[General] My HTC Hero - Android experience

Tue Aug 18 10:32:27 +03 2009

Thanks for the update guys. I am also looking at getting my hands on this
device. One thing to note -- HTC is pushing the HTC Sense UI to the HTC G2 /
Magic (the second Andoid touchscreen phone) for free, since that phone and
the Hero share most of the same internal hardware.  However, you can only
"officially" get the update if your device is HTC branded and not
T-mobile/vodafone (it seems the other devices have lower RAM).

Tips on where you purchased the device would help, and the cost with
shipping would help. Amazon UK lists it at almost 400 GBP.

Thanks
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 10:01 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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> >
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>
>
>
> --
>        Majed B.
>
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