Try this app in the Market....Screebl. It is great! Works off the accelerometer to disable screen timeout while the phone is at a "tilt" (whether in portrait or landscape), but when layed flat or holding upright on a call the screen will timeout at the interval you have set in the phones settings. One of the best apps I have to date.

 

If you download Astro manager, you can save all of your apps to your sdcard and install them from there. otherwise they should be "remembered" in your mydownloads (don't quote me on that. i know the paid apps are supposed to be)

if you convert all of your contacts to google contacts, they will be saved in your gmail account. once you reset, it will resync itself automatically, and all your contacts will appear.

to manually sync to gmail MENU > SETTINGS > DATA SYNCHRONIZATION > GOOGLE > CHECK MARK AUTO-SYNC, GMAIL, CALENDAR AND CONTACTS > MENU > SYNC NOW

 

did your phone not time out during a call? mine does with screebl. did you go into the screeble settings and adjust the portrait tilt slider? if you do so, it will adjust to time out the screen while the phone is in a fully upright to a slightly tilted postion. try it again.....maybe it will work for you. good luck

 

I'm pretty sure you need to edit your contacts back with there Facebook link and what not. At least I had to when I updated the firmware.

 

Amen!!!

 

I am not sure what the issue is people are having, maybe I am lucky with my phone.

I get a call, the screen goes blank 15 seconds later. If I have to wake it up while on the call to look at something, the screen goes blank 15 seconds later.

I use screebl to keep the screen on while I am surfing etc. But it is set to disabled while on the ear.

 

My screen blanks out during calls with out a problem. I wonder why some people's phone does this and some don't?

 

My phone acts just like yours, but in that 15 seconds my ear or cheek often hangs up on the call, or starts a three way call, or hangs up and then dials someone else, or sends a random text, or adds something to my contacts, or opens and mucks around in my calendar... etc.

For people like the OP having their screen active longer than fifteen seconds, their nightmare is amplified that much more.

 

Have you tried disabling auto backlight? Just a whim...

Also people are reporting better battery life when Auto Backlight is disabled.

 

Im also curious about this. I have a gmail account but only opened it to get on the android market. What does syncing the contacts to google do in the long run? Will I notice anything different in how the phone works? Will it mess anything up with my yahoo account (my main email).

thanks

 

It's by far the easiest way to back them up. A contact added to either the phone (as a Google contact) or your Google account (Gmail, Google Voice, etc) automatically syncs without any interaction on your part.

 

I was thinking about this just this mourning, Having switched from an iPhone I am very happy with my Hero/Android/Sprint except for this. I find myself wishing for a dedicated on/off button like the one the iphone has at the top right of the device. That way you could invoke the lock screen during a call manually at least.

Basically the whole lock/unlock routines for the hero are just FUBAR when compared to the iPhone. I never not even once accidentaly unlocked my iphone while it has happened at least four times with the hero. Whether in call or not this needs to be rethought IMO.

 

Agreed.

FrogSpatter suggested a practical solution for in-call situations, at least. Let the screen stay active, but as soon as a call is started or answered the screen gives perhaps three sliders: hang up, keypad, and either back to the main call screen or to the home screen. I doubt my ear or cheek would activate a slider very often, especially if the sliders were oriented vertically instead of horizontally.

It does keep unlocking in my pocket though, which is one of my other top complaints with the phone (Hero) at the moment.