Well, I've had mine 3 weeks now and I can honestly say that I have never detested an inanimate object with such revulsion.
I needed a phone and didn't want an Iphone particularly, so was persuaded by CPW to have the Hero as "all samsung phones are rubbish" Oh god how I wish I had walked out then
I'm a simple sort of chap and only really want a phone for making calls and sending texts, I don't really mind if the phone I am using doesn't do this. However, the Hero doesn't even manage to do these things. Its not a good phone and it doesn't do much else reliably either. Let me explain:
1. During calls, the screen goes black, therefore if you want to use an IVR (press 1 for this option, 2 for this option etc) you can't unless you keep it "alive" by fidling with the trackball (kind of difficult when its pressed against your ear)
2. Bluetooth support. Oh dear oh dear. It doesn't do bluetooth very well. I have a car that has bluetooth and the fun I had trying to get it to work. It still doesn't, what it does it connect, disconnect, connect, disconnect ad infinatum. Sometimes you get lucky and about 60% of your call might come through the car kit. I'm not the only person to suffer this and its not limited to my car or even one bluetooth headset, in fact it even affects the bluetooth headsets that HTC make.
The fact that such a new phone is outshone by a 5 year old W950i is laughable. If you buy a Hero, you can't view the contacts on the phone other than via the phone itself. I can do this on my W950i which supports rSIM, but not on a Hero.
3. Phone app. Oh dear. Once you have your contacts in place, be careful when you dial because the phone will randomly select a totally different contact. Frequently.
4. Slowness. Unless you have root access and download an app killer, expect to wait around a lot for anything to happen. You can't kill apps natively and they just build up and build up until the memory runs so low that the OS starts killing them. Great in theory, but you have to live with slowness on a par with continental drift until it does.
5. Wireless. More unstable than a drunk schizophrenic on poppers. Turns on then off and back on again on a whim.
6. SMS messages. It arranges them into threads, not the traditional way, so you get a large jumble of sms, which can take a while to scroll through.
7. MMS messages. If you get a MMS message from someone, the only way you can see what they have sent you is to save the file to the memory card and connect the device to a pc or if its a picture, you can view it in the album app. Otherwise you just get a black screen.
8. Text prediction. Even if you turn it off, it STILL replaces what you have typed with what it thinks you should have typed. For example, you can have it autosuggest words as you type. This is fine until it comes across words it doesn't know. You can try hitting the send button, but it won't let you and you can try hitting the arrow down, but this only comes up with more suggestions for the word you are trying to type. The only way out is to hit space, which replaces the word you typed, you then have to delete it and enter the word you wanted.
Funnily enough, it seems to have a built in profanity checker too. My thoughts on the device (I won't call it a phone as it fails at doing this) come out as a "Ducking peace of shape" Quite humorous I thought.
I also find that when you go to send a text, you have it all typed perfectly and then hit send. The device will then alter the words it doesn't recognise and send what it thinks you are trying to say.
All in all, I have never felt such an idiot for wasting my money on such a worthless waste of plastic.
HTCs response to my queries have met with either bad Engrish or a total glossing over of the fact that they have released something onto the market way ahead of when it was ready. For example, I questioned why mine and many others carkits didn't work with it and got told "maybe the phone is overheating"
I am however going to see if there is an update in the next few months as I realise they haven't tested this device thoroughly enough so will be holding off selling it on the bay.
In the mean time, my 5 year old W950i beats it hands down on just about every aspect other than screen size.
I needed a phone and didn't want an Iphone particularly, so was persuaded by CPW to have the Hero as "all samsung phones are rubbish" Oh god how I wish I had walked out then
I'm a simple sort of chap and only really want a phone for making calls and sending texts, I don't really mind if the phone I am using doesn't do this. However, the Hero doesn't even manage to do these things. Its not a good phone and it doesn't do much else reliably either. Let me explain:
1. During calls, the screen goes black, therefore if you want to use an IVR (press 1 for this option, 2 for this option etc) you can't unless you keep it "alive" by fidling with the trackball (kind of difficult when its pressed against your ear)
2. Bluetooth support. Oh dear oh dear. It doesn't do bluetooth very well. I have a car that has bluetooth and the fun I had trying to get it to work. It still doesn't, what it does it connect, disconnect, connect, disconnect ad infinatum. Sometimes you get lucky and about 60% of your call might come through the car kit. I'm not the only person to suffer this and its not limited to my car or even one bluetooth headset, in fact it even affects the bluetooth headsets that HTC make.
The fact that such a new phone is outshone by a 5 year old W950i is laughable. If you buy a Hero, you can't view the contacts on the phone other than via the phone itself. I can do this on my W950i which supports rSIM, but not on a Hero.
3. Phone app. Oh dear. Once you have your contacts in place, be careful when you dial because the phone will randomly select a totally different contact. Frequently.
4. Slowness. Unless you have root access and download an app killer, expect to wait around a lot for anything to happen. You can't kill apps natively and they just build up and build up until the memory runs so low that the OS starts killing them. Great in theory, but you have to live with slowness on a par with continental drift until it does.
5. Wireless. More unstable than a drunk schizophrenic on poppers. Turns on then off and back on again on a whim.
6. SMS messages. It arranges them into threads, not the traditional way, so you get a large jumble of sms, which can take a while to scroll through.
7. MMS messages. If you get a MMS message from someone, the only way you can see what they have sent you is to save the file to the memory card and connect the device to a pc or if its a picture, you can view it in the album app. Otherwise you just get a black screen.
8. Text prediction. Even if you turn it off, it STILL replaces what you have typed with what it thinks you should have typed. For example, you can have it autosuggest words as you type. This is fine until it comes across words it doesn't know. You can try hitting the send button, but it won't let you and you can try hitting the arrow down, but this only comes up with more suggestions for the word you are trying to type. The only way out is to hit space, which replaces the word you typed, you then have to delete it and enter the word you wanted.
Funnily enough, it seems to have a built in profanity checker too. My thoughts on the device (I won't call it a phone as it fails at doing this) come out as a "Ducking peace of shape" Quite humorous I thought.
I also find that when you go to send a text, you have it all typed perfectly and then hit send. The device will then alter the words it doesn't recognise and send what it thinks you are trying to say.
All in all, I have never felt such an idiot for wasting my money on such a worthless waste of plastic.
HTCs response to my queries have met with either bad Engrish or a total glossing over of the fact that they have released something onto the market way ahead of when it was ready. For example, I questioned why mine and many others carkits didn't work with it and got told "maybe the phone is overheating"
I am however going to see if there is an update in the next few months as I realise they haven't tested this device thoroughly enough so will be holding off selling it on the bay.
In the mean time, my 5 year old W950i beats it hands down on just about every aspect other than screen size.
