HTC Hero: Software & HTC Sense Review

By Casey Chan
last updated

We’ve already discussed the hardware of the HTC Hero in our previous review and in short, it’s great. The wonderful build quality and high-end design will certainly make it appealing to tons of users, new and long time smartphone users alike. But what makes the HTC Hero truly special is the software, HTC Sense.

We’ve covered HTC Sense here at Android Central before and have never hidden our feelings about it (we love it). HTC Sense really shows what Android is all about—the customization, the uniqueness, and the capabilities. We think it’s safe to say that HTC Sense was one of the biggest announcements for Android this year—it cast Android in a dynamically new light and showed the world that Android was in fact, ready for the prime time.

So how, after all those superlatives, does HTC Sense perform? Is it really the game-changing feature that we’ve built it up to be? Is it speedy? Is it slow? Is it usable?

 

Find out in Android Central’s software review of the HTC Hero!

A Quick Background on HTC Sense

HTC Sense is the software behind the HTC Hero. To put it simply, it’s a widget-based UI that combines all kinds of customization and sexiness. HTC has built a lot of apps and widgets for Sense and they’re all drool-worthy. It’s obvious that a lot of work has been put into Sense but it comes to no surprise since HTC has been a staunch supporter of Android since launch--building custom software on top of Android simply extends that thought. HTC even has plans to launch Sense on upcoming HTC Android handsets.

If you want to see a brief overview on how HTC Sense works, check out this video:

So for those users coming from different smartphone platforms, you can liken HTC Sense to TouchFLO 3D on Windows Mobile (but better), a crazy theme on steroids for Blackberry (but more in depth) and for well iPhone users, you guys don’t get to customize so you have no idea how cool this is (really cool).

Before we get started, let’s put this dirty rumor to rest. The HTC Hero is not overly laggy or slow, in our own experience with it, it is completely fine. We never encountered a hair-pulling, finger scratching, throw your phone across the room slowdown nor did we notice it to be any slower than the stock Android build. It looks like the updated firmware worked wonders on it. We’re sure most of you will agree.

 

The Basics

 

HTC Sense provides users with 7 home screens (as opposed to just 3 in stock Android) to place all your widgets and shortcuts in whatever order you so please. Those 7 home screens come together to what HTC calls ‘Scenes’, Scenes basically allows you to switch out your entire home screen for different needs. For example, in the work Scene, there’s work-related widgets like stocks, calendars, e-mail, etc loaded on and in the social Scene, there’s twitter and messaging widgets. Scenes are completely customizable and can be saved for future use. We think Scenes is a great and novel idea because you can basically turn your phone into whichever ‘mode’ you need. Going to work? Fire up your ‘work' Scene. Going on a vacation? Dial up the ‘play’ Scene. It’s quick customization at its very best—allowing one phone to maintain multiple personalities.

HTC Sense relies heavily on widgets and as any self-respecting Android user knows, widgets are just awesome. Widgets provide instant information to your homescreen, what’s the latest tweet from your twitter feed, how your stocks are doing, the weather, etc., there’s no app you have to jump into. Widgets are about giving you as much information as you can take without having to access the app. It’s really a very dynamic experience that adds much needed depth to the home screen.

And of course, HTC Sense plays into your social networks. Sense allows you to link your Contacts with their Facebook and Flickr accounts. It’s not as in your face as the Motorola CLIQ, but it works pretty well. It does a wonderful job in creating a seamless experience that ties all your networks together. So when scrolling down your Contact list don’t be surprised when you see their latest Facebook status update. Great ideas, no?

 

 

Widgets

HTC went and designed their own widgets for Sense and to say it’s nothing short of beautiful would be a crime. And not only do they look great, the HTC widgets are highly useful and practical. There’s widgets for simply everything—bookmarks, calendar, clocks, mail, messages, music, people, photos, search, settings, stocks, twitter, weather, etc—it’s an almost overwhelming list of items that add information and prettiness to your home screen. What makes the HTC Widgets even better is that most widget categories come with different widget designs—you’ll eventually find something useful for your style. Essentially for each widget category, the options are big and beautiful, normal and useful, or small and to the point. You can find your balance.

Because there are so many widgets to pick from, having the 7 home screens really shines—you can load as many widgets as you feel just. Like we said before, the widgets offer a much more in-depth home screen experience—you’re no longer viewing the home screen as a mere app launcher because it’s now your weather report, twitter application, and media player in one. However you want, whichever way you like.

