Isn't there any screen capture application for Android? Taking photos of the screen isn't generally the best way to show screens. :D
Also, I didn't see much about the Web browser. How is it compared to either Opera on your Tilt or Safari on the iPhone?
Steve
mareet
· 1 month ago
Steve,
From what I gathered, there is no built in way to create screen captures within Android itself. I believe there's a $3.99 app in the Android Market for screen captures, but I thought it was strange that there wasn't freeware available to do the same exact thing. On my AT&T Tilt I use Ilium's Screen Capture software (http://www.iliumsoft.com/site/fp/screen_capture...). I initially held back on the photos because I was trying to find an alternative, but next time I'll be sure to just pick up the app instead of getting lost in research. ;)
As for the Android web browser, it was quick to load image-heavy sites and easy to use. I didn't accidentally click on links while scrolling or using multi-touch to zoom in and out like I do in Safari on the iPhone. Any slow-downs in the browsing experience itself was primarily due to the network itself.
Although one of the Hero's advantages is having Adobe Flash out of the box, the success rate of getting embedded video files to play in the browser is scanty at best. Sometimes I would follow links from feeds in Greed, an RSS reader app, and the video would load fine, but most of the time I would get an error saying that the media file could not be played. Yet, a Flash site like http://whyiwatch.com/ loaded and played audio just fine. Personally, I'm not a big media watcher on a handset but I can see how this would be disappointing for someone who's big on video. Skyfire on my Tilt plays embedded video from sites like YouTube and audio without a hitch.
Thank you for the interest!
~Marilyn
Chris Leckness
· 1 month ago
No Steve, there isn't without hacking into the OS. It's a painful process.
Pony99CA
· 1 month ago
No screen capture applications on Android? Wow. Does the iPhone have any?
Steve
Chris Leckness
· 1 month ago
yes, iPhone's capture is awesomely easy. Built into the OS.
mike
· 1 month ago
chris i like it and i think it is better than the iphone just because i can make it mine,also glad to see you are a atlanta falcon fan.
Dominik
· 1 month ago
Thanks for the review.
I didn't know that this phone had a browser that supported flash out of the box.
I was 100% sold on this phone until the Moment got a release date.
Same price, faster processor and a full keyboard versus this one.
Tough decision
mareet
· 1 month ago
Dominik,
A faster processor and full keyboard would put me on the fence too. I said I wouldn't go back to a WinMo phone for my next upgrade but then the HTC HD2 with its 1 GHz processor started to look very appealing. What I don't relish is the possibility of no WinMo 6.5 phone to be upgradable to WinMo 7, which puts the brakes on any expectations I had for the 5 MP camera, 4.3-inch display, Sense-skinned HD2.
~Marilyn
abcyesn
· 1 month ago
Got my HTC Hero yesterday at Best Buy and didnt even Pre order it. I traded in my Instinct HD for it. So at my best buy I was the first HD sold, first one returned then the first Hero out the door.
Its my first android phone and it blows the instinct out of the water in basically everything except for the camera, but I'm not buying a phone as my primary camera anyways.
There is no lag, it just transitions so smoothly, downloading apps is a breeze, setting up the phone is super easy and I'm not to tech savy.
The only I have to say is the keyboard is smaller on the Hero than the HD, but I like the feedback and word prompts on the hero, so in time I will adjust quickly. Also BB was not able to transfer my contacts over for some reason so I had to do it manually. I also like that you can link your facebook friends profiles to their contact. My wifes pre does this but its an all or nothing or at least thats the only way we could do it. This one you can take each friend and link it only if you want.
Overall I am very happy with the phone and looking forward to learning alot more about it.
Oh one more thing I did not get a Micro SD card adapter with mine. Did anyone else? Share your thoughts at http://www.HTC-Hero.com a dedicated site for HTC Hero. Take Care!
wpoole
· 1 month ago
That’s interesting to hear that you bought the HD first then trading it in for the Hero….I upgraded my old phone (Instinct G1) and purchased the Hero from my local Sprint store. The Hero is slick looking but I miss the features that my Instinct generation 1 had. For instance the Heros battery life is very short….much shorter than my old phone….maybe I got a bad battery…don’t know. My only major beef with the phone is the small keyboard in portrait mode….like you said the Instinct HD really addresses this area. The second issue (not sure if others have a solution to this) I don’t know why im unable to upload video shot on the Hero to my Facebook account (without downloading the app Qik!) to connect to my FB account. I can upload to Youtube, Twitter, etc, but not upload video to Facebook…weird. At least there is a app out there, but its kinda like putting a Band-Aid on the problem I guess.
Im holding out for the Samsung Moment to see if this would be a compromise amongst the two devices. Will have to wait till the Nov.
mareet
· 1 month ago
wpoole,
While uploading photos to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, et cetera I couldn't believe that there was no easy way to upload video other than downloading another app or copying it from the Hero to a computer via USB cable.
