Gadgetory

hey guys jon rettinger from technobuffalo here with a review for you of the HTC hero for sprint we first took a look at the HTC hero a few months back when it had a monster chin and was a European release only since then it's been slimmed down d chins and ready for release two US carriers so this is the sprint version like I mentioned before I get to the review I want to talk about call quality as I do in all of my phone reviews it's a phone first and foremost besides everything else and it doesn't sound good and doesn't make good phone calls it's not going to be a good or positive experience to you or for you so I'm happy to report that my experience with sprint service on the HTC hero has been fantastic I'm in Southern California and I had full evdo rev a service wherever I went call called it was outstanding people on the other end of the call her no white noise in fact on several times could even tell i was on a cell phone it was crystal clear and crisp and i didn't have any drop calls so if you get sprint service don't worry about the call quality i will say that the radio on here was not the strongest when I had a palm pre and I tested with a few other sprint devices that people bring the reception wasn't quite as strong is probably one bar less it wasn't bad but I didn't notice the radio to be a little bit on the weaker side so if you're in a fringe sprint area and you're going to want to try it out to make sure it works for you but if you get plenty of sprint coverage you're not going to have any problems so let's go ahead and talk about the device first let's talk about the design since like I said earlier we've talked about the hero when it was the Jay Leno of smartphones it looks completely different but still there is the gorgeous vibrant screen highlighted by Android 1.5 but you really don't see Android 1.5 what you see is HTC's on skin on top of it called the sense UI HTC makes phones and they made windows mobile phones in the past you may have seen touchflo 3d that's an example of a skin essentially what it is that sits on top of an operating system so there's been a lot of concern over this being an Android 1.5 device as opposed newer android 2.0 and i can tell you that that is not a problem or even an issue at all generally see much of android you're really getting the full sense UI experience there's improved widgets like i showed you in my video detailing the sense UI there's a few more home screens you have seven home screens as opposed to the three normal that usually get the calendar applications have been a reward everything's been reworked for and improved user experience the one thing that two point O do have that 1.5 and 1.6 did not have was the google maps navigation beta which was the free turn-by-turn directions service but that has now been released by google in the android marketplace for 1.5 to 1.6 devices so the only gripe i had with knocking a 2 point 0 device is completely gone that being said sprint nhcc of both on the record to say that the hero will eventually get a 2 point 0 upgrade so don't worry too much so going back to design the phone it is really thin and really sleek it's got a 5 megapixel camera on the back and the soft touch rubber finish we're seeing a lot of phones that's a very good fuel in the hand which is really important to using a mobile device and its size i think is just absolutely perfect guys you've been able to put this in your pocket without creating a massive bulge in your pocket it's not going to look weird women even throws in your purse or even your back pocket without you know creating any weird sort of lines it's extremely thin you compare it even to the iphone 3gs footprint wise just looks very thin and to quite good looking device so I've been very happy with the design I didn't like the change gsm berg i think getting a reward for US carriers was a huge plus so let's talk about web browsing suppose you to follow me know i do a lot of my mobile work on my mobile phone quite obviously so the browser is really important to me one of the things that the sense UI does bring to android and HTC hero is multi-touch browsing and what I mean by multi-touch browsing is pinch and zoom and again I gave a demonstration of that it might send to I overview but if you've used an iphone or if you've used a pre or pixi you know what i mean by the pinch and zoom it works really well on the hero I found the coming on stock Android whatever version 1.5 1.6 2 point 0 feel a little bit cumbersome with those plus or minus magnifying glasses so be able to pinch and zoom really makes things nice and using it definitely improves the web browsing experience so if browsing is important to you I think the hero is a great way to look it's got the same webkit browser that's Mobile Safari used and that Android is used in the past and that webos uses so you know you're going to get a very native good-looking rich HTML browsing experience that's one of things that I look for most in the device and I was very very very pleased with the browser on the hero I would say it's a very close second for all mobile browsers probably tied with palms webos browser and only second to mobile safari so browser wise like I said fantastic and because this is running sensor why I had a lot of questions about people wondering if they can use all the apps from the android marketplace you can use every app from android market place without any sort of worry and it'll work quite well on the device speakerphone was very loud and i like i said overall i really liked the sense UI experience over the stock android experience he was getting a better looking home screen and much more customization options in my opinion you know yours may vary I like androids openness fact I've got the ability to customize and tweak it and certainly spread simply everything plan makes it a fantastic value this phone is going to run you 179 bucks after rebate and a two-year contract so it's by no means a cheap phone we are getting a decent amount for your money now so probably going to save a little bit in the long run if you're a heavy data user with the sprint everything planned you get access to all their features you get sprint navigation in their NASCAR that's your thing mobile TV and a ton of other things that most carriers actually charge you for so I've always been a happy with sprint for offering sort of more value for your buck so guys have to rape the HTC hero for sprint on a one-to-five scale I give a very solid four and a half the on-screen keyboard is great easy to use and only missed out on that little bit of an other half because a little bit of sluggishness in the processor and that's been the one thing that's for hamper hero if you've got a lot of applications open and running you're going to notice a little bit of a slow down the processor is not the fastest one out there but it's certainly more than capable and that shouldn't dissuade you the only thing that kept it from getting almost a perfect rating anyway guys hope you enjoyed I can absolutely recommend the HTC hero for anybody out there considering a android device for sprint so hope you guys enjoy it for exclusive content check me out at twitter twitter.com / John for lakers and to learn more about its TechnoBuffalo and get all your tech news and create and monetize your own text site and interact with people on our certain brand new social network check out of course technobuffalo com videos and links to all that stuff will be in the sidebar and for watching this on technobuffalo you're already there jump jon rettinger and i'll see you guys the next video buh-bye