HTC also offers widgets for turning on/off airplane mode, Bluetooth, gps, mobile network, and Wi-Fi. We told you HTC Sense extends your home screen functionality. You’re going to love these widgets.

 

Social Networks

It’s really wonderful to see manufacturers take social networking seriously and offer ways to create a seamless experience with our mobile devices. Our phones of today aren’t just dialing machines, they’re an extension of our everyday lives (at least our lives on the web). We dare say that the phone feature may be dropping down on the list of most-used applications as our smartphones get, well, smarter. And HTC Sense’s play into social networks emphasizes this change.

Your Contacts are much more than just phone numbers. They’re becoming a way to keep track of Facebook status updates and events, Flickr photo albums, SMS conversations, e-mails, birthdays and notes. Judging by the order of the tabs in contacts: Information, SMS, E-Mail, Facebook, Flickr, and Call History—we can see that HTC is acknowledging, heck even embracing the change in how we communicate. And we love it. Our phones are better equipped to serve our needs and offers multiple ways to connect to each other—in HTC Sense, you’re allowed to be more than your phone number.

What’s interesting is that HTC didn’t include Twitter or Google Talk integration to their contacts. And though we initially disagreed with their choice, we’ve come around to it and believe that HTC made the right move. Twitter and Google Talk are much more immersive forms of communication—having a dedicated app for those services offer a more dynamic and thus, better experience. So instead of just linking Twitter to your Contacts, you get to use Peep, a HTC-built Twitter application complete with a beautiful widget. Peep isn’t going to be feature-rich enough for ‘pro’ Twitter users but for the rest of us, it works just fine. Sadly, there’s no HTC-built Facebook application, you’ll have to rely on Android Market for that.

We like the Social Network integration with HTC Sense, it combines the experience of connectivity without feeling forced. Yes, Social Networks has been the buzzword for years now but not all users may find a need for it. It’s convenient enough for those living active social network-lives to use and small enough for those who’ve never heard of TwiBookfaceflick to leave unused. So while it hits the bullet point of Social Network connectivity, it keeps the scope of HTC Sense broad—you don’t have to have a social network to enjoy Sense. In the end, the Social Network integration is a side feature done really, really well.

 

Browser

The Browser in the Hero is the same good stuff that we’ve come to expect from our typical Android browser with the added benefit of two new features: multitouch and flash support. Yep, finally, multitouch on an Android device! To put it as simply as we can, multitouch in the browser is stupendously sweet. It makes infinitely more sense than the typical plus/minus symbols we’ve been using and works so much better.

What makes the multitouch implementation even cooler is that instead of your run of the mill zoom in, zoom out via pinching out, pinching in—the text of the website resizes when you zoom in/out, making it easier to read. It’s a smart way to read text heavy web pages on a mobile screen. When you zoom in, the text justifies itself and fits to screen—no need to constantly scroll right and left. Smarter multitouch--it's like magic.

On the other hand, Flash support isn’t nearly as polished. It’s nice to see Flash every once in a while on websites but don’t even dare to fire up Hulu. As it stands now, either Flash isn’t fast enough for our mobile processors and 3g networks or our mobile processors and 3g networks aren’t fast enough for Flash. Who knows who's to blame. We’ll probably have to wait for the official Adobe solution for Flash to become useful on mobile devices.

Let’s face it, the browser in stock Android is already wonderful. So to have the Hero add multitouch and flash support (however disappointing it is) to the mix makes it even better. As hard as it is to make one of the best mobile browsing experiences better, they did it. If you’re on a myTouch 3G or T-Mobile G1, you’ll be jealous of what the Hero browser can do and immediately demand the Android team to add multitouch immediately. We guarantee it.

 

Keyboard

One of the few features you’ll have to give up on when moving to the Hero is a physical keyboard. Luckily, HTC has built a custom keyboard that offers a slightly better experience than the stock Android one (not to mention it looks better).

The keyboard has the right sensitivity, a logical button arrangement and a lot of in-depth action via long presses. If you’re familiar with the Android soft-keyboard (or iPhone keyboard), you’ll notice that the Numbers button (to bring up numbers and symbols) is on the opposite side and the icon is a lot smaller than we’re used to. The switch and smaller size doesn’t inhibit experience too much, you’ll just have to accept it for what it is and type away.

