As a Sprint subscriber the news of the HTC Hero Android Phone was like a wet dream. The first android phone to be offered on sprint could have been the biggest phone news of the year. The bad news, for me, was that I just recently locked myself into a brand new 2 year contract with the purchase of the Palm Pre in July. I want this phone for myself, but let’s see if good enough to ignore my brand new 2 year contract.
This phone is nearly identical to the T-Mobile MyTouch, which we reviewed earlier this year. That is not a bad thing as the T-Mobile MyTouch is one of the best look android phones on the market. The device its self is about half an inch thick and weighs about 4.5 ounces, which is also known as smaller than the iPhone! The phone, as previously mentioned, sports the Android OS and also includes HTC’s Sense user interface which helps you customize every aspect of the phone. Generally speaking we do not like phones that include special proprietary software but the Sense works so very well that we are willing to make an exception. The phone has a super responsive touch screen with multi-touch.
This phone simply just works and it works well. You have up to seven home screens and can create shortcuts for apps, folders, widgets and anything else your heart desires. The touch keyboard works surprisingly well with great accuracy and auto-correcting. There are a few surprising features that work very well including Flash Lite in the web browser. Speaking of the web browser, it works well. There are although there are some long loading times for flash, but unlike most phones it includes it nativity. The android market continues to improve and currently offers well over 10,000 apps to choose from! The 5.0 megapixel camera was just okay, the pictures had some blurring and was very hard to focus most of the time.
The phone is $180 with a contract, which if you’re on sprint and are coming up on a chance for a new phone, this may be the very best option available on the market. Despite the camera, the features this phone offer are fantastic and this phone is a great addition to new Smartphone’s that offer the Android OS. This is the first Android phone on Sprint and is one of the best phones available on the network.
Rating 9.5/10
