Anyone replacing sprint hero with droid?

[enemkay]

Thoughts? Regrets? What do you miss going to the droid (besides sense ui)? I have a sprint hero and considering returning it for the droid. I live in Manhattan. Sprint's coverage is good here, and I'm generally happy with the htc phone, but I envy the higher resolution, and faster processor of the droid?

Thanks for any replies.

 

[poopieboy]

I had the Sprint Hero and I got the Droid and I really miss my Hero. Let me explain to you a few details about why I switched first. I work with cell phones and I'm not really on contract with anybody, I can freely switch from Sprint to Verizon or have both, and my monthly cost is significantly low.. so I just buy a handset that I like and go with it.

When I got the Hero I loved Sense UI A LOT! Every single day I noticed small things about Sense UI that were just incredibly thoughtful of them to include. Sadly, my Hero would not activate to my Sprint line for some reason, after sending emails to people higher up in my company, and getting the run around, I decided to get the Droid the day it came out.

This phone I got activated right away. I like it a lot, it has a great screen, the keyboard works great (contrary to reviews) and the phone flies. No lag. The camera is lousy but may be fixed over time.

Sense UI had great widgets that really helped me get things done as well as keep myself entertained. I loved the fact that when I was listening to music, I could lock the phone and put it in my pocket, then take it out, turn the screen on and change tracks or pause the song all while the phone is still locked, and have my lockscreen be the cover art of the album I'm listening to. I loved that I had 7 home screens to really go crazy with. I loved that the settings had a "Personalize" section. I loved that I could access the Phone application from any screen, etc. I could go on.

Sense UI showed me a lot of new things every day.

The Droid is a great piece of hardware, but I'm already bored with it. I only have 3 home screens and all the widgets look like crap. I don't get a seperate lock screen wallpaper, and to listen to music and see cover art, I have to actually go to the music application.

The Droid is a lot like the Iphone. Its useful, and easy to use, and has a lot of things in it, but it definitely is not as fun and personal as a device with Sense UI.

All this being said, I do have to admit that I have decided to keep the Droid. Why? Because its faster, it has overall better hardware, and a newer and more intelligent OS. In the long run, I currently feel that it is more future proof.

As for my plans in the long term.. they are simple. Wait for a more powerful, faster HTC Android device with more memory, Android 2.0 and Sense UI, or wait for Sense UI to be ported over to the Droid.... which ever comes first.

 

[poopieboy]

I also have to add.... had my Hero been activated sooner, I would have stuck with it and NOT gotten the Droid.

 

[bruceo]

I'm in a similar boat. I went from Verizon to sprint hero. sprints signal is terrible at my home. so on my 30th day, tomorrow i am returning and getting the droid or iris. all of the props with the droid are bumming me out on it. especially the vanilla Android and crap camera. I come from many years on winmo and the hero blows them away. htc native apps seem to be better and more polished than Google's, the virtual keyboard is much better, styling is much nicer and I like the camera but not the video... I am hoping the HTC passion does come out before black Friday because that looks to be the droid killer.

 

[poopieboy]

Yeah, I am really waiting for another HTC phone (for Verizon) to hit the market soon, and with Android 2.0 and Sense UI over it. Another thing I just noticed about my Droid, no IM app, weather app, or stocks app come directly on the phone like the Hero does. Ugh.. the alternatives are just not as good...

 

[SilverK20A3]

Hi! I actually tried Sprint for a month with the Palm Pre the first 2 weeks, and then tried the Hero. I would make a decision taking the phone and plan into consideration. For me, I had to stick with Verizon out of necessity. When I got my Hero, I didn't even know Droid was coming to Verizon.

Sprint has many more free perks. For me, I valued the free visual voicemail (super cool!), free text, unlimited mobile to mobile, and NFL Live. Verizon comes with none of those for the same price. If you're dependent on lots of minutes and free text, Verizon is significantly more expensive.

As for the network, on Droid I rarely go out of 3G coverage here in LA. My Hero went in and out of Evdo Rev A much more frequently.

Probably the only thing I didn't like about the Hero is that it was slow. That was probably the deal breaker for me. Otherwise, it was impressive. Sense UI comes with a better onscreen keyboard and text prediction, scenes, widgets, etc. The Droid has a proximity sensor so you don't push onscreen buttons while the phone is against your face.

Things I wish the Droid had: Send and end keys, and the trackball. Battery life is more or less similar. I agree with some of the other posters mentioning Android 2.0 is boring, and it kinda is, as far as widgets go. But for me, I try to save the battery as much as possible so I really don't use the interactive ones.

 

[KoukiFC3S]

I had the hero and the moment on sprint.

I was really hyped for the hero and it disappointed me. The 528mhz processor really hold the phone back. After a while my keyboard started lagging pretty bad.

The sense ui was cool but personally I didn't like the widgets that much.
Pure calendar is a better calendar widget. For weather I'm using a free widget that takes 2 spaces and looks great.