For those wary of moving from a physical keyboard to a soft keyboard, trust us, we’ve been there. You’ll grow used to it and love the larger screen real estate gained from not being trapped with a physical keyboard.

 

Media

There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack and a slick onboard media player, these two features alone make it the best media device for Android ever. The UI looks as pretty as you’d want and works as well as you’d imagine. The only downer is that there’s still no syncing solution for Android, so you’re left dragging and dropping music onto your Hero, definitely not ideal.

 

Sprint Apps

Because the HTC Hero is on Sprint and because Sprint loves to load a bunch of carrier apps on its phones, you’ll find a lot of Sprint applications on your Hero. And though the Sprint widgets and apps aren’t nearly as polished as the HTC-built ones, we’d have to say Sprint does offer better applications than your run-of-the-mill carrier apps.

 

You get Sprint TV, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup, and Sprint Navigation whether you like it or not. And though we all have our varying interests, the Sprint Apps are invisible enough to ignore and if you happen to be a big NFL or NASCAR fan, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better mobile experience on a different carrier.

 

Android

As hidden as Android seems on the HTC Hero, make no mistake, this is still an Android phone. That means you get all the goodies of Android—Gmail, Android Market, Google Talk, Google Maps, the notification window, the openness, etc.—and all the goodies are still great. If you love Android, this is still Android. If you’ve never used Android, meet Android.

Sadly, the Sprint HTC Hero ships with Android 1.5 ‘Cupcake’ and not Android 1.6 ‘Donut’ which means all these new Android users don’t get to immediately enjoy the new and unique features of ‘Donut’. We’re definitely disappointed that ‘Donut’ didn’t make its way onto the Hero not only because it’s a better build of Android and has new features but because we simply don’t know when it’s coming to the HTC Hero. We’ve been given no timeline from Sprint and we’d hate to see a batch of Android users (new ones, to boot) be stuck on 1.5, when 1.6 already exists.

 

Final Thoughts

The software on the HTC Hero rocks. This is truly Android grown up and we absolutely love HTC Sense—it’s beautiful, still customizable, and so easy to use. You’ll get great new features (widgets, social network) that simply add to the Android Experience and truly make Android a ‘top-tier’ platform and the HTC Hero a ‘top-tier’ phone.

If you’re a Sprint customer, this is your new best phone. If you’re new to Android, there’s no introduction like the HTC Hero. We believe that you’ll be stunned at how easy it is to use and how polished it all works. If you’re looking from the myTouch 3G or T-Mobile G1, you can’t help but be jealous of the Hero. The UI offers a great experience while still maintaining the same lovely Android and even adds a better browser! We have no hesitation in saying that the HTC Hero is the best Android phone available and after using HTC Sense, will be for quite some time.

If you’re planning to buy a smartphone, your only legitimate excuse is if Sprint doesn’t get good reception where you live. But from our experience with Sprint (this was our first), the flack that it catches is undeserved. The network was strong, the data speeds were fast and even the carrier apps were surprisingly useful. And unbeknownst to us, their smartphone rate plans are on the more affordable end. Either way, we think the HTC Hero is a strong enough option to consider switching to Sprint. It’s that good, inside and out.

*for some reason, our HTC Hero refused to take screenshots through ddms. we thank engadget, gizmodo, coolsmartphone, and mobile-review for their beautiful screenshots*

