Orange Mobile Uk Unlease Htc Hero

[Leelu1988]

YAY!
Its actually happened
Orange Uk online has finally put its HTC hero up for sale.
However Online its saying you need to pay extra for the internet, so my boyfriend is on the case calling customer service.
If all is well I am ordering it asap and getting it delivered thursday between 10am and 5.30pm for

 

[justjimjpc]

YAY!
Its actually happened
Orange Uk online has finally put its HTC hero up for sale.
However Online its saying you need to pay extra for the internet, so my boyfriend is on the case calling customer service.
If all is well I am ordering it asap and getting it delivered thursday between 10am and 5.30pm for

 

[Leelu1988]

Well on the website its

 

[Leelu1988]

About the whole paying for the internet,

You DONT select the internet on the options on the website but apparently still get it, however for a peace of mind I would suggest going into store from Friday and getting a contract and phone there and then
OR
Phone up customer care and order from there, they are very helpful, and from what i know ( the Orange guys in store think it will be

 

[marka87uk]

Been looking at Android for a while and I can't wait to get this phone in about a month when my current contract runs out... been waiting for what seems so long!

Prices plans look OK - phone is

 

[Leelu1988]

Im going to be running 2 contracts at once, the same with my boyfriend.
We have gone with the 24month plan because I think this phone would last, just like an Iphone to be honest, and I dont have the money to buy it any other way (being a poor student)

 

[Mansn]

Wait ... Over 24 months you will be paying an extra 30 pounds a month for 6 months. That's 180 pounds, or about 80 more than paying the 100 quid up front. How does that compute?

 

[marka87uk]

It's also worth noting that you can get this on a 12 month plan by clicking 'find a plan' and then 'see our 12 month plans' (although of course it works out more expensive each month), but as Leelu1988 said, this phone looks to be a keeper for a while!

Would be great if someone could confirm if you do need to pay extra for the internet or not on this phone?

 

[DanGrover]

Wait ... Over 24 months you will be paying an extra 30 pounds a month for 6 months. That's 180 pounds, or about 80 more than paying the 100 quid up front. How does that compute?

Well that's not exactly true, is it? They will be paying another

 

[dtweek]

Interested in this as I'm on T-Mobile at the moment and my contract runs out at end of the month. However the thought of getting

 

[InfiniteSlinky]

To clear up the internet issue, the price you have quoted the the minimum amount you will be charged, per day, based on usage outside of your agreed contract limit, which with orange is 500MB Data transfer.which is quite generous, I currently have 300MB on my fair use policy with O2 and I've never gone over the limit there.

Apparently you do not need to choose the internet s an additional option, so long as you select the correct plan that allows you the net access included (in mine and Leelu's case Dolphin 40, 24 month contract) however I was a bit skeptical about it going through without a hitch so i calle the prange customer service number (which is freephone) and they set it up for me there, and didnt even charge me delivery, where it was about

 

[Bunjiweb]

Well i went into the Orange store today and bought mine. Am still messing around with it and getting used to Android. So far, am extremely impressed, and although I have had a couple of slight slow-downs, nothing that I would really worry about, and I would expect a firmware update in the future would improve it.

I got free internet included with my tarriff (

 

[Mansn]

I'm thinking of going for the 24 month tariff with 600 mins, unlimited texts and 500 MB internet for 25 pounds per month and an up front cost of 100 quid.

The total cost of the plan is 600 pounds with an additional 100 for the phone. I am never ever going to use 1200 minutes! 400 is actually enough for me and I would prefer an 18 month contract, but the phone is more expensive on that and there is no mobile internet!

How can they even sell the Hero without internet? That's really deceiving; there should be no "no-internet" plans available in my opinion.

 

[Mansn]

How much branding is there on the Orange handset by the way?

 

[agd]

Now that people are starting to receive Orange Heros, can we establish whether Orange have crippled anything in the firmware?
For me, the main factors are:
a) can we still install our own apps - those we write, or apps provided from sources other than the official AndroidMarket?
b) will we likely be able to put Android 2.0 on it when available?

If anyone's familiar enough with these issues, and has received a Hero from Orange, could you please confirm, and ease my paranoia?

 

[InfiniteSlinky]

@Mansn

The test model me and Leelu saw had a rather discrete and not at all vulgar orange square on the back of the handset below the camera text, definatly can deal with that haha, we are just hoping that there is not a little square on the front as in some initial pics we have seen as it just looks wrong. Our phones have not arrived just yet, but will confirm this when they do ^^

Slinky

 

[InfiniteSlinky]

@Agd

When Android 2.0 becomes available we will be able to install it without a hitch (according to HTC) but OTA (over the air) updates will not be available as this is not a branded "Google Experience" phone, due to the sense ui being applied to it, basically. However if you manually downloiad it and install it it will continue to work fine with thesense ui (in thoery) as sense ui goes over the top, rather than being completly integrated.

Slinky

 

[DanGrover]

@Agd

When Android 2.0 becomes available we will be able to install it without a hitch (according to HTC) but OTA (over the air) updates will not be available as this is not a branded "Google Experience" phone, due to the sense ui being applied to it, basically. However if you manually downloiad it and install it it will continue to work fine with thesense ui (in thoery) as sense ui goes over the top, rather than being completly integrated.

