Review: HTC Hero – Hardware

The HTC Hero is HTC’s third Android device after the T-Mobile G1, aka HTC Dream, and HTC Magic.  The Hero was launched in Malaysia around 10 days ago, which I covered here.  The Hero is the first HTC Android device to come with what HTC calls its Sense user interface (“Sense UI”), which is an enhancement that HTC created, based on its highly successful TouchFLO3D interface for its Windows Mobile phones, that sits on top of the core Android operating system.  Sense UI is designed to make the phone easier to use, hiding the complexities of a smart operating system such as Android from the ordinary user.  It also incorporates some HTC applications with a focus on social networking, the hottest growth area anywhere on the internet right now.  When the Sense UI was first shown to industry analysts and experts alike, it was met with almost universal acclaim, but since the announcement of the Motorola Cliq with its MotoBlur interface, this enthusiasm has been tempered somewhat.

I received a review unit of the HTC Hero a couple of days ago, and deliberately took a few days to come up with part 1 of this review to get accustomed to the device.  This was not my first Android device – I own the T-Mobile G1, aka HTC Dream, which I have hacked to run all sorts of custom Android operating system builds (even using a leaked version of the HTC Hero ROM/firmware which ran really really slowly on the G1!).  I therefore was a little familiar with the Android operating system as well as the Android hardware that HTC manufactures.

So, part 1 of this review will focus on the look, design and hardware features of the Hero, while part 2 will focus on the software/operating system and my conclusions/verdict on the Hero.  If you’d like to review the Hero’s specifications and other related information before reading the review proper, click here for the official HTC Hero webpage.

Specifications

Box contents

Alas, I cannot share an unboxing photoshoot or video since media review units do not come in retail packaging due to various reasons.  I was only given a nondescript white box, matching the colour of the Hero review unit.  Inside the box was a extUSB-to-USB cable for data transfer and charging, an AC adapter into which you can plug the USB cable into to charge the Hero, as well as a set of wired stereo headphones.  All came in white, to match the colour of the Hero.  I am unsure if the retail packaging for the Hero will have all the accessories matching the colour of the Hero that one buys.

Here’s a picture of what I got in the box:

Size and physical dimensions

The Hero measures 112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm ( 4.41 x 2.21 x 0.57 inches) [length x width x thickness].  Rather than asking you to build a paper model, here are some pictures of the Hero next to some “common” phones.  By “common” I mean phones I currently own  :P  I also put it next to the Star logo on its newspaper so you can compare its size to a “common everyday household” item.

In the size comparison with other smartphones below, I compare the HTC Hero to the:

• T-Mobile G1, aka HTC Dream, aka HTC’s first Android phone, aka the Hero’s “big brother”.
• Apple iPhone3GS.
• Samsung i8910 HD.
• Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic.
• Nokia E90.

Here’s a size comparison between the HTC Hero, T-Mobile G1 (aka HTC Dream), Apple iPhone3GS and the Samsung i8910 HD from the side as well as the top.  Bottom to top – T-Mobile G1, HTC Hero, Apple iPhone3GS, Samsung i8910 HD.

Having taken a few photos of the HTC Hero, I realise that white is not the best colour for a device, especially when you need to take photos of it for a review!

Build

I received the white unit for review.  The white unit has a special Teflon non-stick coating on the back of the phone to repel any most attempts by smudges to stick to the surface.  This works – a couple of days after playing with it, the colour still looks white, clean and pristine.  But then again, I’ve always handled devices with clean hands and not after devouring some McDonald’s french fries.  That is why I say “most” rather than “any”, because we all know there’s always going to be someone in the world who will be able to make a smudge stick on the Hero.  But I digress.  The Teflon coating does its job well, as I’ve mentioned.  The slight smudges that the back cover picked up on the edges when it was placed on dirty surfaces that you can see in the pictures below were easily wiped off by my fingers.

On the front of the device, right at the top is the earpiece and to the right, the LED notification light.  When you have an alert, for example, a Twitter application which monitors @mentions and direct messages, the light will flash green when you have these alerts.  Underneath this, you have the 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen.  Underneath the screen, you have 4 hardware buttons – the make call, home, menu and end call buttons.  Underneath this row, you have the clickable trackball smack in the bottom centre of the unit, and to the right of it, the search and back buttons in one physical button – press left to call up the Google search box, and right to go back to a previous screen or to get rid of a “pop up” screen.

