The Mobile Phone Review Blog

My thoughts on the HTC Hero mobile phone

Courtesy of the nice folks at 3mobilebuzz I am now trialling my third mobile phone and it’s the best of the lot so far, the HTC Hero.  I’ve never tried an Android OS mobile phone before but have wanted to for some time as am seriously considering upgrading to one when I’m eligible to do so on my contract at the end of June so was grateful for this opportunity to see what it can do.

Looks / Design / Screen

The first thing that struck me upon seeing the HTC Hero for the first time was how much smaller it is than photos make it look, it’s not really any bigger than a normal mobile phone.   It has a very distinctive design with an angled part at the bottom for the keys to answer / end a call and navigate through the phone menus.  The Hero feels very good to hold, is very ergonomically designed and is a good weight.  I was particularly impressed with the touch screen which is really responsive especially compared to the rather slow and laggy touch screen on my Viewty!  The screen provides an incredibly vibrant and sharp image also.

Pre-installed apps & widgets

The first widget I couldn’t fail to notice upon switching the phone on for the first time is the Weather widget, the main feature that impressed me about this was that it used the phone’s GPS to always display the correct town or city you are in, for example travelling last weekend from Hastings to Eastbourne and checking the phone upon arrival it had already automatically changed to correctly display ‘Eastbourne’, very clever and a feature I’ve not had on a phone before.  The Weather widget itself displays a very colourful symbol for the current weather which animates itself for a brief period of time upon updating, the current temperature and predicted highest and lowest temperatures for that day.  The home screen weather widget also doubles up as a flip-over style clock.  The phone’s GPS is also used in the pre-installed Google Maps application which very quickly and accurately displayed my current location when tried.

Other widgets available on the Hero which are displayed on one of the phone’s seven different and customisable home screens include Facebook, Twitter, Bookmarks, Calendar, Clock, Messages, Music, Stocks, Photo Album, and a Spotify widget. Adding a program or a widget shortcut to one of the home screens is done by simply touching the ‘+’ button in the bottom right hand corner and selecting either ‘Shortcut’ (to add a program shortcut), ‘HTC widget’, ‘Android widget’ or ‘Folder’, if there is not enough space on the currently displayed home screen the phone will prompt you to either remove it by dragging it to the ‘Remove’ button at the bottom or dragging it another blank home screen.

Also pre-installed on the Hero are a Twitter client called ‘Peep’ which although I liked, was impressed with and would probably satisfy most mobile Twitterers, I was keen to try out alternatives such as Twidroid and Seesmic (more on those later), a very capable and speedy web browser, a calculator, calendar, camcorder, camera, clock, Google Mail, Google Talk, an e-mail app, the Android Market (more on that later), a music player, a PDF viewer, Quickoffice for viewing Word and Excel documents, a voice recorder, YouTube and of course, the Spotify application, which you have to have a £9.99 a month Spotify Premium subscription to access but since 3mobilebuzz had kindly provided a sim card with this included I was able to try it and I have to say was very impressed indeed, it looks fantastic, is very easy to navigate your way around and search for tracks, and once the tracks are located, just like the desktop version, they start playing instantly and can then be saved into a playlist.

However, I was unable to locate on this particular Hero phone pre-installed Skype and Windows Live Messenger apps, so downloaded Skype and an application by MSN called ‘MSN Droid’ from the Android Market, both logged in and worked fine.

The Planet3 portal also loaded and quickly and with no problems.  So the Hero comes pre-installed with pretty much all the apps and widgets you could need in everyday use.

Android Market

One of the main reasons I was so keen to try an Android phone and to upgrade to one in June is the ability to download hundreds of free and paid apps through the Android Market.  When loaded, it is split up into ‘Applications’ and ‘Games’ sections and there is also a Search box if you already know the name of the app you’re looking for.  Each app is clearly displayed along with the author’s name and the price, selecting it will give you more information about the app, along with the option to either install or buy the app.  Uninstalling an app is done by simply selecting ‘My Downloads’ selecting the app you wish to remove from the list then pressing ‘Uninstall’, very simple and straightforward.

There were a number of free applications I was keen to try (and a couple of paid apps too but they will have to wait until the end of June as this wasn’t my phone and didn’t want to run up a big bill for 3mobilebuzz!), being a keen Facebook and Twitter user I firstly downloaded the Facebook for Android app and the Twidroid and Seesmic Twitter clients – I wanted to try both to decide which would be better to use when I get my own Android phone.  The Facebook app is great,  when loaded icons are displayed for News Feed, Friends, Photos, Take photo, Profile and Notifications, you can also set the app to automatically refresh itself at set intervals (minimum 30 minutes).  The one feature I did notice was missing was the ability to send a message and view your Inbox, a surprising omission but otherwise a very impressive app.

