First, Welcome to the forum! I have the HTC Hero and love it. However, a lot has changed since its release. Truth is, it can run some 3d stuff, but gets slowed down pretty rapidly thanks to older hardware. If you are in America and are going with Sprint, wait another week and get the Evo 4G. Its very similar to the Hero in that it runs HTC Sense UI, and is made by the same manufacturer. It has a new 1 GHz processor, 1GB onboard memory, 512 MB RAM, and many other awesome features. This will run just about any well programmed game you could throw at it. If this is in Europe, get a Nexus One, HTC Desire, or at least an HTC Legend. Nexus One gets updates quite rapidly, thanks to it being Google's flagship phone. It is also made by HTC and has the 1GHz processor. The Desire has some great features including Sense UI, and the Legend is the official updated Hero, and looks much nicer and has better specs. I would seriously look at all of these phones if you want to make a great decision. They all run games really well, and are overall the best phones available. For more information, just check them out online. Plenty of reviews and specs for all of them.

Edit: Also, just wanted to point out that the Hero doesn't have a better processor/graphics card than the newer iPhones. Maybe the original, but that would be it. Also, Android needs more resources than iPhone OS 3 becuase it does multitasking and a lot of other useful, but resource hogging features. Its not a whole lot, but the Hero struggles with many things an inferior iPhone wouldn't break a sweat on. The good news is, Android has better Ram management, so it doesn't run low on memory and need a reboot any where near as often as an iPhone does. I had a 2nd Gen iPod Touch, and always ran out of memory and it would need a reboot.

 

They will run, but it won't be pretty.

-Mike

 

I find that as long as I use TasKiller before playing games there are plenty of great games that run very smoothly on the Hero, Some of the high-end stuff like Raging Thunder 2 etc. is a bit choppy but still playable. If you are getting an Android handset for gaming you should be looking at one with the PowerVR graphics such as the Droid (Milestone) or Nexus One, Or as previously mentioned, the Evo 4G or Incredible if you are in the US!

Ben

 

Use a custom rom that supports overclocking (modaco or kimera) and discover the power of the Hero. It's stunning.

-Adrien

 

bebou, what would that do to the actual lifespan of the phone?

 

No doubt the extra heat and stress generated by overclocking would reduce the life of the phone, but in most cases you'll probably junk the phone before it gives out.

 

Overclocking your phone is similar to overclocking a PC... it's hit or miss, depending on the chip you got. Some give better results, and others not so much. For the most part, overclocking just adds more heat which in turn puts more strain on it. Who knows at what point it will just give up and die. The chip can also die just by regular use. It is pretty unlikely in either case though.

If you're going to overclock, you will probably underclock as well while the phone is idle, and that should balance out the extra battery usage a bit.

If you have a rom that supports it, then it's just another app that you put the settings you want in. Can't get much easier than that.

I overclocked my Hero to 652 MHz and it appeared to be stable, but some of the more intensive games would crash on me (i.e. Homerun Battle 3D, Raging Thunder, iCommando). The first two at least were still playable, albeit a bit jittery at times, when the phone was running at normal speed.

 

Which iPhone?

I think you might've bought the wrong phone. The Hero is no computing powerhouse.

 

When the phone is correctly rooted + with RA amon 1.6.2 installed, it's very easy to OC at any speed ( using setCPU).
I use it at 692Mhz max ( with 710Mhz+ i'm unstabble) in Normal mode, 528mhz max in charging mode and 288Mhz max while sleeping and the battery life is exactly the same as the phone came out of the box ( and probably better because if I don't play that much games ( what I'm actually not doing ) the cpu runs only at 288mhz so it saves a lot of battery

Sorry for my poor english, I hope it's clear enough to understand

Then I'm sure you will

 

honestly if youve ordered it and youre within the 7 days return policy id return it. The Desire is out already meaning the Hero is already outdated. If youre on an 18 or 24 month contract it will probably frustrate you within 6-12 months