On the left side, you have the volume rocker – its looks are deceiving actually; I didn’t realise it was a volume rocker at all – it looked more like a door to access some slot or other!

On the top side, there’s the 3.5mm industry standard headphone jack.  The “groove” next to the headphone jack is the place where you slide in your fingernail in order to pry the back cover open to play with the battery, the SIM card and the microSD card slot.

On the right side, no user accessible slots or buttons.

On the bottom, a proprietary HTC extUSB slot for charging and data transfer, as well as the microphone.

On the back, you have the 5 megapixel camera with auto focus.  The HTC Hero does not come with a flash for picture taking or video recording.  To the left of the camera lens is a small slot from which the speaker sound emanates.  Covering up this slot with your finger is rather effective for reducing the volume output of the built in speaker somewhat.

Opening up the back cover will expose the microSD card slot, the battery and underneath the battery, the SIM card slot.  The battery’s capacity is 1,350mAh; look at the specifications section above for an indication of the battery life.  One thing I can say for certain – the battery life of the Hero, even on 3G constantly, is better than the battery life on the G1 on EDGE constantly.  Obviously HTC has been hard at work tweaking the operating system as well as software to make better use of the battery capacity!  Opening the back cover is also easier on the Hero compared to the G1 – there’s a groove at the top where you slide your fingernail in and just pry the cover open.

In the second picture below, the microSD card slot is at the bottom left, and you can see the SIM card slot just underneath the battery.  Accessing both requires the user to open the back cover.  It would have been better for the microSD card to be made accessible without having to open the back cover, by adding another slot door to the side of the device, as I’m a person who likes to swap cards often, and removing the cover is not fun at all as it’s tedious!

Speakers

The built in speaker was sufficiently loud to be used to play music, but as is usually the case with small tiny speakers, won’t have the necessary bass for you to host a rave party using it.  At the highest volume setting, music played back well, with little hint of distortion or “sound disintegration” as I call it.

Buttons

The buttons, although small in size, were responsive and did not require a hard press to activate.  I rarely used the trackball which was clickable though – I’ve never been much accustomed to navigating using trackballs on mobile devices and see no reason why I should start now!  By “clickable” I mean that once you’ve settled on an item to activate, instead of tapping the screen to activate the option, you can simply press the trackball button down to perform the same action without ever touching the screen.

WiFi

WiFi 802.11 b/g is supported.  Since I have an unlimited data plan, I didn’t use the WiFi much apart from a few occasions.  When I did use it, I encountered no problems – no “hung/frozen” sessions, dropped sessions, etc.  The Hero saw the same number of networks at the same location as my notebook, but with a lower signal strength, which is not surprising at all since the antenna on the Hero is so much smaller than the one on the notebook, not to mention less powerful.  Connecting to wireless networks was easy – WEP and WPA are supported.  The user can also set a static IP address for the WiFi network if desired.  When connected to an WiFi router/access point, there will be a wifi icon on the status bar.

The Hero can also be configured to notify the user upon discovery of a new network, in case the user is desperate for an internet connection but cannot yet find any at the location he/she is in, but is moving around to search for a signal.  Not tremendously useful, but something nice to have, I guess.

Bluetooth

The Bluetooth (BT) radio on the Hero only supports a selected number of profiles, namely the headset profile, the AV source profile and the remote control target profile, according to my Windows Vista notebook when it paired with the Hero.  This means that it supports the mono, stereo (advanced audio distribution aka “A2DP”) as well as the audio video remote control profile (“AVRCP”).  There is a BT icon on the status bar when BT is turned on.  When made discoverable, the device will be discoverable for 120 seconds, after which it will “hide itself” for security purposes.  I connected a Nokia BH903 stereo BT headset to the Hero, and made/received calls on it with no issues, as well as listened to music through the stereo BT headset without issues.

The AVRCP profile worked as expected – pressing the back/forward button on the BT headset made the music playing in the Music application on the Hero go back one track/forward one track.  Long presses on the back/forward buttons on the BT headset fast backed/fast forwarded the track currently playing.

I also played back music on the HTC Hero on the Vista notebook that was paired with the Hero.  It worked, with music piped out of the notebook’s stereo speakers.  The notebook was able to control the music application on the Hero using its back/forward buttons, and play/pause buttons.