As for the two Twitter clients, both are excellent, easy-to-use and well worth considering, however after much use of both I plumped for Seesmic as it’s better looking, your tweets are easier to read than they are in Twidroid, and it’s much easier to navigate around Seesmic using the big tabs at the top than it is using the small icons in Twidroid.  Both clients allow you to do all the usual things such as reply to tweets and re-tweet as well as upload photos and video using the service of your choosing, customisable in both apps via Settings.  Both apps also support automatic URL shortening, again through the service of your choosing.  I would advise anyone looking for an Android Twitter client to download both of these and, like I did, see which is your personal preference.

I also downloaded two free photo-editing apps, PicSay and Adobe Photoshop Mobile, two Wikipedia apps, Wapedia and WikiMobile, a London Tube app which displays a full map of the Tube and allows you to plan journeys and get live running info, WeatherBug, USA Today – an excellent app for the national American newspaper, Google Listen – an app for downloading and streaming podcasts, beebPlayer – an unofficial but excellent BBC iPlayer app, an app from the Daily Telegraph, an app called simply ‘Newspapers’ which displays a list of links taking you directly to leading American, Canadian and British newspapers and lastly an amazing app called ‘Bible’ which allows you to view no less than 12 versions of the Bible on your mobile phone.

I was extremely impressed with all these apps and how quick and easy it was to download and install them from the Android Market and look forward to downloading and installing them again, along with some paid apps, onto my own Android phone in June.

Camera

The Hero comes with a very good 5 megapixel camera, however, incredibly, no flash (would hope this issue would be addressed on future HTC Android phones).   Indoors and in normal lighting conditions, the photos are clear, crisp and colourful and can then be sent to various sites including Facebook and Flickr, but would imagine that taking photos in low lighting conditions would be a problem.  There is also the facility on the Hero to log-in to your Flickr account and view your albums on there.  The camera can also be used to record video.

Battery Life

During the time I’ve had this phone I’ve managed to get around a day’s use out of it before it required a recharge, however charging the battery does not really take very long at all, about a couple of hours.  I would imagine that you would get longer battery life however if you disabled GPS and didn’t regularly use the Facebook and Twitter apps as I did.

My verdict

To sum it up, I absolutely LOVE this phone, it is quite simply incredible! I can fully understand why it has won so many awards including T3 Magazine’s ‘Gadget of the Year’.  It has definitely set the benchmark for all other Android phones to follow.  The omission of a flash on the camera is a surprise and I’d have liked a more detailed user manual, there was only a rather thin and quite poor Quick Start Guide supplied.  These are minor quibbles however and should not ruin the fact that this is a truly stunning and ground-breaking phone which does pretty much everything you could ever require!  Thanks once again to the folks at 3mobilebuzz for lending me one to try, I’ve had an absolute blast with it and am really quite sorry to be returning it!   It’s definitely top of my list now to upgrade to in June, however I understand that by then the next HTC Android handset will have replaced it on 3, it’s going to have to be some phone to beat this!

Rating 4.5/5 (0.5 taken off for lack of flash on camera and poor user manual)

Following on from my 2 week trial of the INQ Mini mobile phone courtesy of those lovely people at 3mobilebuzz (http://www.3mobilebuzz.com) they’ve now sent me the INQ Mini’s big brother, the INQ Chat to try and my first reaction is that it’s a massive improvement over the INQ Mini which I found rather disappointing (see my review earlier in this blog).

There are just so many things I really like about this phone!  The first is that, like the INQ Mini it looks fabulous, is very well designed, feels very good to hold and is nicely weighted.  This INQ phone has the definite advantage of a full QWERTY keyboard making sending texts and e-mails an absolute doddle especially with the excellent predictive text.

The main selling point of this phone and the INQ Mini is as a social networking phone and both phones have Facebook and Twitter applications installed on them.As I detailed in my review of the INQ Mini the Facebook app is by far the better of the two however it does suffer from a bit of a time lag with the actual mobile website which I would still prefer to use.  It is good to see however that with the Twitter app on the INQ Chat the correct time and date are now displayed on tweets, something which wasn’t the case on the INQ Mini.The same problem remains however that you can only view your most recent tweets and you still have to go online and log-in to the mobile Twitter website to view older tweets, a bit un-neccessary I feel and would still rather use either the excellent Dabr mobile Twitter site or the new mobile Twitter site at http://mobile.twitter.com.  A feature I do like very much however are the Facebook and Twitter tickers which can be displayed on the phone’s home screen and display the most recent tweets and Facebook updates, a very handy feature.Other widgets can also be added to the home screen such as Yahoo! Weather, RSS feeds and World Clock.

The INQ Chat’s web browser is excellent, it connects to the web quickly and mobile websites look great, no complaints with it at all.  The Planet3 portal can be accessed via the right soft key from the home screen.

