Had my HTC Hero for a week - First Impressions

[trick202]

Give taskiller a go. It's in the market.

Add it to your homescreen AS A WIDGET, don't just add the program as a shortcut.

I have disabled sense UI just now. Looking forward to seeing how this affects speed.

 

[Quazar]

I just got my hero two weeks ago and have had a whole bunch of issues with it. I WANT to love the phone but can't. But for now I will just stick to the biggest issue . . . SLUGGISHNESS . . . SLOW . . . SLOW . . . SLOW

Sometimes it works fine and fast. And then next thing I know everything drags on. So I hope that if I give detailed info on my phone someone out there who is not havin any problems to see if I can pinpoint how to get my phone on its feet. PLEASE HELP. I WANT TO KEEP THIS PHONE BUT WILL RETURN IT IF I CAN'T FIND A FIX.

When I notice the problems:
-Searching for contacts in People takes forever. That might have to do with having a few thousand contacts, but the phone should do better than taking 20 seconds to come back with a result. It works better in other apps within the same phone
-Sometimes when someone calls I try to hit the answer button and it does not let me for a few seconds. Sometimes by the time I am able to press it, the call has already been missed.
-Sometimes when I am in a contact card, I try to go from for example general to messages or mail, and it just freezes for 20-30 seconds.

What I have done to or installed on my phone:
-Added ChompSMS and stopped using the built-in Messages interface. I did this due to a battery drain bug I had heard about the Messages app. I tried HandCent but it would take 30+ seconds for the main screen to come up. I have lots of threads. . . All that said I had all my issues before adding this program.
-Added Pure Calender. Although I had all my issues before adding this program.
-I tried logging out of all my social networking apps (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr) but didn't make it better.
-I do have some contacts linked to Facebook. But sluggishness happens during items not associated at all with any contacts linked with Facebook.
-I have GPS turned off

I have not done anything else to the phone. The rest is pretty much out-of-the-box.

Here are my phone specs:
-Says "with google" on the back
-99MB available space on phone.
-Model number HTC Hero
-Firmware version 1.5
-Baseband Version 1.04.01.09.21
-Kernel Version 2.6.27-533ce29d (htc-kernel@and18-2 )
-Build number 1.29.651.1 CL69164 release-keys
-Software version 1.29.651.1
-Hardware version 0002
-Mobile network type CDMA - EvDo rev. 0
-PRI 1.68_003
-PRL 60654
-MEID A1000007C6F24B
-Browser version WebKit 3.1

PLEASE HELP!!

Have you updated the firmware? ROM Upgrade for HTC Hero_2.73.405.5
assuming your in the UK, otherwise google.
The firmware update will wipe your phone clean (not SD card) but it will introduce significant performance enhancements.

 

[thefley]

I've now had my HTC Hero (T-Mpbile G2) for a week. So far I am really enjoying it. Many reviews have said it is sluggish but it's not something I have noticed, probably because my old phone was a N95 8GB rather than an iphone (which is what every review of the HTC is comparing it to).

I have noticed a few small problems though; I thought I'd share them incase they are common problems (with an easy solution). For example, the other day the regular text messaging app kept closing because of some error. I tried again and lost my message again so had to power off and back on (which seemed to fix it).

When entering text (messaging/browsing/emailing etc), the screen sometimes takes a while to rotate when you turn the phone long ways. Occasionally it just doesn't work at all and you are left with the compact keyboard.

HTC Sync isn't working for me either. I have installed, uninstalled and reinstalled HTC sync, both from the phone itself and from the HTC website;however I can't get it to connect. Any other HTC owners have this problem (particularly G2 users).


First impressions :


* The Android market is pretty good. With 30+ android phones rumoured to be coming out over the next 6 months, I imagine we will see some fantastic new applications enter the market.

* Battery life seems good for a multimedia device. As with all phones, the more you browse, use gps/wifi, listen to music, watch clips etc, the more the battery will drain. Seems very good so far though.

* I'm really finding typing difficult. I owned the i-mate JAM a few years ago and had the same problem and sold the phone because of it.

Touchscreen keyboards have clearly come a long way since then however replying to text messages is still taking me 2-3 times more than it would with a standard nokia/SE phone with hard keys. And I find myself constantly having to hit the backspace key because I hit the wrong part of the keyboard.

Though it should be noted that the suggestions feature works fantastically, without it I'd be lost.

I assume that I will get better at typing after using the device longer. Out of interest, how long did it take you new touchscreen phone owners out there to get used to typing proficiently with it?

* Camera isn't that great (though not an issue for me as it wasn't what I was purchasing it for).

* The default Twitter application (Peep) works great and integrates with other Twitter apps like Twitpic for uploading pictures etc. Though it can be sluggish at times.