Casey Chan
Casey Chan
45 Comments
  • Wish T-Mobile would catch on to this and get Sense for us MyTouch users. Such a nice lookin UI. And now Sprint comes out with their first Android and boom there is Sense for them... WTF! Great breakdown on Sense guys!
  • From what I've read Sense UI will not be coming to MyTouch 3G because of licensing issues stemming from the "with Google" branding. The Vodafone HTC Magic will also be excluded for the same reason. However, those Magic's NOT carrying the "with Google" branding ( like the Rogers HTC Magic) WILL be eligible for a Sense UI update at some point in the future.
  • This is what I heard too, but it cannot be true because the sprint htc hero is a 'with google' phone. I got one a few days ago and it clearly has with google printed on the back.
  • My Hero says HTC on the back. Not with google.
  • Great review. I am a Blackberry Storm owner, and this Hero looks like the phone I wanted in the first place. Since VZW will be getting something like this VERY soon, I'll wait for it. But I think I am ready to leave BB for something that work much better.
  • You can pretty easily download and apply the HTC Hero ROM to your MyTouch 3G. I did it last week and it's been working well. There are some glitches such as people search not working and Google Voice app is flaky. But if you're willing to put up with some rough edges the Hero ROM is well worth it. I especially think the keyboard on the Hero ROM is 10x better than the MyTouch 3G stock keyboard. What led me to do this ROM upgrade was that I tried to use themes on the stock MyTouch 3G but they took up more RAM and at the end of the day it was actually just easier to search the web and apply the ROM. Not terribly difficult to do and there are very very good tutorials available.
  • I think you answered my question with your post... so, if I go with the Moto Sholes/droid/tao, then if I didn't like whatever google/moto/verizon have on it, I could pull in the hero ROM on it?
    Thanks
  • The article states that there is no way to sync music onto an android device. I use windows media player to sync data to/from my device, it syncs like it would to any mass storage device. Admittedly not the most elegant but it beats dragging and dropping.
  • How do you manage to sync the Hero with Media Player. I just can't do it
  • I got to mess with it n its a great phone but the mytouch has double the internal memory than the hero. that was dissapointing.....
  • I am going to make a switch from ATT, but here's my questions. Should I wait see what the Verizon phones look like or just go with the Hero from Sprint... I don't want to miss out if they are going to be released in a few weeks as reported.
  • I say wait until the end of the year. Verizon and T-Mobile will be coming out with more Android phones.
  • I have the Sprint Hero and have tried all of the current Sprint smartphones. I like the Hero the best so far except for a poor business implementation either by Android or HTC Sense. They Outlook sync software is really buggy and not easy to setup. Once setup it works fine and am happy there is the option because it is not on the Pre. My largest complaint is that Android or Sense only allows for a few limited lines of Outlook Contact notes. This is a huge problem for me because I keep track of all of my customer information and now don't have access to it because the software only allows a few lines of text. Every other smartphone allows unlimited notes text and if this isn't fixed in a ROM update soon I will have to move to a different phone. The other bug is that if you are listening to music either through Pandora or the Music app it will become garbled when the screen goes to standby. I have tested this several times. My guess it the Processor slows down when the phone is in standby and doesn't have the juice to play the music at optimum frequency response. The last complaint I have is that the Sprint Hero didn't provide enough onboard memory because you have to continually monitor programs and close them to keep the device from getting laggy. This is still the best smartphone on Sprint and I would still own this over an iPhone by far. Hopefully HTC will build on this version of Sense and fix these few minor hiccups.
  • This review was a little too emotional and ended up sounding like a sales pitch. Also, I don't understand the reviewers comment about syncing being optimal. I thought just the opposite. I come from an iPhone 3GS and I only wish I could drag and drop my music files. I feel like drag and drop is optimal and I don't really get the whole "syncing" crap. I feel like syncing is just a way for controlling companies like Apple to try and control what you put on the phone. Can someone please enlighten me why I should think like the reviewer, that syncing is superior to drag and drop? Thanks.
  • Drag and drop is a type of syncing method that ONLY a geek could love. Its tedious and anything but regular people friendly. Thats not to say you have to think like the reviewer. You are two different people. You just happen to prefer the niche way of getting media onto your device.
  • You kinda glanced over how the music player works and sounds. One of the complaints I've heard is that the sound coming out the headphone jack is just OK...others have said it was good...Can anyone speak to that? I am considering making the switch from Verizon, and want to make sure that the phone can be used as a phone, and a music device.
  • Oh well,
    Did you check to see this thing works with Yahoo email ?
    Last I heard from SPRINT Tech support it doesn't , which plain sucks for me. I am not sure how many folks are missing the Yahoo email , but if there are many , then I wish SPRINT/HTC use their brains next time around. Yahoo is most used email on earth.
