[General] My HTC Hero - Android experience

Tue Aug 18 10:01:53 +03 2009

Apparently Android applications support UTF8, but the system fonts don't.

There are people who installed Hebrew, so Arabic can be done as well.

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=16d0baeeba82ea71&hl=en
http://androidcore.com/android-programming-tutorials/415.html
http://blog.amr-gawish.com/39/arabic-language-in-android/
http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Educational/Languages/Arabic-Soft-Keyboard-81352.shtml

I bought my Nokia 9500 communicator when it first came out and didn't
have Arabic support and I didn't care to install Arabic support,
because I tried it with 9250 and the phone kept crashing...
What I do now is when I get an Arabic SMS, I copy the text and paste
it in a document and then the text shows in Arabic. So maybe if you
copy some Arabic-enabled fonts to your system, you can do the same
trick.

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 5:45 AM, Ahmad Al-Ibrahim<ahmad at koutbo6.com> wrote:
>
>
> Majed B. wrote:
>> That's great!!!
>>
>> 1) How was the typing experience on the virtual/onscreen keyboard? Was
>> the screen laggy or had issues with recognizing your input?
>>
>
> At the begining, since I haven't used a touch screen phone before, I had
> some difficulty to get things right, then it became easy to write, I
> haven't noticed any lag. If you have big finger you'll have problems
> recognizing your input. but you can always keep pressing and move till
> you reach the correct letter. it happens sometimes.
>
>> 2) Since you used it for 4 hours and consumed 40%, so the battery
>> life-time with constant wifi & calls here and there, the battery's max
>> is 10 hours.
>>
>
> Not necessarily, I was using the phone most of the time playing here and
> there, and thats why it took 40%, the phone can go in sleep mode, where
> the battery consumption is much less than having it on all the time. and
> the phone was awake 77% of that time, which means I didnt give it the
> chance to sleep well :)
>
> What is also great about android is apps do not close, they sleep too.
> Lets say you want to close a running app, you just hit back button and
> whatever in memory gets dumped to the storage and the app goes to sleep,
> and once you launch the app again memory is restored from storage. this
> helps to save battery, CPU, memory resources. (exception may apply for
> network apps).
>
>> 3) Youtube videos: Have you tried playing ones with fast motion? Like
>> action-movie trailers.
>>
>
> Yup, Transformers 2 trailer without glitches.
>
>> 4) Have you explored the possibility of using another mail client, if
>> any is available?
>>
>
> There are other mail clients in android market, haven't tried any of them.
>
>> 5) How much internal memory do you have?
>>
>
> Internal phone storage 128MB, external storage 2 GB SD card.
>
>> P.S.: The UI is a custom-made one by HTC (Called Sense) and I guess
>> you could override it if you don't like it or some features annoy you
>> (At the cost of losing other UI features).
>>
>
> Not interested, I love it the way it is shipped :)
>
> I have no idea where the SMS is stored, and I dont think there is away
> to change that in the menu and the settings.
>
> I went through two problems, one of them the lack of Arabic support. I
> cant read/write arabic. Arabic is expected to be supported natively in
> the next version of Android 2.0. The other problem is related to email,
> it happened twice today, some emails when I open them I get a message
> saying "the mail is still on the server" and I cannot see the body of
> the email. the client used is HTC mail client, I know there are
> alternatives in android market, but just wanted to let you know about this.
>
>> You've restored my faith in HTC Hero!!
>>
>
> You should never lose the faith in a Hero :)
>
> Regards,
>
> Ahmad Al-Ibrahim
>
>> On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 11:56 PM, Ahmad Al-Ibrahim <ahmad at koutbo6.com> wrote:
>>> Salam,
>>>
>>> My hero has just arrived today, and I'm so excited to have in my hands.
>>>
>>> This is a brief of every part of the device:
>>>
>>> Social experience
>>> I've started with linking my google, flickr, facebook, and twitter
>>> accounts, and the device pulled in the contacts from google contacts, I
>>> can easily assign contacts to friends from facebook. and get live
>>> updated tweets from twitter in the home screen. as well as sending
>>> update to twitter and facebook. albums were also synced with flickr and
>>> facebook, I can see my albums or my friends albums.
>>>
>>> Mail
>>> It was easy to configure my mail accounts, and I'm getting email
>>> notifications for new mails. I really like the email application as it
>>> is extremely easy to use.
>>>
>>> Browsing
>>> What can I say more? its based on webkit engine, so websites are
>>> rendered the same way they are in the desktop screens, webkit is used by
>>> Safari and Google Chrome browsers. the browsing experience is amazing
>>> specially with the tapping to zoom in and using two fingers to zoom out
>>> and one finger to navigate.
>>>
>>> SMS
>>> Text messaging is similar to chat conversation which is cool, it lacks
>>> the ability to forward a message (I really dont use forwarding much as
>>> I'm not a spammer)
>>>
>>> Calendar
>>> The calendar looks neat, I haven't used it yet. But I see it possible to
>>> link other calendars, possibly google calendar and outlook.
>>>
>>> Music
>>> There is a music player, sound quality is very good, haven't played much
>>> with it.
>>>
>>> Video
>>> The device is shipped with Youtube client, videos played were smooth and
>>> clear.
>>>
>>> UI
>>> The most amazing part of HTC Hero, it is really exciting to play with
>>> the phone with this UI, sometimes the response is a bit slow, but its
>>> not something that prevent people from buying the phone as they
>>> mentioned in previous review in engaged.
>>>
>>> Android Market
>>> The market is full of apps, I haven't got the chance to download many
>>> applications, I've just downloaded nimbuzz, ssh client, and a poker game :)
>>>
>>> Weather
>>> Built in application and widget to pull weather updates, useful for our
>>> unstable weather :)
>>>
>>> Notifications
>>> One of the best features of the device is the notification framework. I
>>> get all of the notifications aggregated in one place, missed calls, text
>>> messages, emails, tweets, downloads. An icon will appear at the top and
>>> I can slide the notification window down to see the details.
>>>
>>> GPS and Google Maps/Latitude
>>> The device is GPS enabled and ships with Google Maps/Latitude. Cant say
>>> more.
>>>
>>> IM
>>> The default chat client is GTalk, but there are many clients that
>>> supports different networks and protocols available in android market.
>>>
>>> Stock Exchange
>>> Hero ships with widgets to get updates on stock market prices with charts.
>>>
>>> Battery
>>> The phone was up for 4 hours with wifi connection enabled, pulling email
>>> and twitter updates frequently and using it every few minutes to
>>> download apps and test the features and make regular calls. So far 60%
>>> of the battery left.
>>>
>>> Over all experience
>>> I'm really excited, and happy with the device as I've always wanted a
>>> device that is rich of usable and stable internet applications and all
>>> of that is in my Hero!
>>>
>>> P.S: I will never go back to use symbian enabled devices. and I
>>> encourage everyone to switch to android.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Ahmad Al-Ibrahim
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> General mailing list
>>> General at oskw.org
>>> http://oskw.org/mailman/listinfo/general_oskw.org
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>       Majed B.
>>
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-- 
       Majed B.