HTC Hero Sim-free

[Martin Dude]

Hey all, I have been reading about the HTC Hero and I am thinking about getting one. Living in Spain the Hero is only available with Orange, but I want to stay with Movistar, so I am looking at a sim-free Hero.

I was just wondering about your position about this and if I will be able to update normally etc. Since I have read about provider specific updates and since Movistar normally doesn't provide the Hero I was wondering if this might be a problem.

Any other pro's and con's for getting a sim-free Hero?

Thanks in advance!

Martin

 

[Anthony1]

Hi

I bought a sim free Hero a few days ago. It's great. Accepted my existing sim and started working perfectly immediately. I downloaded the updates directly from the HTC web site and everything worked fine.

You should have no problem as far as I can see. Of course I'm in the UK so I'm not sure about the situation in Spain.

 

[daveybaby]

If anything you will get updates sooner with an unlocked/sim-free hero than you will with a branded one.

 

[Martin Dude]

Ok, thank you both for the information

 

[brykins]

Is there not still an on-going problem with the Market, protected apps and unlocked devices? Google seems to find it hard to differentiate between a ROOTED handset and a SIM UNLOCKED handset and lot's of people with unlocked (sim free, non network branded) handsets have reported trouble with forward protected apps not showing up on the Market.

Apologies if I am wrong and this has been fixed, but might be worth looking into.

 

[Martin Dude]

I was wondering about this a moment myself, but didn't think anymore of it. Thanks for the heads up, so far it seems that it is not fixed yet.


I found the following with an answer from a Google employee (dating the 15th of Dec'09)
app no longer visible in Market search? - Android Market Help

More information here:
2010 01 01 (January): Important unclarified questions & open issues with the android market. - Android Market Help

 

[Anthony1]

Which Apps are supposedly affected? I haven't had any problems and I've downloaded most of the more common ones.

 

[brykins]

It's apparently forward protected apps and something to do with ROM signatures or something. Anyway, I have a locked G2 (Hero) and I was not able to find a lot of apps on the market by searching, browsing, direct links or bar codes. Turns out that a new rom image from the T-Mobile web site (even though it had EXACTLY the same build number) sorted it and I can now access these apps.

The one's I recall not being able to find were Twidroid Pro, Flight Director (full version), Jewellust and Record It. I have them all now.

 

[Bhav]

I have a sim free Hero on vodafone uk. There has been a couple of occasions where an app doesn't show up on search, but it's pretty rare...and the app does show up later/the next day. It might just be a cache/refresh issue.

If you really struggle, you can probably find a lot of the apps online and then just install via HTC Sync

 

[Martin Dude]

Thanks a lot for all the feedback!