I did like the contact application on the hero; the dialer was great looking as well.

I'm liking my droid a lot more. The processor is a lot faster; and the increased screen size and resolution really make a difference.

 

[enemkay]

ok thanks for the replies.

 

[giacomobo]

I had the Sprint Hero and am now trying the Droid. The speed and screen of the Droid are fantastic, and they put into perspective just how achingly slow the Sprint Hero is. The Droid hardware is just better, and there's no getting around that.

That said, I'm not sure that the Droid experience is 30$-more-a-month-better, particularly since in my case Sprint's coverage is great. And comparisons can't be made between the two without mentioning the Sense UI. I got used to it, and I definitely miss it. I'm also surprised at how much I miss that seemingly worthless trackball and the dedicated call buttons.

I'm taking the Droid back today. Again, it's a better phone in many ways and you're not gonna get a better browsing experience, but there's too much to miss about the Sense UI. HTC says that they'll release an update to Sense UI compatible with Android 2.0. I'm thinking it's best to wait for that, live with the perfectly decent Sprint Hero for a year while keeping an eye on the parade of Android phones coming out. The Droid is basically the first of it's kind; devices that follow should only improve upon it, and one of them should be an HTC phone that couples Sense UI with a decent screen and processor.

 

[enemkay]

The Droid is basically the first of it's kind; devices that follow should only improve upon it, and one of them should be an HTC phone that couples Sense UI with a decent screen and processor.

at the current rate of android phone leapfrogging, a year should yield some truly amazing phones! great response. thanks.

 

[daveybaby]

Try oneweb mobile internet, widgets, web 2.0, video, personalized, fast it makes Browsing on most Smartphones like Android or BlackBerry's even faster on most sites and it

 

[Breakmyfootoff]

I cant believe some peoples priorities, granted, they are YOUR priorities and you have every right to set them as you wish. I just dont understand wanting to trade the Droid for the Hero which has a half inch smaller screen with half the resolution and a processor that is slow and laggy by comparison just to gain the Hero's native weather app or because you can press the "call" button from any screen. There are other more customizable Home apps for droid as well, Home++ is my favorite. You can add a phone button to every screen if you want access to that on every page, and with the home replacement apps you can have lots of apps for pages (I think up to 17), but I only use 5. What about beautiful widgets? Thats a lot like the Hero's Home screen with the integrated and animated weather. The bottom line : You can add apps to the Droid to mimic what the Hero does, but if you get a Hero, there is no app to increase the screen size/resolution, no app to add a better/faster processor, and no app to add a physical keyboard.

 

[RvLeshrac]

I cant believe some peoples priorities, granted, they are YOUR priorities and you have every right to set them as you wish. I just dont understand wanting to trade the Droid for the Hero which has a half inch smaller screen with half the resolution and a processor that is slow and laggy by comparison just to gain the Hero's native weather app or because you can press the "call" button from any screen. There are other more customizable Home apps for droid as well, Home++ is my favorite. You can add a phone button to every screen if you want access to that on every page, and with the home replacement apps you can have lots of apps for pages (I think up to 17), but I only use 5. What about beautiful widgets? Thats a lot like the Hero's Home screen with the integrated and animated weather. The bottom line : You can add apps to the Droid to mimic what the Hero does, but if you get a Hero, there is no app to increase the screen size/resolution, no app to add a better/faster processor, and no app to add a physical keyboard.

Spoken like someone who hasn't *used* Sense. I detailed my impressions of the Eris vs the Droid elsewhere in a Droid vs. Eris post.

I should point out that the larger screen on the Droid means that the extra CPU is just.... gone. You can't use it for more apps, because it is being used to handle the higher res. YouTube vids look equally bad (though I blame the YT app for that), and the Droid is actually *laggier* out-of-box than the Eris.

Since the Hero is just a slightly older Eris on a different carrier, I can honestly say that sticking with the Hero is the better option, as long as you get good coverage from Sprint. The Voice+Data plan is less expensive, and I've had huge problems with reception on both the Eris and Droid.

Other than the reception, they're good phones... but I'm *pretty* sure that a lack of a signal is a deal-breaker for most people.

 

[Breakmyfootoff]

I should point out that the larger screen on the Droid means that the extra CPU is just.... gone. You can't use it for more apps, because it is being used to handle the higher res. YouTube vids look equally bad (though I blame the YT app for that), and the Droid is actually *laggier* out-of-box than the Eris.

Seriously? Thats what you believe? Everyone else seems to think the opposite. On the Droid you can always tap the Hi Res option to watch the video in hi def. Your post sounds like its from someone that hasnt *used* a Droid. You also seem to be in the minority on signal reception. It's ridiculous to think that the half inch larger screen makes the extra processing power disappear lol, especially when every review states that the Eris is slower than the Droid.

 

[cb2000a]

"I loved that I had 7 home screens to really go crazy with. I loved that the settings had a "Personalize" section. I loved that I could access the Phone application from any screen, etc. I could go on.":

There's an app for that.

