“If you enjoy online social interactions, device customisation and great design, you’ll love this phone”

Good for:

• Easily staying in touch with friends via phone, social networks and text
• Sharing multimedia with friends or social networking contacts
• Customisation options (Scenes)
• Minimalist design

The HTC Hero has received many accolades in its short life so far, topping the T3 best gadgets list and leaving Walt Mossberg (NY Times) saying that it is the “best Android phone available.” Widely considered as the first truly credible “iPhone killer,” the phone comes in a number of guises.

European and Asian users can get it in black, white, graphite, brown or pink, while it’s also available from T-Mobile under the name G2 Touch. US users have received a more rounded and slightly old fashioned looking version on the US network, Sprint, but the difference is aesthetic alone. I have been playing around with the white unlocked version using a T-Mobile SIM.

Aesthetics

Easily the most attractive Android handset to date, the HTC Hero features 3.2-inch 320 x 480 pixel screen in a light and relatively small form factor. You can feel the quality of the device in your hand as it strikes the middle ground between bulkiness and flimsiness. The white version that I use is also Teflon coated with an oleophobic screen, designed to reduce greasy finger marks and stains to the minimalist shell.

Probably most striking of all is the angled ‘chin’. Following the lead of the T-Mobile G1, the HTC Hero takes the angular lip at the bottom of the handset and makes it even more pronounced. The angle really helps the ergonomics of the device and feels generally comfortable in the hand.

Interface

Apart from the hardware, the user experience is the main attraction. The Hero is the first handset to feature its new Sense UI which the company claims it’s based on three tenets: “Make it mine,” “Stay close” and “Discover the unexpected.” Unlike many other custom user experiences, it actually works brilliantly.

The phone presents users with seven different ’scenes’, each customisable so that users can focus the phone’s features on what suits them best during work, social life and travelling, for example. All the widgets on offer here are high quality and generally enhance the user experience well. This is all bettered by the excellent screen the device boasts, displaying rich colours and depth that makes the user interface a very immersive experience.

Internet/Multimedia

With HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity options, the internet browsing experience is great too, though not as fast as the likes of the iPhone 3GS.

But the phone has a trick up its sleeve to better the iPhone 3GS – Flash support. The device will let you browse most basic flash websites (though the likes of BBC iPlayer and 4OD don’t perform well at all). It’s a nice to have and certainly makes day-to-day browsing a more pleasant experience.

Multi-touch is also supported on the HTC Hero. Users can pull their fingers away from each other to zoom in and pinch to zoom out again. Very nice to have on the phone and makes the internet browsing experience even more intuitive.

Email is impressive on the HTC Hero, supporting IMAP and Exchange email accounts are supported (so you can browse personal and work email on the go). The email program is attractive, intuitive and generally responsive. The opposite can be said for its media player though.

Although HTC has improved the standard Android music player, it falls short of the competition – it feels slow and unresponsive when compared to rival experiences. It feels as though HTC pushed the hardware beyond its limits with its music software, which makes the media player feel particularly ‘broken’.

The camera quality is also quite poor and although it boasts a 5-megapixel camera, its sensor is slow and low in quality. The shutter is also noticeably slow and the camera lacks a flash – with both of these factors combined, you can only really take photos in broad daylight. With these issues aside, the flipping through pictures in a photo album is implemented nicely and sharing of media to other applications and services such as Flickr, Facebook and Twitter is very, very easy.

Phone functions

HTC Hero takes a conversational approach to contacts on the phone. From someone’s contact card, you can check what they have been up to on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or email at a glance.

Phone-wise, I have had great experiences with call quality – probably the best I’ve experienced for a long time. The high-quality is continued when you move over to speaker phone, which, in my view, is second-to-none.

Battery life is OK, but not fantastic. If you are a casual-moderate user, you will probably be able to stretch the phone for a couple of days, although if you’re an avid web/email user you may need to charge it a bit each day.

Verdict

Easily the best Android experience so far. The people-centric approach works brilliantly and interacting with your contacts couldn’t be more enjoyable. The industrial design and user interface give the phone a very distinct style and HTC Sense offers a completely different experience to the top-end smartphone mix. If you enjoy online social interactions, device customisation and great design, you’ll love this phone.

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