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Thrilled With My Hero

My new Hero

I bought an HTC Hero on Friday. This is a Google phone that runs the open source Android platform. I’m a big fan of open source. I use Firefox as my browser and I built my website on Wordpress. When you open up code to everyone, you get excited people sharing to make wonderful things together!

I warned my husband to expect at least 3 days of me interrupting him at all hours to show him some new cool feature that the phone can do. Even he was impressed when I took him outside, pointed to a star and said, “I wonder what star or planet that is?” whipped out my phone, opened up Google Sky Map and found out we were looking at Venus.

It’s not just fun, but a serious work tool as well. My mobile MLS runs much faster than it did on my Treo. I can also group all communication with a client together, integrating text messages, email, voice mail and phone calls together. I don't need to call my phone to retrieve voice mail messages. Instead they are downloaded to the phone as WAV files. I can see a list of the messages by name and play them in any order I want, forwarding and rewinding by just flicking my finger. I can even email a voice mail message. Did I mention that the phone is totally customizable? Pretty slick.

With 10,000 apps for the Android, it looks like my husband is going to have to put up with my gushing enthusiasm for much longer than 3 days!

Posted by DebOnTheWeb AKA Deb Agliano - Medford, MA Real Estate on 11/10/2009 05:41 PM

Comments (13)

Technology in the Technology and Tools Channel

htc hero, smartphone, google android phone

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13 Comments on Thrilled With My Hero

NOV

Android is a great OS. Just got a Droid from Verizon myself and love it!

Cool phone! I will have to check one out and see what it's all about!

I've never been so excited about an OS before Epcon Communities. Do check it out Brenda - you won't be disappointed!

Our store had not even gotten them in on the opening day. We are going back Friday to check the out.

Deb, And I just got a blackberry tour. Am I way out of date already?

Hi Deb ~ My Treo is retiring tomorrow morning when my new Droid arrives. Can't wait!

Liz

I am looking at getting the Droid and waiting for someone to do a good post about it.

I looked at the Hero at Best Buy a week ago, seems like a great phone. Are these Android phones the Iphone killers ? We'll see.

NOV

The Hero runs the same operating system as the Droid. Right now the Hero has version 1.5 while the Droid has 2.0 but an on air upgrade is coming soon for the Hero. The biggest difference is it doesn't have a slide out keyboard, just an onscreen one. I must admit that when I tried it in the store, I kept making tons of mistakes. Then I thought back to how many mistakes I made trying to learn graffiti for my first Palm. Not only have I quickly improved on the keyboard, there is also an amazing predictive text option which is successfully guessing the words I'm typing so often I rarely have to finish the word.

I hope you get your hands on one Joyce

Leah you aren't out of date. Just use what you're comfortable with and can get your work done wherever you are!

Liz -have fun today with your new Droid!

Gene I read the editor's review on CNET and then all of the consumer reviews. People have been posting there about the Droid like crazy since Friday.

You're right Terry, a lot of people have been saying that. I think there's room for 2 great smartphone systems!

I'm a Technology director for RE/MAX Palos Verdes / Execs and real estate broker. I've been sailing along through all of the Palm products (650, 700P, 755) and was feeling "all wet" when our agents would show me their Large screen-cool-beer pouring-iTunes connected iPhone. I wasn't that impressed with the Email client for the iPhone because and because of that felt better about using my old-school 755. We use exchange server at our office and the iPhone doesn't play as nice because of the imap connector instead of EAS (translation: not as good as Treo) Also AT&T has HORRIBLE cell coverage in the hilly area of Palos Verdes Peninsula.

I had been tempted to jump-ship on my Treo 755 by the siren-song of various phones for 2 years - the Palm Pre (which we coined "Pre-mature"), Palm Pro with Windows Mobile 6 and other flavors of Windows 6. HTC's Windows mobile was also a top contender. AT&T doesn't work at my house so the iPhone was out!

When I saw the Sprint HTC Hero I finally decided the time was right and jumped the side rail of the Treo ship..... I'm so glad I did!!

Hero embedded apps include a turn-for-turn Navigator, Contact that connects with facebook, twitter and other social media sites. The only negative remark I will give the phone is the "glass keyboard" and will take some determination to get used to. Give the move to a glass keyboard at least two weeks. I'm getting better but was a FAST typer on the Palm phones. I feel like I'm back in first grade on the Hero.

Downloading apps - you use the Android Market Place - prescanned for viruses, etc. HTC Hero is a Sprint proprietary implementation of the Android OS and you have to make sure all apps you download are compatible with the Hero. Please take a look at http://www.androlib.com/ for a list of apps available for all Android devices. Then go to Sprint Market Place to download.

Here are some apps I've downloaded and like and help me get the most out of my HTC Hero.

Touchdown - a better email client. Best download yet. By Nitrodesk.com. Worth every penny of the $10 cost. Makes email friendly on the Hero.
Google Voice - Sign up on line with Google Voice and then download the Android app. Not only does it download the voicemail to your phone, but it attempts to turn it into text. I say "attempts" because I've never received a totally accurate translation, but sometime you can get the gist of what the person is saying when you can't listen to voicemail while in a meeting.
Pandora Radio - who says you have to work all the time?
ChompSMS - a better texting application. Makes it easy to see who said what.
Task Manager - WingTseng - great for seeing what's running and stopping slow apps

I hope this helps you in your migration to a better phone. Of course the Hero DOES NOT run the GE lock box app so I have to bring a standard lockbox key with me. But I will sacrifice that for a more useable phone. Good luck

Hi John - thank you so much for your recommendations! I downloaded BetterKeyboard today to see if it would be an improvement over the Hero keyboard, but I like the standard one better. I took the same 2 years that you did looking at every smart phone that came on the market and deciding that I just wasn't seeing anything worth giving up my Treo.

I'm going to check out the apps your recommended and give the keyboard more time. Thanks for sharing!

You are welcome Deb. I've not heard anyone that ecstatic about better keyboard, because it's not better - it's customizable. I didn't mention the other apps that I downloaded like ring tones but there are a bunch that do all sorts of things like turn your cell phone into a remote control for a video player on your PC (VLC remote) or as you mentioned SkyMaps that is a derivative of Google Earth one of the coolest apps out there. There's also the voice search feature that works well in a quite environment. Not to mention the backing of Google who will, eventually, in my humble opinion, someday take over or buy the world. (JK)