 

[RvLeshrac]

Over time, the Eris slows down. Because it has 7 home screens, meaning that you're going to have more widgets on average. Out of the box, moving from one home to another is seamless, while the Droid has a bit of lag - this despite the Droid having the basic android icons and the Eris having the Sense Clock/Weather Widgets+Peep, in addition to the basic layout.

I *attempted* to watch a number of YouTube vids in HQ, but they all failed miserably at loading (Don't think I need to repeat my reception issues - and I *know* I'm in the minority, but that fact doesn't really do anything to improve my reception, or that of the others with the same issue).

I'm not saying that the Droid and Eris are, strictly speaking, bad phones. I like both of them. The issue is that there are deal-breakers for both of them.

(Oh, and I should also point out that HTC's predictive text pretty well eliminates any need for a hardware keyboard. The dictionary on the Droid is acceptable, but not really in the same class.)

 

[Iceytea]

The Sense UI on the Hero makes the phone quite sleek. I really liked it for the two weeks I owned one. It kinda has that popular in-crowd feel to it and it is by far not a bad phone. Plus it has the coveted multi-touch in most of its applications. However, its processing power and screen size cannot be compared to the droid.

Thats the Droid's forte. Its got a gorgeous screen(watch your Youtube in HD, you don't play poor vids on a good screen) and a good processor to back it and the new update vastly increases the camera performance. Where the droid tends to lack is how smooth it is to transition from phone to mobile computing. However, remember that the Droid has just been rooted and changing the interface won't be very far!

 

[Breakmyfootoff]

Over time, the Eris slows down. Because it has 7 home screens, meaning that you're going to have more widgets on average. Out of the box, moving from one home to another is seamless, while the Droid has a bit of lag - this despite the Droid having the basic android icons and the Eris having the Sense Clock/Weather Widgets+Peep, in addition to the basic layout.

I have 11 home screens on mine full of icons and widgets (including Beautiful Widgets) and it scrolls the same as the day I opened it. I really believe the little hang up on switching home screens is a problem in the code and not the load on the processor as many have reported that that lag no longer existed after the recent update to Android 2.0.1. and because the lag was never present in any other scrolling situation, only on the home screen.

I *attempted* to watch a number of YouTube vids in HQ, but they all failed miserably at loading (Don't think I need to repeat my reception issues - and I *know* I'm in the minority, but that fact doesn't really do anything to improve my reception, or that of the others with the same issue).

Exactly, apparently you are in one of the few areas that Sprint has better reception than Verizon. Most of the rest of the Droid owning population dont have the same problems since Verizon has much more 3g coverage than Sprint. Obviously no Verizon phone is going to work as well for you as a Sprint phone will because of your geographical location. That does not mean however that the Droid is not a more powerful phone than the Hero/Eris.

I'm not saying that the Droid and Eris are, strictly speaking, bad phones. I like both of them. The issue is that there are deal-breakers for both of them.

No argument there, if I lived in an area where Sprint had good 3g coverage and Verizons coverage was spotty I too would choose the Hero, because no matter how good a phone is, its worthless without service.

(Oh, and I should also point out that HTC's predictive text pretty well eliminates any need for a hardware keyboard. The dictionary on the Droid is acceptable, but not really in the same class.)

I do agree with you there to an extent, but thats really just a personal opinion. There are going to be people that want a physical keyboard no matter how good the on screen keyboard is.

 

[RvLeshrac]

I can accept that there may be a software issue with the home-screen swiping lag, though 2.0.1 didn't help mine. I can't honestly defend SenseUI and not make exceptions for a possible software issue on the Droid, given that HTC practically makes a business out of SenseUI+Android bugs now.

The signal thing wasn't a point *against* the Droid, I was just noting that it isn't a point *for* the Droid, either. Though I *did* switch to the Droid primarily because people were saying it seems to have better reception. Reality has shown me that both phones are about equal on antennae - the Eris got a slightly better signal, but the Droid is doing more with less.

The issue I have with my reception is that other Verizon phones have a much better signal in the same locations. *Everyone* at work uses Verizon, and I'm the only person with a poor signal while I'm there. I originally chalked it up to a bad phone, but I've been through 2xEris and a Droid now.

One of my coworkers actually sent me a message: "haha, I get full sig on my BB" :'(

 

[Breakmyfootoff]

I can accept that there may be a software issue with the home-screen swiping lag, though 2.0.1 didn't help mine.

This is definitely an area that I cant speak from experience yet, as I haven't gotten the update yet, but pretty much everyone (besides you) has reported increased speed and smoothness in all parts of the OS including the home screen after thier phone had been updated I wont confirm nor deny till I see the update on my phone though.

One of my coworkers actually sent me a message: "haha, I get full sig on my BB" :'(

To which you should have responded "haha, You have a BB"
Not that I dislike BB, but that would've been a good comeback