considering switching from sprint BB curve to htc hero, questions...

[atom631]

hi all. this is my first post and i am total android noob. i read the readme stickies and did a search and did really see answers to my questions.

i have been on a blackberry curve for many years and have grown quite used to it... i also am totally sick of how outdated it feels.

i have a few features that any new phone i chose to go with must have

1.) multiple email accounts - i currently have a work email and a personal email (neither of them a gmail account). i need to be able to access both. 1 is POP and the other is IMAP/Zimbra

2.) as i mentioned, we have a Zimbra mail server at work. I need to be able to sync my calendar, contacts. email, email folders. we use imap currently on our BB b/c we dont run BES. however, the company is migrating to a BES server therefore my google phone needs to be able to do the same things.

3.) ability to accept/decline event invites on the phone. i get a lot of meeting requests through my email on the BB and i am able to hit "accept" and it automatically adds it to my calendar. it will give me an alert 1hr before the meeting. also, if someone makes a change to the event, they will email me again and i hit accept and it will make a change to my calendar automatically

4.) ability to open word, excel, powerpoint and PDF files

5.) ability to copy/paste text from browser/emails/txt/mms, etc.


some apps i need: unit converter for length, currency, volume, area, temp, currency

mobile ssh client

remote desktop client

google earth - i think droid doesnt have this yet.

IM client - i currently use BeeJive for BB.

thanks in advance for the help. if the hero does what i need it to, i will be heading to the sprint store tomorrow to make the change!!

 

[james]

Can answer some of these questions but not all..
You can have multiple email accounts, and POP account are supported, but I don't know about Zimbra.

An app called documents to go will let you view Word and Excel files, but to edit them and also to view Powerpoint and PDF's you have to pay for the full version which is $10 I believe. Check it out here

Free apps are also available to view PDF's.

You can copy and paste.

I'm sure you can get many free unit converters, a quick search came up with this app which might be what you'd need - here

There are apps for SSH - such as this one

Google Earth isn't supported on the Hero, and isn't likely to be in the future because of the screen resolution. But Google Maps is good enough if you're wanting it for directions etc.

There are plenty of IM clients as well. If you do change to an android phone I'd recommend Nimbuzz, which lets you make Skype calls as well which is cool.

Sorry I couldn't answer all your questions but hope that helped somewhat

 

[atom631]

thats an interesting note about the screen resolution. i thought it had a similar resolution to the iphone.

i actually use google earth for my trade. i am a PM for a telecom company and we built our entire network in google earth pro. i was playing around with my itouch and google earth and was able to import an entire towns worth of fiber optic cabling as well as all the splice points. it was pretty awesome. i was hoping to be able to do that on a droid phone eventually.

i think i shoud still be able to do it in google maps...if it allows you to save the files on your maps.google account (thats how i did it with the iphone/google earth).


i still need to make sure the HTC hero will work with zimbra. thats probably my biggest necessity

 

[Xyro]

I don't know what Zimba is, but the phone supports IMAP as well as POP.

 

[atom631]

zimbra is an open source mail server/client. Zimbra offers Open Source email server software and shared calendar for Linux and the Mac.

from the research ive done, it will work with droid phones. the only discrepancies i am seeing are the phone might need version 2.0 or later OS... and zimbra might need the "zimbra mobile" plugin module for the mail server.

i cant confirm either of these ffor sure though.

 

[PhippsyB]

On the Google Earth side of things - Yes you're right that it needs version 2.0 or later which means the Hero won't have access to this until it gets updated.

I use Googles calendar all the time to accept email requests to events; it also does reminders by text, email and i think just general alarm noises from the phone.

If you're looking for something similar to a BB (hard QWERTY keypad, functional) and with android 2.0+ for Google Earth, i'd suggest the Droid over the Hero. (Hero users here). Using it all the time for work, I think you might get annoyed with the on screen keypad and the bigger screen will make Earth and documents look so much better.

 

[atom631]

i would love to get the droid, but my company pretty much rolls Sprint. good news about google earth though!!!! that might be a selling point for me.

 

[james]

In regards to Google Earth, I would look into it further as I heard that it is more to do with the screen resolution than the version of Android running.

Sprint are apparently releasing the HTC supersonic soon (possibly tomorrow) so if money isn't a problem you might wanna consider that cos it looks gooooood

 

[UTnick]

i would wait for the new supersonic. it's soon to be released.

 

[justinwhittemore]

I have the HTC Hero and my work uses a Zimbra Mail server and its works just fine on the Hero

 

[Chappie]

Can answer some of these questions but not all..
You can have multiple email accounts, and POP account are supported, but I don't know about Zimbra.

I have managed to set up my gmail account on my HTC Hero but when I try to set up my Ntlworld POP account I can get the incoming mail account set and verified but not the Outgoing server I get a connection refused. Do I need to be connected to virginmedia ISP to get these to work anyone done this in the past or got any ideas?