Pairing with both a PC and BT headset was straightforward and didn’t require an advanced degree in nuclear physics.  All in all, BT was a pleasant experience.

GPS and A-GPS

The Hero comes with a “proper/real” GPS receiver as well as A-GPS which uses cellular signal triangulation to roughly determine the phone’s location when a real GPS fix is unavailable.  Using Google Maps to test, both the GPS and A-GPS worked without issues, although using the built in GPS receiver will take slightly longer to lock on to a valid satellite signal – not a fault of the Hero – this is simply how all built in GPS receivers work, and one needs to be standing under a relatively clear sky to get a good fix, as well as a faster fix.  When the built in GPS receiver has managed to lock on to sufficient satellites to determine the phone’s location, the GPS icon on the status bar stops “flashing”, and one can see Google Maps being able to show the phone’s location much more accurately, compared to using A-GPS.  My very rough testing revealed that the built in GPS receiver took around two minutes under an open sky late at night to obtain a good positional fix.  A-GPS, on the other hand, can give the user an approximate location within a few seconds of Google Maps going online!

Touchscreen

The capacitive touchscreen is also supposed to be smudge or fingerprint resistant, and it certainly works better in this respect than other touchscreens I’ve experienced.  However, fingerprints will still stick to the surface, especially if you have oily fingers, but not as much as on the screens of other competing devices.

Being a capacitive touchscreen, the Hero’s screen was responsive.  Touches registered immediately.  Kinetic scrolling was effortless.  Tapping on buttons was accurate.  Tapping on text entry boxes to bring up the virtual keyboard was accurate.  Very very rarely did I have to tap the screen twice to register that I wanted to carry out an action, something that cannot be said for resistive screens in my experience.  Check out the short video below to see the touchscreen in action.  Of course the sensitivity of the performance will also depend on the underlying operating system, which we will talk about in part 2.

As you watch the video below, please bear in mind a couple of points:

1. the video is shaky because I’m holding the videocam with one hand and trying to navigate the phone with the other.  I am no longer as young as I once was, so dexterity has not been one of my strong suits of late.
2. sometimes when you see me swiping or tapping on the screen more than once for it to register, it is not a fault of the screen’s sensitivity – I was swiping very lightly.  The surface on which the phone was resting was very slippery, and swiping hard on it would cause the phone to slide all over the table requiring me to reposition it, and repositioning the camera, which I was not keen on doing!
3. do try to watch the video in HQ mode – you can see more that way, and the clarity is slightly better too.  If anyone wants the “source” video file before it was butchered by YouTube, let me know and I can upload the WMV file somewhere.

So, to sum up:

1. the HTC Hero is a solidly built device with a Teflon coating that is supposed to protect the casing against smudges, and by and large, the coating works, although you will still get some smudges on the casing.  Most of these smudges should be easily wiped off by rubbing a finger across the smudge.
2. the performance of the device is snappy.  I did not experience slowdowns when using it.  There were one or two instances when a third party application was unresponsive requiring me to do a force close, but overall the built in applications and widgets behaved themselves, and performed well.
3. the screen, while fingerprint resistant, is not 100% resistant.  Some fingerprints still ended up on the screen, although not as much as other touchscreen phones.  The screen is not scratch resistant – when I received the review unit, it already had a scratch on the screen, possibly caused by a key or coin when placed in someone’s pocket.
4. battery life on the device, even when it is constantly on 3G, is good, much better than on the G1.  I am guessing for a person with normal usage, say 10 calls a day for a couple of minutes, some texting (ie. SMS-ing), web surfing, etc, and with the online widgets (such as Twitter notifications, etc) turned on it should be able to make it through a day.
5. I am still unsure about the chin design on HTC’s Android devices.  Personally, I prefer a chin-less device, mainly because I have been using these devices for some time now.
6. the speaker is sufficiently loud for call ringtones as well as notification ringtones.  In addition to this, the LED light will flash to tell the user that a notification such as a new SMS/email or Twitter message has arrived.

That’s it for part 1 of this review.  If there’s anything I missed, do let me know in the comments and I’ll try to accommodate.  Meanwhile, stay tuned for part 2 of the review.

[UPDATE] Click here for part 2 in this review series which covers the software and operating system on the HTC Hero.

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