* Gaming seems to be the same as on the iphone (I have an apple touch with some games on it so can compare). The trackball helps a little but I find it is a little too sensitive with some games. Not a major problem for me though.

* I love the way the Hero discreetly notifies you of new emails and tweets at the top of the screen. Works really well (email/twitter was on of the reasons I wanted the Hero).

* Can't currently send images via bluetooth. Hopefully this will be fixed in a future android update or app release.

* I love how you can link contacts up with their facebook profiles and their flikr accounts. Works incredibly well.

* The Home button is very handy.

On a side note, I have to echo what other people have been saying about their being no need to have both a T-Mobile G2 Touch and a HTC Hero forum room. 95% of HTC Hero questions will no doubt be about the phone itself rather than the network the user is using.

Would it not make more sense to move all the posts into one room and create a sticky post to let users know that they should note the name of their carrier when asking a question regarding a problem with an application or whatever?

Two final questions

* Do you think it's worth rooting the HTC Hero? Pros/Cons etc
* Do you think it's worth switching off HTC Sense. In your opinion, does it save a lot of memory and make things much quicker?

Would love to hear back from fellow Hero owners about all of this

Kevin

if you sync problem is cause of windows 7 or vista 64 bit do a search I posted a fix for it

 

[thefley]

for those that find it sluggish, please download the advanced task killer (free)

you will find that many apps start up when you boot your computer and many do not close when you shut the app down.

I run this every time I start to lay the phone down. I have NO slow issues now.

 

[Quazar]

I reccomend taskpanel which can be set to kill apps automatically.

 

[thefley]

I reccomend taskpanel which can be set to kill apps automatically.

Thanks for sharing, that will be better than having to do it.

 

[sniakan]

Have you updated the firmware? ROM Upgrade for HTC Hero_2.73.405.5
assuming your in the UK, otherwise google.
The firmware update will wipe your phone clean (not SD card) but it will introduce significant performance enhancements.

Apparently I heard that Sprint Hero has a different setup and the above ROM upgrade may break the phone . . .

 

[sniakan]

if you sync problem is cause of windows 7 or vista 64 bit do a search I posted a fix for it

I just installed the latest HTC Sync, and now it duplicated every contact both in my phone and also in my outlook. Not good . . . Any suggestions? I had NONE of these problems in my old school Palm Treo 700

 

[itandy]

I just installed the latest HTC Sync, and now it duplicated every contact both in my phone and also in my outlook. Not good . . . Any suggestions? I had NONE of these problems in my old school Palm Treo 700

I had similar problems as yours with duplicated records after syncing with Outlook. What I did was manually delete the duplicated records in Outlook and sync again. After couple times all duplicated records will be removed from both Hero and Outlook.

Actually I had similar experience with Nokia PC suite before with N80. But I have to admit that HTC sync seems to be the worse in terms of intelligence on handling record conflicts.

 

[Spacemonkey]

if you sync problem is cause of windows 7 or vista 64 bit do a search I posted a fix for it

Hmm, interesting. I'm running Vista Business x64 and the sync worked fine for a month or so but now won't work at all. Will the same (Win 7) fix work for me? Or do you know of another Vista x64 fix?

Thanks
SM

 

[Spacemonkey]

Hmm, interesting. I'm running Vista Business x64 and the sync worked fine for a month or so but now won't work at all. Will the same (Win 7) fix work for me? Or do you know of another Vista x64 fix?

Thanks
SM

I should add that it's not the sync that I need to use, it's simply getting the Hero to connect to the PC, i.e. so ROM upgrades, download photos, etc.

 

[sniakan]

I just installed the latest HTC Sync, and now it duplicated every contact both in my phone and also in my outlook. Not good . . . Any suggestions? I had NONE of these problems in my old school Palm Treo 700

Actually it seems that almost every time I sync it causes more duplicate records. For my performance issues I got TasKiller, and it seems to have fixed my performance issues (I need to test a couple more days to be sure). But the HTC sync is really awful. Not only does it create duplicates but it cuts off names, notes and addresses at times. Is there any top-notch app out there that will sync better?

Honestly, I am at a point where I might just buy a blackberry tour and be done with it . . . as a 3rd generation product it just works. I feel like the HTC Hero is a giant experiment waiting to explode . . .

 

[sniakan]

Hmm, interesting. I'm running Vista Business x64 and the sync worked fine for a month or so but now won't work at all. Will the same (Win 7) fix work for me? Or do you know of another Vista x64 fix?

Thanks
SM

I am having the same issue with the sync. I think that's one of the reasons I keep getting more duplicates. I uninstall and re-install the sync software and it always recognizes the phone/pc the first time. But after that it doesn't recognize it. I am not happy with HTC at all at this point. It reminds me of HP which everyone seems to love but usually has awful drivers and software to go with it . . .