Another feature which is included on this phone is push Gmail, something you’d not expect to see on a phone of this price and it works brilliantly!  Once you’ve set up your Gmail account on the phone, any new e-mails are ‘pushed’ Blackberry style to your phone and a pop-up alert is displayed on the screen, an alert sound can also be switched on if required.  Other web based and POP e-mail accounts can also be added but the e-mails for these can only be retrieved manually and are not ‘pushed’ to the phone.

Moving on next to the 3.2 mega-pixel camera on the INQ Chat, this is one of the best cameras I’ve used on a phone of this price, it’s really excellent, I took several photos indoors under artificial light and the quality and clarity of the image was easily as good if not slightly better than the 5 mega-pixel camera on my current phone, the LG Viewty KU990i! Any photos taken can then be stored on the phone or sent via e-mail, and rather conveniently, to Facebook or Twitter.

Any Facebook pokes or messages and any Twitter direct messages are displayed as alert boxes on the phone’s homescreen and it’s also possible to send a Facebook message or a Twitter direct message from the Messaging application, just as if you were sending a text message.

Also included on this phone, as with most 3 mobiles are Skype and Windows Live Messenger, both very useful and easy-to-use applications.

To sum up, this is a truly excellent phone and the best INQ have yet produced, I can find very little to dislike about it, it’s currently available on 3 pay-as-you-go for £99.99 or on various price plans on pay monthly, I would heartily recommend this phone for anyone, especially if you’re a keen Facebook or Twitter user.  In fact I was so impressed with it that I’ve now added it to the list of phones that I’m considering when I’m eligible for an upgrade on my contract at the end of June, despite the fact that I currently use an LG Viewty KU990i, also an excellent phone in its own right!    Thank you once again to the fantastic team at 3mobilebuzz for lending me the INQ Chat to trial, I am really enjoying playing with it!

I am currently trying out the new INQ Mini (the ‘Twitter’ phone) for two weeks courtesy of those nice folks at 3mobilebuzz (http://www.3mobilebuzz.com/) and thought I would post my thoughts and likes and dislikes of the phone after a week’s use.

Firstly, the handset itself is an extremely nice looking and small phone, feels very well built and very good to hold.  The keyboard is pretty good to use for dialling and texting with excellent predictive text and battery life is among the best I’ve seen on a mobile. I’ve had it on now for about a week and haven’t had to charge it yet!

When you first get the phone it comes, like it’s predecessor the INQ1, in a very attractive box with some very impressive artwork on it (see photo) - also included is a charger, earphones, and some pocket-sized quick reference instruction cards covering the basic functions of the INQ Mini.

The first feature I tried on the phone was the Twitter application, I’d been looking forward to trying this but have to say this was a major disappointment. Firstly, completely the wrong time and date were displayed on all tweets despite my having set the correct time and date when I first switched the phone on.  Next, only the very most recent tweets are displayed, if you wish to view older messages you have to go online and log-in to the mobile Twitter site which to me seems a little daft, why is it not possible to view older tweets within the application? Also, it does not update itself automatically like the Facebook application does, it can only be updated manually.

I then set up the Facebook application which is a lot better, it updates automatically although there is a bit of a time lag between the application and the actual mobile website but aside from that a pretty good application, although to be honest for accessing Twitter and Facebook while on the move I would much rather use Dabr and the mobile Facebook website.

After trying these I moved on to the camera which for a phone of this size and price is pretty decent in normal lighting conditions, one useful facility is being able to take a photo then upload it to Facebook, quite handy.  The lack of a flash is disappointing though.

On the home screen it is possible to have various widgets which include Weather.com, Google Search, Yahoo! Search, World Clock and up to 3 RSS feeds of your choice, I like this feature and was something I used a lot when I owned the INQ1. At the bottom of the home screen is the ‘switcher’ for accessing the various features, press left or right on the centre navigation then press the centre button to select. The switcher can also be accessed from any application or feature in the phone by pressing the button on the right hand side of the handset and further applications of your choice can be added. The INQ Mini also comes pre-loaded with push Gmail, Windows Live Messenger, Skype and of course there is a hotkey on the home screen for going online to the excellent Planet 3 portal.

Another useful feature is that on the Contacts list you can synchronize with your Facebook contacts so they are displayed alongside your regular contacts.  It is also possible to purchase from 3 alternative back panels for the phone (it comes with a red cover) in a choice of colours.

To sum up this is a bargain priced and very attractive and well designed mobile, I personally wouldn’t buy one to use as my everyday mobile and will be remaining with my LG Viewty, but if you only simply wish to use it for making/receiving calls, texting and accessing Facebook and mobile internet and for taking acceptable photos I would recommend it and am grateful to the folks at 3mobilebuzz, particularly Cally for giving me the chance to try it for a fortnight.

Likes : Excellent battery life, good quality screen, nice looks, well designed, decent camera, homescreen widgets, the switcher, integrated Facebook app

Dislikes : Disappointing Twitter application, time lag in Facebook application, no camera flash.