Slinky

That's interesting, I didn't know that. I was under the impression that HTC basically took the official Google releases, then would build the latest version of Sense and all that, then release THAT, but that's interesting to hear. It'd be interesting to see what happens if (or rather when, probably) Google starts integrating some of the stuff that's on Hero - closer Facebook/Twitter integration, that sort of stuff. See how the "over laying" responds to that.

 

[jaybea830802]

The Orange Hero does not have any obvious branding that I can find, other than the Orange logo on the back of the case and on screen briefly as the phone starts and a link to Orangeworld as the homepage in the browser. I have been able to install unsigned apps downloaded from websites other than the Android Market (although you have to enable this first).

The phone is locked to Orange though (I just tried it with an O2 PAYG sim).

Jules

 

[pixelseventy2]

Can anyone confirm if the Orange deal with 500mb mobile internet browsing is "real" internet, or running through an Orange proxy? It talks about webmail, which seems rather pointless on a device with an email client built in. Also, depending on where you look on their site they claim it doesn't even support email.

They classify this under their "iphone alternatives" section, which the device is (more than), but if they don't offer a real data tariff like the other networks then this device is pretty much pointless. A bit like they did with the HTC Touch HD.

 

[Zinc]

I got my Hero yesterday. I had bookmarked the link to the 'Coming Soon' page on the Orange website and religiously checked it every day so spotted it was available on Tuesday and gave Customer Services a call pronto.

I'm a bit of a Google fan boy and already use Mail, Maps, Calendar, Docs... pretty much everything (except Chrome - like Opera too much) so I've been waiting for an Android handset for a while now.

I have to say, on a days experience, that I absolutely love it. Just put in my account info and everything came up. Linking contacts to Facebook is genius although I could do with an app that opens Docs rather than using the browser.

I've started exploring the Market. Google Sky Map is just too cool.

PLUS it seems to work well as a phone too! Something my iPhone equiped friends can't say all the time...

 

[InfiniteSlinky]

First off, very sorry I have not posted yet, but I have unfortunately found myself rather lacking on the internet front the past few days due to a cock up on the part of my isp, and as such am in fact making this post from my gorgeous new hero.

I'm not going to do a lengthy review as to be quite honest, to enter it all on my phones keyboard.would be hell, but I will make a few comments to get some essential info (in my opinion) regarding the day to day usage of what I think is a fantastic piece of technology.

I have been using the hero as my main handset for three days now, and have to say it is all I hoped and more. As my first venture into the smartphone market I can't really make a comparison to any other unit available, but idont think this is needed. The hero operates fast enough for me to be happy with it, and why should it need to be more than that. The only thing I can really gripe about is the keyboard is a tad slow to respond when typing in the browser, so even with Tue fantastic error correction built in mistakes are much more commonplace.

The hero is exactly what it is, a smart phone, all the work HTC put into the UI has pause off, with everything integrated seamlessly, and I have to say I can offer no explanation as to why some people are reporting slowdown. I have the Twitter widget, email, messaging, clock with weather attached calendar, music widget, bookmarks widget and favourite contacts, and the worst lag I have experienced is a slight thinking time when navigating away from the screen with the Twitter widget on directly after an update.

The music player delivers crisp sound quality, I have been very impressed with Google maps, the multi touch functionality is perfect where it is available, and the keyboard is a dream to use when not lagging in the browser.

I would happily recommend this phone to anyone, and I hope people find this short informative post useful when considering the hero, from a real users perspective, along side all the reviews out there.

Thanks for taking the time to read, and if you have any questions fell free to post or pm me and I will do my best to get back to you ASAP.

Slinky

 

[Mansn]

I can only agree with the previous poster. I went to an Orange store today and managed to sit down and play with the device for 20 minutes or so. It's an absolutely stunning piece of hardware, with a fantastic user interface. Sure, it slowed a little once in a while, but the delay was so minor that I really couldn't be damned. I am sure that with the release of new firmware updates, and especially the release of Donut/Android 2.0 we will see the phone being as smooth as a sea of cream.

 

[Quboid]

By the sounds of it, if you have lots of active widgets, it gets slow. By active, I mean ones that download stuff, use GPS, play music. Stuff like the twitter widget. This is pretty obvious really and isn't specific to the Hero or even to Android, I think it's just that Android's widgets make it more susceptible to this home-screen overload issue, and all the additional widgets with the Hero mean it's *even* more susceptible. If this is the case, it's common sense to use widgets in moderation.

Personally I'll mainly be using inert widgets, ones that don't do anything unless you are using them - toggles for wifi/bt/gps, bookmarks, a clock - all stuff that does absolutely zero unless you're actually looking at that page.

What will happen with Donut when it's out? Will Sense UI work? Does HTC have a history of supporting existing products?

 

[ravmania]

Had my Hero for a week. It's started to lag quite a lot. Freezes up quite frequently to the point of being a deal breaker. Just done a factory reset and it's silky smooth again. Android seems a bit like Firefox to that extent. The more you add to it the worse the performance gets.