As for battery life, the display is so brilliant and the handset runs so smoothly that I figured battery life wouldn't be much different than my AT&T Tilt. I was just impressed by the fact that I could stream music for four hours before the Hero needed to be recharged. Shortened battery life seems to be the constant plight of smartphone users.
The Samsung Moment does look like a solid handset. Samsung's TouchWiz interface coupled with Android looks like a success from all the videos. TouchWiz dresses up an OS nicely like on the Samsung Impression and Eternity, and it looks like widgets are definitely where everyone's headed these days. Yay! Right now, I'm thirsting for Android handsets primarily on AT&T, but I'm beginning to think I'm holding out for something that will never happen.
~Marilyn
~Marilyn
Peter
· 3 weeks ago
thanks for the great review - I have had my Hero for a few weeks now and just love it.
mareet
· 1 day ago
The HTC Hero is definitely one of the strongest Android phones these days, and with the ability to upgrade Android handsets like the Hero so easily, I'm sure it'll be around for a while. Since the Android 2.0 with the Sense UI soon, I'd love to know what you think of the upgrade when it becomes available.
All Comments
Also, I didn't see much about the Web browser. How is it compared to either Opera on your Tilt or Safari on the iPhone?
Steve
From what I gathered, there is no built in way to create screen captures within Android itself. I believe there's a $3.99 app in the Android Market for screen captures, but I thought it was strange that there wasn't freeware available to do the same exact thing. On my AT&T Tilt I use Ilium's Screen Capture software (http://www.iliumsoft.com/site/fp/screen_capture...). I initially held back on the photos because I was trying to find an alternative, but next time I'll be sure to just pick up the app instead of getting lost in research. ;)
As for the Android web browser, it was quick to load image-heavy sites and easy to use. I didn't accidentally click on links while scrolling or using multi-touch to zoom in and out like I do in Safari on the iPhone. Any slow-downs in the browsing experience itself was primarily due to the network itself.
Although one of the Hero's advantages is having Adobe Flash out of the box, the success rate of getting embedded video files to play in the browser is scanty at best. Sometimes I would follow links from feeds in Greed, an RSS reader app, and the video would load fine, but most of the time I would get an error saying that the media file could not be played. Yet, a Flash site like http://whyiwatch.com/ loaded and played audio just fine. Personally, I'm not a big media watcher on a handset but I can see how this would be disappointing for someone who's big on video. Skyfire on my Tilt plays embedded video from sites like YouTube and audio without a hitch.
Thank you for the interest!
~Marilyn
Steve
I didn't know that this phone had a browser that supported flash out of the box.
I was 100% sold on this phone until the Moment got a release date.
Same price, faster processor and a full keyboard versus this one.
Tough decision
A faster processor and full keyboard would put me on the fence too. I said I wouldn't go back to a WinMo phone for my next upgrade but then the HTC HD2 with its 1 GHz processor started to look very appealing. What I don't relish is the possibility of no WinMo 6.5 phone to be upgradable to WinMo 7, which puts the brakes on any expectations I had for the 5 MP camera, 4.3-inch display, Sense-skinned HD2.
~Marilyn
Its my first android phone and it blows the instinct out of the water in basically everything except for the camera, but I'm not buying a phone as my primary camera anyways.
There is no lag, it just transitions so smoothly, downloading apps is a breeze, setting up the phone is super easy and I'm not to tech savy.
The only I have to say is the keyboard is smaller on the Hero than the HD, but I like the feedback and word prompts on the hero, so in time I will adjust quickly. Also BB was not able to transfer my contacts over for some reason so I had to do it manually. I also like that you can link your facebook friends profiles to their contact. My wifes pre does this but its an all or nothing or at least thats the only way we could do it. This one you can take each friend and link it only if you want.
Overall I am very happy with the phone and looking forward to learning alot more about it.
Oh one more thing I did not get a Micro SD card adapter with mine. Did anyone else? Share your thoughts at http://www.HTC-Hero.com a dedicated site for HTC Hero. Take Care!
Im holding out for the Samsung Moment to see if this would be a compromise amongst the two devices. Will have to wait till the Nov.
While uploading photos to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, et cetera I couldn't believe that there was no easy way to upload video other than downloading another app or copying it from the Hero to a computer via USB cable.
As for battery life, the display is so brilliant and the handset runs so smoothly that I figured battery life wouldn't be much different than my AT&T Tilt. I was just impressed by the fact that I could stream music for four hours before the Hero needed to be recharged. Shortened battery life seems to be the constant plight of smartphone users.
The Samsung Moment does look like a solid handset. Samsung's TouchWiz interface coupled with Android looks like a success from all the videos. TouchWiz dresses up an OS nicely like on the Samsung Impression and Eternity, and it looks like widgets are definitely where everyone's headed these days. Yay! Right now, I'm thirsting for Android handsets primarily on AT&T, but I'm beginning to think I'm holding out for something that will never happen.
~Marilyn
~Marilyn
Thank you for the interest!
~Marilyn