Sprint isn’t doing itself any favors recently by breaking retail’s first rule: Customers are dumb, so don’t give them choices. But now at Sprint, consumers must decide between the Palm Pre, the BlackBerry Tour, and $179 (after $100 MIR & 2-year agreement) the Android-powered HTC Hero. I mean, they’re making it awful hard on customers these days by offering more than one must-have phone.
Htc hero
by Matt Burns on October 11, 2009
by Matt Burns on September 4, 2009
Best Buy has our backs. No one likes mail-in rebates and so the retailer is going to sell the Sprint HTC Hero for $180 out the door with a two-year blood oath.
Sprint Stores however will sell it too you for $280 and hand you a $100 MIR. But just like with the Palm Pre, you’re not going to have to deal with those shenanigans at Best Buy Mobile who is also the exclusive retailer to have the HTC Hero. So yeah, why would you buy one at a Sprint Store?
by Matt Burns on September 3, 2009
That was quick. Forget about the rumor, the redesigned HTC Hero will launch on October 11 at $180 after a $50 mail-in rebate. And yes, that’s $20 under Sprint’s guided missile, the Palm Pre. So let’s recap, Sprint will soon be the only carrier with three of the hottest cellphones: the BlackBerry Tour, the Palm Pre, and the HTC Hero. And the carrier has some of the most reasonably priced plans. Nice.
by Matt Burns on September 1, 2009
The HTC Hero is undoubtedly the best looking Android device. Don’t even try to argue with that fact. But the CDMA-variant of the Hero might be radically different. So much, that I’m not sure if I dig it. Right now the Internet is aflutter with ohs and ahs about the redesigned phone, but I think it looks like a cheap, Chinese redesign. Who knows, maybe it will grow on me. There doesn’t seem to be solid proof that this version of the phone will be available on Sprint or Verizon though and could be headed to a different market. IDK, maybe I do like it. [080.net via EngMobile]
Does the redesigned HTC Hero do it for you?
by John Biggs on August 18, 2009
by John Biggs on July 20, 2009
There is a fairly standard montage in the canon of bad 80s movies. It involves the protagonist(s) working hard to build/do/invent something to beat the stuck up and dismissive antagonists. See, for example, Summer Rental, a John Candy vehicle in which Candy and crew convert a seafood restaurant that was originally a boat back into a boat in order to win a big, rich boat race against snobs. I don’t quite recall why they needed to win the race, but that’s immaterial. In the end [SPOILER ALERT] they thumb their noses, triumphantly, at the crews of the other, more richly appointed boat. It’s the tale of the underdog – an important tale to be told in that dark decade – and it is applicable here.
This brings us to the HTC Hero, HTC’s first Android phone using their new Sense UI.
In one sense the Hero is “just another Android phone”; in another sense, it’s an entirely new direction for HTC and the platform.
The Hero is a great phone. It is on par – and ultimately better – than the Palm Pre and, some would say, the iPhone on many points. It also turns those lumbering Windows Mobile and Symbian into something that you will fondly remember from your youth, a set of dinosaur technologies now extinct.
Furthermore, we can easily extend the metaphor above to say that the Hero is John Candy lacquering the deck while Apple and Palm are the rich, stuck-up yacht club members laughing at the upstart. I’m here to tell you that these yacht club members should ignore this upstart at their peril.
by John Biggs on July 17, 2009
The HTC Hero just landed at my humble office/abode and I’m pleased to report that it is, in fact, all that and a packet of crisps. The phone is slim and sexy with a great UI – one of the best I’ve seen on a smartphone since the phone that starts with ‘i’ and ends with Phone – and it’s quite snappy, a huge improvement over my experience with the G1.
Read More
by John Biggs on June 24, 2009
Here it is in living color: the HTC Hero/Sense UI walk-through. This is a real phone running the actual software and we delve into some of the most important features including social media integration and the browser experience.
The most interesting thing is that all of the contact/Facebook/Twitter interaction is automatic. You import your login info and it just shows up without fuss or muss. There is none of the Palm Pre’s linked-list creation. This is a small improvement but makes a world of difference in most cases. The Facebook info updates once every two hours so when profile pictures or contact info is updated online, the phone updates itself automatically.
by Matt Burns on June 24, 2009
Got HTC Hero overload yet? Well, here’s the official demo video of HTC’s latest. Enjoy.
by John Biggs on June 24, 2009
Live from the HTC press event.
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by John Biggs on June 24, 2009
Adobe and HTC are bringing Flash to Android on its new Hero smartphone. The implementation will support video and audio codecs familiar to users of Flash on the desktop.
The HTC Hero delivers powerful, compatible video playback performance using Flash technology, and interactive content enabled by ActionScript® 2.0. Users can enjoy and navigate through Web videos using intuitive video controls. With progressive streaming of large MP3 audio files from a Web server and the local file storage, the HTC Hero provides a seamless audio experience. Support for Sorenson and On2 VP6 codecs enables higher quality video and playback of existing Web content. A demo of the user experience enabled by the Flash Platform on the HTC Hero and the Android operating system can be viewed at www.adobe.com/go/htchero.
by John Biggs on June 24, 2009
The era of Android customization has begun with HTC’s Sense UI, a customized overlay for Android that adds HTC’s stunning graphical interface to the sturdy Android OS. The UI will run on the new Hero, a 3.2-inch touchscreen phone running at 528MHz with MicroSD slot.
More specs on the phone:
With its 3.2-inch HVGA display, the HTC Hero is optimized for Web, multimedia and other content, while maintaining a small size and weight that fits comfortably in your hand. It also boasts a broad variety of hardware features including AGPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a five mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable MicroSD memory. HTC Hero also includes a dedicated Search button that goes beyond basic search, providing you with a more natural, contextual search experience that enables you to search through Twitter, locate people in your contact list, find emails in your inbox or search in any other area in Hero.
The new Android UI will have something called “Perspectives,” a new method for connecting email, contacts, and social media automatically. This version will also be the first to support Flash natively.
So here’s my assessment:
Sorry, Palm: this is the new hotness. The HTC Hero with Sense does everything WebOS can do but it uses Android, a platform that is already popular with the geekerati and has a great install base. There wasn’t much to see in these versions – a short hands-on appears below – but you’re looking at what promises to make Android the real killed feature-phone OS: customizability with an eye on processor intensive “data linking.”
The parts we saw of the OS promise contact linking, which will allow you to add social media aspects to contacts. Instead of a name and address you can add Flickr streams, Twitter info, and other goodies. The changeable UI based on activities – the weekend vs. weekday screens – promises fewer distractions during key points in your life (i.e. when going out with the kids you can hide your email). Most importantly, however, this is Android. It has a full app store.
Oh, and it has Flash.
As I’ve said, Android is the next WinMo. It’s the more powerful smartphone OS for business and casual users and because it is open it can be customized to your liking in seconds. OEMs will lap it up because it’s free. More in a bit.
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