HTC Hero Review

Camera:

We do like the people at HTC and their penchant for innovative solutions when it comes to imaginative software and hardware design, but we would recommend that they attend a class or two on how to build proper cameras at Samsung. Can you see what we are driving at? Yes, the 5-megapixel camera of the HTC Hero is a major disappointment, from the lack of something as simple as flash, through the unhandy way of taking pictures with the trackball to the sluggish focusing that takes about 3 seconds and is the main reason behind the fact that half the snapshots come out blurry even in perfect lighting conditions. What a shame!

The available settings are decent, you can set the resolution, white balance, brightness, self-portrait, image quality, add geotagging and different effects. Modern features like face-detection and macro mode are missing.


Taking a passable picture is possible, erm, in good lighting conditions (best outdoors), if you have the steady hand of a seasoned sniper trooper and stationary object. If you are about to take a picture of your family and your young nephew darts off, shoot him… erm, we mean with the camera after politely insisting that he stands still if at all possible. Even in perfect conditions like these, the overall image quality is far from impressive – colors are worn out and fine details are somewhere else and not in the picture. As a whole, the result is pretty identical to what the HTC Touch Diamond2 delivers, which is quite logical really, since both devices utilize one and the same camera. The good thing is that after taking a picture, you can instantly share it via Facebook, Tweeter, Picasa, Google Mail, Flickr or a message/e-mail. Captured videos can be uploaded directly to YouTube.



Speaking of videos, the HTC Hero allows capturing videos with CIF resolution and not at QVGA like the Magic and G1 (after the Cupcake update). The overall quality is mediocre.

HTC Hero sample video at 352x288 pixels

Camera is certainly not among the most important aspects of a smartphone like the Hero, but we would have liked it much better if the phone had a decent one. The utmost attention to details is something we quite value with modern devices. The phone gallery of the Hero makes for an illustrative example. It allows access to the snapshots and pictures available on your device as well as those, uploaded by your online buddies on Facebook and Flickr, browsing feels comfortable plus handling the phone is really easy with the multitouch support. You can also share your images via a message/e-mail, as well as the popular social services (Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Tweeter and Google Mail) directly from here. An option for uploading videos to YouTube is also present. Naturally, the feature needs an active internet connection.


“Footprints” is another option that makes use of the camera and along with the built-in GPS allows storing of information about specific places that you are impressed with, classified under different categories like restaurants, sight-seeing spots, shops etc.


Multimedia:

The HTC Hero sports a 3.5 mm jack and comes equipped with… Jeez, dude, take a look at these stunningly beautiful earphones… Wait, I´m taking the phone, I want to try them out. Sorry, but that was the reaction of one of our colleagues on seeing the snowy white headset with integrated remote control for the first time. While he´s preoccupied with them, we will tell you about the music player.


If you have ever seen the player that HTC provides with their Windows Mobile handsets, then you will get used to this one fairly easy. Audio content is filtered by relevant artist, album, genre, composer and whether or not the audio has been purchased. You can create your own playlists and handling all controls is easy. Album art is large and nicely visualized, but there are no effects or equalizer presets to fiddle with. The only complex option available is the built-in audio clipping to create ringtones easily. Quite cool, really.


Since the HTC Hero doesn’t sport an FM Radio, we had to use third party software for streaming audio. We highly recommend iMeem, because it features an option to search for similar artists and then plays the content you choose. The app works perfectly with all the rage bands, but is not as capable with audio that is less dominant in the charts. Still, there´s a free version and it comes pretty handy if you happen to be close to a Wi-Fi hotspot.


Now, let´s get back to the strikingly beautiful earphones. They are only for decoration. Sound through them is too sharp and you will have to turn down the volume to make things sound bearable, in which case however, you will end up being able to hear all environmental noises around you. A prolonged use may be hazardous to your health indeed, leading to conditions like severe headache or nose bleeding. Plugging in a pair with average quality improved our audio experience significantly and we could even relish some nice basses. Just remember, the sound going at full blast might damage your hearing in general, but this is a realistic option with the HTC Hero. By the way, similarly to the iPod, playback stops automatically when you remove the headset. The built-in loudspeaker is a bit weak, but delivers sound with passable quality.

Come to video playback, the capabilities of the HTC Hero are below par in terms of modern standards. The device supports MPEG4/H.264 and H.263 videos with maximum width of 640 pixels. The overall quality is quite good, but content tends to stutter at maximum resolution and we recommend that you stick to lower ones, say 320x480 pixels. The player itself is way too dated and you can´t even see the title of the file that´s being played. We tried Meridian Player and found out it brought some order the chaos, but failed to expand the video support to DivX and Xvid content. Fingers crossed the much anticipated version of Core Player for Android rolls out soon.



Software and GPS:

Even though the HTC Hero is not branded as a Google device, the only software for navigation that comes preloaded is Google Maps. The Android version of the app has been recently revamped and now features nice functions like “Latitude”. Keep in mind that you better get the Hero on a monthly plan with the maximum download allowance available, so as to minimize the financial impact of the traffic that app generates. The initial start-up takes about 3 minutes and less than 30 seconds after that.


As for the additional software, the supply of apps for Android is still rather thin when compared to what´s available for the iPhone, but really useful programs have already begun to appear. There is still an irritating shortage of software in certain areas like proper DivX/Xvid players, but the community is picking up speed really fast.

The lack of enough entertainment-related apps for Android is one of the major reasons why many young people still don’t feel like getting handsets running it. Having tested Armadillo Roll, we can say the platform has a lot to offer on the 3D front, but most of the stuff is still logic games that look rather bad really.