QWERTY board helps, too.
Before I go any further, a few nuts and bolts: Call quality was very good in my testing in the East Bay near San Francisco, CA. Signal strength was generally strong, [COLOR=#C80000 ! important][COLOR=#C80000 ! important]data [COLOR=#C80000 ! important]transfers[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] over EV-DO were speedy, and [COLOR=#C80000 ! important][COLOR=#C80000 ! important]WiFI[/COLOR][/COLOR] worked well. Battery life was fine but not great; I never ran the thing all the way down in a single day of heavy (but realistic) use, but I did get the low battery warning a few times. Now, then
The thing about cell phone reviews is that they're usually written after no more than a week or two of using a particular device. Anyone who's ever owned a cell phone (or any daily use gadget) knows that the longer you stay with a cellie the more you get to know its ins and outs, strengths and weaknesses, and particular quirks. As such, a "professional review" written after only a week or so of testing simply can't tell you what six months' worth of talking, texting, and tweeting on a handset can.
But you don't want to wait six months to read my review of Sprint's Hero, so here goes: After a whopping five days with my review unit (my second unit, actually - the first arrived the day before with an utterly destroyed display), I have no trouble proclaiming Hero the best Android phone to ever be released anywhere. I'll also tell you that having spent all of two hours playing with the Motorola CLIQ at a press event a few weeks back, that title could well be up for grabs whenever T-Mobile and Moto see fit to start sending CLIQ loaners out to us media types.
What makes Hero so great? Multitouch. Yeah, the Sense UI is cool. Yeah, the five megapixel camera is a nice upgrade from the 3MP shooter found on the G1s and myTouch 3Gs of the world. Yeah, we finally have an Android phone with a standard headphone jack. But it's really the multitouch display that makes Hero heroic.
Okay, HTC's customized virtual QWERTY board helps, too.
Before I go any further, a few nuts and bolts: Call quality was very good in my testing in the East Bay near San Francisco, CA. Signal strength was generally strong, [COLOR=#C80000 ! important][COLOR=#C80000 ! important]data [COLOR=#C80000 ! important]transfers[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] over EV-DO were speedy, and [COLOR=#C80000 ! important][COLOR=#C80000 ! important]WiFI[/COLOR][/COLOR] worked well. Battery life was fine but not great; I never ran the thing all the way down in a single day of heavy (but realistic) use, but I did get the low battery warning a few times. Now, then
