HTC Hero (CDMA)
Average Ratings
BUYER BE WARE !
I haven't had the HTC HERO for a full year at first It was hard to get it set up (email,calendar,address book)because sprints advance text support didn't know how,on one occasion they even hung up the telephone.I did go online and wrote a letter to HTC the company that makes the phone and they contact me and help set it up free of charge .Recently my screen begin to freeze,at first they(Sprint) would tell me to take the battery out to recycle the phone and it worked, but it continue to happen and more frequently then sprint said they could fix it but everything on the phone would have to be erase which I couldn't do.Android boards aren't compatible with windows and you need outlook or outlook express to download and save the information on a HTC Android.Well windows vista doesn't use outlook.Long story short my phone is insured just send me a new phone they refused they said I had to go back to their repair store for the 4Th time and then said that the phone had corrosion damage.My phone has never been wet which means this HTC HERO had to already been damage when they shipped it to me yet I'm stuck with it.Buyer be ware
HTC HERO (open mobilepr) PLAZA LAS AMERICAS. PUERTO RICO
OpenMobile: hoy dia noviembre 11,2010 tienda de plaza las americas. 1er piso. me diriji a ahcer un cambio de equipo HTC HERO. comprado en dicho lugar , y fui atendido por el SR. GABRIEL MARTINEZ gerente de dicha tienda. fui atendido de lo peor que se puede tratar a un cliente. el equipo HTC HERO. mostrando sus fallas en presencia del GERENTE de la tienda. y aun asi este SR. GABRIEL MARTINEZ. SE NEGO A HACER UN CAMBIO POR GARANTIA. en un equipo que no tiene 2 semanas de comprado. LE RECOMIENDO AL PUBLICO QUE NO COMPRE NINGUN SERVICIO CON OPEN MOBILE. ya que para vender son buenos . mientras te agarran el dinero. y luego es problema del cliente. asi que hago este comentario . para que sepan de mi experiencia personal. con companias puertorriquenas. LO BARATO SIEMPRE SALE CARO.yo volvere con T-MOBILE O AT&T . Open Mobile. solo le interesa la comision que puede hacer con cada venta. y que se fastidie el cliente. le jure al SR.GABRIEL MARTINEZ DE OPEN MOBILE PR. QUE MI EXPERIENCIA CON EL Y SU COMPANIA ESTARIA EN LINEA Y ASI LO ESTOY HACIENDO. AHORA DECIDAN ISTEDES.
not a good choice.
this phone had nothing to offer the only thing i liked about this phone was the camera THATS IT!!!!. Using the phone was like using an old windows phone it wasnt great at all when i tried to make a call it always froze and i couldnt stand it.
Not My Hero
First off, the phone itself is not bad. It's a nice, smaller sized smartphone. The trackball got a bit annoying but was definitely useful.
Some of my biggest issues are with the carrier (Sprint) but since they go together, I have to dock the phone some points.
I got the phone, new, in May of 2010. I purchased an EVO yesterday (10/14/10).
I would've kept it honestly, however, I was one of the lucky ones who had the memory leak issue with the device. I went from having nearly 60mb of memory free (and having 30+ apps downloaded) to having 0mb free due to the mail app sucking up 90mb of memory.
Anyway, this phone is outdated now, but if you are so inclined to buy it still, here's my review:
Pros:
-nice camera and camcorder
-easy to use
-fits in your pocket
-didnt drop many calls
Neutral:
-Color of device
-Droid 2.1
-trackball
Cons:
-Droid 2.1
-Small keyboard
-Lag when rotating phone
-Dialer (which was later updated)
...Like I said, my beef is more or less with sprint and their unwillingness to update it to 2.2, and the fact it took them a long time to fix the dialer issue.
It's a cool droid phone if you are a casual user, but for hardcore users, go with a 2.2 phone
Worth of $50 is debatable...
Not going to say that the HTC Hero was the worst phone I ever had... Ok, yes I will. The HTC Hero had to have been the biggest disappointment since Rocky 5. When I upgraded, I learned that I was able to get the phone for $50. Such a fantastic deal! A droid phone for even less than my monthly bill! Well, after three days, I started having issues with the phone; freezing up, not updating as it was supposed to, dropping calls for no apparent reason, at random times. So I figured that I had just gotten a bum phone. I took it back and exchanged it for the same model, and this time it lasted about a week. Dropped calls and just overall lousy reception, even though I did have good signal indicators. I'd be standing in the same spot, and my bars would free-fall from 5 to none in approximately a nanosecond. I go through Sprint, and have never had any signal issues, so I knew it had to be the phone. So, overall, I'd have to say that the apps on this phone are pretty cool, when they actually work like they're supposed to. But as a phone, the Hero is worthless.
