[General] My HTC Hero - Android experience

[Ahmad Al-Ibrahim]

http://www.expansys.ae/
175KD the brown/black hero

Majed B. wrote:
> Hey guys, where did you buy the Hero from?
> 
> On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Burhan Khalid<burhan.khalid at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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