gdgt

8.0

HTC Hero by Sprint - a very good phone, but could be better

By GreggN - Jan 20, 2010

I've had this phone for a couple months. The touch-screen responsiveness can be a bit sluggish. It's nice that it has a built-in, 5 mega pixel camera, but don't expect the pictures or videos to be as good as a real, 1 mega pixel camera. The synchronization with Google Calendar and Contacts is excellent, however, I've found that the Google Mail delivery is not as quick as my BlackBerry. The default clock application has multiple time zones, multiple alarms, stopwatch and countdown timers. You can't delete the default applications, even though I'd like to recover the space taken by the Amazon MP3, Footprints, Nascar, and NFL applications. I don't think I would've survived my recent vacation without the Sprint Navigation, The GPS failed to receive a signal a couple times, and the directions would sometimes change in mid-journey, but it was far better than folding maps. I've only played with a few of the free applications from the Android Market. The Places Directory and Aloqa application are great resources on a vacation. If you get an Android phone, be sure to try Google Sky Map, Shazam, ShopSavvy, and the Compass by Snaptic for some amazing capabilities that I never expected from a phone. The DaraIRC application does fairly well with old school chat rooms. GDocs Notepad by mobdev gives you some ability to edit notes on your phone and synchronize to your Google account.