Most Sluggish phone I ever owned
Pros:
OK look and design
User friendly Android interface
Cons:
Horrible touch screen
Horrible lag
Screen freezes up frequently
Horrible battery life
software update to 2.1 made it even worse
Swing and a Miss
After having this phone for 8 mo. I traded it for a Palm Pre which is a much better phone. It doesn't have some of the integration and certainly not the apps the android phones have but the phone works, doesn't lag and the web os is positively the best OS for a phone out there.
As you have seen from other reviews here, the phone had some great ideas that never really worked out. This was the first android try from Sprint and as the htc and other hardware manufacturers have learned, you need more power than this little processor provides to make android a useful experience. They tried to go cheap on the cpu and android with the htc sense overlay requires at least what the iphone cpu has which you can find in the Samsung Galaxy phones or the almost any of the android 2.2 compatible devices as they all have a 1 ghz cpu.
The result of underpowering this phone gives you a very laggy experience even with advance task killer and other methods, you will still try to answer calls with a 3 second delay or try to call someone and find the lag long enough that you press it again just to find out that now you have hung up.
There are many optimizations in android 2.2 that may help with this situation however Sprint is not updating the Hero to 2.2. 2.1 was promised for over 6 months before it finally hit which did help things quite a bit, but the Hero still lags.
The other problem I found was it was too small for most hands to text with. It was very difficult to text with the lag and the size of the softkeys even in landscape mode.
+ Positives
+ android is getting to be a more polished experience
+ Uhmmm I still trying to think of something.
- Negatives
-Lag
-Screen to small to text on
-Batter life is awful, usually out within 2 hrs after 8 months use
-No more updates from Sprint for this device so no 2.2 android which would really help it
-
Great for what it does!
I have owned this phone for about a year now. I will give you my pros and cons and then my insight.
**PRO**
>Form factor is nice. Not too big - not too small
>Screen is sharp and clear
>Touch screen is responsive
>Speaker phone and ear phone is loud enough
>Call reception is as good or better than other Sprint phone I have owned
**CONS**
>As with most Android/HTC handsets, the battery life is suspect
>In native form, is currently running 1.6
>OS is a bit laggy, combined with an underpowered processor
>No camera flash
Now, some of these things are easily overcome by running a cooked ROM. Currently, I am running Froyo 2.2 on this device and while occasionally a little laggy, still far better than 1.6. Go to xda-developers.com, READ and decide if you can handle what goes into running unofficial ROMS and proceed or don't. Would recommend this phone if you want to save some money and aren't afraid to experiment with your device.
The Biggest Waste
I am +10, This he is right This is what the phone does all the time it's the worst phone ever
HUGE problems:
1) Drops calls like crazy - part Sprint, but mostly the phone.
2) Almost impossible to hang up the phone after talking - takes a couple maneuvers to do it, so don't badmouth the person you were on the phone with right after hanging up - chances are you are not hung up!
3) LAG LAG LAG - can you say LAG. Once you do get the phone to hang up it lags so bad it thinks you hit the end call button more than once and redials the person back half the time.
4) Today - my THIRD Hero - Sprint refuses to give me a different phone. Hung up on 4 calls in a row in a matter of 15 minutes.
Best Sprint Phone to date
I have had several phones with sprint over the past 5 years, I love "apps" and like the touch screen feature! Finding the perfect phone for me was hard till now! This phone is everything I want plus some...Not a disappointment at all...
My Pros:
-Great camera 5.0 mpx
-Great sound
-Awesome Apps (alot are free)
-Google and Android
-Navigation is Great
-7 functional screens that can be filled with apps or widgets
-Sleek unisex design
-Grippy feel
-Its not big and bulky
-I have not had any problems with any apps I've downloaded
-and more
My only cons:
-You have to install a task killer app, the apps run even if they are not in use, killing them everyonce in a while will save your battery and prevent lag on the phone.
-Phone Lag when making a call...but if task killer is used it will fix the problem.
-Low battery life...its worse when you first get the phone because you will use it alot, i usually charge it only at night and it lasts all day! I still use the phone quit a bit!