  • I just got the HTC Hero yesterday and it works with yahoo email. I love this phone!
  • I love you guys, love the photos, love the review, but man....can you say something like, bad about the phone? Can we get some negatives to balance things out? This review is a blowjob! I'm probably buying this phone, but some negatives would actually make me feel a bit better and more confident in making my purchase.
  • My number one problem with Sense (compared to the Palm Pre UI) -- There appears to be no documented way to back it up. So if you spend hours tweaking the scenes and then have to do a hard reset, poof, your scenes disappear in a puff of greasy black smoke. I hope they fix that soon, but I haven't seen anyone else mention it. It is a very nice UI. I had some problems with the keyboard, but knock wood, for the past 18 hours, it and my fingers have been working very well together. It's been fast and accurate, something that hadn't been true the prior five days. Not sure what I did.
  • Well this phone is the best I've had from Sprint. The Voice Dialer is weak. Google talk locations do not sync up with onboard gps. Those are the only things my Instinct did better. I have not experienced any lag it is fast. It is only running rev 0 right now so it should be faster with the patch to rev a. In S. Florida the 3g is really great! It runs faster on rev 0 than my Instinct ran on rev a.
  • the phone is actually using rev a, there is an error w the display on it, there will be a patch to fix the display that says rev 0
  • I still don't understand if you can actually multi-task on this device. say you're reading an email in Exhange, can you leave that email, go to a text message, copy something from the text, then go back to that email and paste it into the email before sending seamlessly? that's what I love about my Treo 800w (as lousy as the battery life is and the efficient but non-pretty web browsing). I can also do the same thing going between an email using cut/paste from a web page, as I find that I frequently do and would miss. iPhone can't do this easily, if at all, but can Android and the Hero? I want to get a Hero or TP2 tomorrow, so help me out please!! thanks.
    dtreo
  • All android phones excel at multi tasking, you just hold down the home key to switch between apps, apps are never closed they just resume when you switch back to them
  • What does copying and pasting between apps have to do with multi-tasking? I do this with my iPhone all the time. Sorry that I can't answer your question very well though, but I can't imagine how that could not be possible on this device (which I'm anxious to get).
  • Hello from Russia!
    Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
  • Will we ever see Donut?
  • love my hero
  • I have both the Pr and Hero right now and I'm trying to figure out which to keep. I think the Pre has a better looking OS that feels a little tighter than Android (especially with HTC Sense layered on top of it) but I'm assuming that the Hero will be upgraded to Donut (1.6) within the next month or two and I think that will help. I like the Hero because of the ability to add widgets and customize the home screen(s). Also, the contact management in the Hero is better than the Pre. I like being able to see Facebook updates and also have the ability to see my call/email history with a contact from within the contacts app. I also prefer the Hero's notification system a little better than the Pre's....the slide down tray is just a little less obtrusive. I also like the Hero's calendar a little better than the Pre's. The battery life on the Hero is a little better than the Pre, but neither phone excels in that dept (though there are not many smart phones that do). The Hero has much better build quality than the Pre. The killer app for the Hero is Google Voice. The integration is absolutely seamless. The Pre has a decent 3rd paty app for Google Voice, but it doesn't have the hooks that Google Voice does on Android. The Pre is much better with messaging. Their email client is great and supports IMAP Idle. So, emails from multiple sources can be pushed (I'm getting my .Mac email and Gmail both pushed) The Hero's soft keyboard is decent, but falls short of the iPhone's keyboard. Comparing the Hero's keyboard to the Pre, I prefer the Hero. The autocorrection on the Hero is great. I do find that the Her's keyboard can lag a little bit, but I can't say that I found it very problematic (turing off the haptic feedback helps with the responsiveness of the keyboard) I didn't hate the Pre's keyboard, but I found it to be small and a bit cramped. However, if you want a physical keyboard, then the Pre's your choice. Both devices are decent as phones. Both have very good browsers (the Pre's is a little smoother and faster). The biggest differences between the two are the following: 1) Pre has physical keyboard, Hero does not
    2) Hero gives you the ability to customize your phone with widgets while the Pre is more iPhone like in it's home screen layout. However, the Pre does have a nicer looking and slicker OS than the Hero (at least the portions of the Hero that are stock Android)
    3) If you use Google Voice heavily, then the Hero is your choice as it's very tightly integrated with Android. I'm leaning towards the Hero. I like the form factor better than the Pre's. I prefer the soft keyboard to a physical one. The biggest deciding factor with me is Google Voice. I'm able to use that number exclusively now because of how tightly Google Voice is integrated into Android. Honestly, I don't think you can go wrong with either phone
  • I have the Pre and bought the Hero on Sunday. I wanted to see if I could handle not having a keyboard. I tell you that I love the Hero, it looks and feels great, but virtual keyboard was not working out for me. Most people say that with the predicitve text feature and auto-spell that it doesn't matter if you type incorrectly on the Hero because the phone knows what word your trying to say and corrects you; this is very true. But there is something about not being able to type without messing up every single word you type and relying soley on the predictive texting that bothers me. I have big hands so that is what was happening to me. I just could not adjust to that, so I took the Hero back and am staying with my Pre. The Hero is a great phone and I really did like it. But if you are like me and need a physical keyboard, then you may want to hold off for the next andriod htc device.
  • I'd like to know if anyone has this CDMA Hero and the Pre and would tell me which they feel is better. I really like candybar phones (Pixi) and such, but where I'm at (not good coverage anywhere) I have to have Wifi (no Pixi!). So if someone could tell me if they have both devices and which they honestly USE more and which they LIKE more, that'd be great. I have used both devices, but not used them throughout a day, so I'm torn overall. I do like how easy the WebOS is to program for, so that is a draw to me on the Palm side. But I do need to USE the thing, too.
  • Well I like the multitasking of the Pre better, but the Hero is more customizable. If you use the Homebrew stuff @ precentral.net, then you can com close the the customization on the Hero, but it has scenes you can setup for different times ( i.e at work scene vs. home scene vs. social scene) It is are fairly social, then I would say the Pre since it handles messaging and notifications better. Also, as I said earlier, the multitasking is better on the Pre. If you like to jump from different apps a lot, then the Pre is a shoe in If you like to customize your phone with widgets on different screens, then the Hero is for you.
  • Sorry i beg to differ. It doesnt make sense to say that htc sense UI showed to the world that android was ready for primetime. Because the fact that they even have sense UI shows that stock android is not ready. Before custom android the only U.S. carrier to carry android was t-mobile and with lacking hardware. Only after Sense UI has sprint, verizon, and soon at&t jumped on the bandwagon. I dont have an android phone yet cuz frankly the hardware up til now has born horrible and on a just as bad carrier, but now that android is coming to verizon i might give it a try. But lets not act like stock android is not boring and like the g1 and mytouch were good phones, because they werent and well still arent. Sense UI made android interesting and hopefully android greatly improves soon and they give it the hardware that will make it worthwhile.
  • "For those wary of moving from a physical keyboard to a soft keyboard, trust us, we’ve been there. You’ll grow used to it and love the larger screen real estate gained from not being trapped with a physical keyboard." Don't you have that backwards? A virtual keyboard uses up half your screen, but a slide out physical keyboard uses none.
  • I think they mean a physical keyboard uses up part of the phone that could be screen and a virtual keyboard can disappear and thus the screen can take up the full real-estate when the keyboard is not in use, ie for video, web pages, etc and that is the benefit of a virtual keyboard, so no they didn't get it backwards.
  • Hows the battery life on the HERO vs Pre or vs Tour ? I have the Curve 8330, Pre and Tour 9630... skeptical about getting the HERO since the Moment is out next week. Im going to sell my Curve and Pre
  • So have the Hero got the update to the 1.6 android OS?
  • NO. but to Android OS 2.0!
  • TMO customers head over to www.xda-developers.com and enjoy....
    I recommend either TwistedUmbrella, JakHEROSki, or CC roms... just as good as the Sprint Hero. few problems but its well worth it. BTW BlueTooth Headset does not work although the A2DP does. That is the biggest bummer everything else is great.
  • I've set up my work email on my HTC hero using the Exchange Activesync option. It works great, syncing up my calendar, contacts, and email. The only issue I've seen is that, while I can receive emails, I cannot send to them. They just sit in my outbox forever. The other weird thing is when I try to go in and delete them (the menu only gives me "discard" as an option), I can't! I've tried deleting and reactivating the account, but I'm met with the same issue. Any thoughts??? It would be nice to send emails as well!! Thanks!
  • HELP! I cannot figure out how to sync my hotmail on the Droid with my PC. I delete emails from hotmail on my PC, but they remain on the Droid and vice versa - ugh! Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.
  • IF HTC and Sprint get around to upgrading this to 2.0, I'll seriously consider it. Otherwise I'll wait to see what 2.0 phones do show up on Sprint. I've spent too much time with Palm phones that never get real upgrades to take a chance on getting frozen into version 1.5.
  • Thank you so much for such a comprehensive review of the Hero. I have a busy schedule and try to do as much research online before I go running around the city chasing electronics. I appreciate the level of detail you put into your article including pictures of various screens on the phone. Along with the other information you provided and additional research I've done comparing the Hero to other phones your article was key in making the decision to order the phone.
    I feel like I've been in the store actually punching buttons on the thing!! (smile)
    Thanks
  • The article was very helpful.
  • The article was very helpful.