Back in 2009, this very phone was the centrepiece of the Android world. Raving reviews were written about its capabilities and styling. But now in 2013, the HTC Hero has receded into the history books as the smartphone world blazed by with quad-core processors and 1080P screens that utterly shame the HTC Hero. The question now is, can the Hero be a daily driver in the age of the stupidly fast Galaxy S4 and wonderfully beautiful HTC One? Let’s answer that question.
Hardware wise, the HTC Hero is a very feeble device in today’s standards. Packing a mere 528MHz processor, the Hero struggles to put up a good act in performance. Before we move on, let’s be reminded of what the HTC Hero brought to the market nearly 4 years ago.
HTC Hero SPEC SHEET
- Qualcomm MSM7200A @ 528MHz
- Qualcomm Adreno 130 GPU
- 288MB RAM
- 512MB storage
- 3.2″ TFT display
- TRACKBALL!!!
- HTC Sense UI
The design of the HTC Hero is simply, unquestionably, undoubtedly one of the ugliest yet beautiful amongst other smartphones. Its looks are very subjective. Some may find the chin of the Hero very very daft, yet some others like myself think of the HTC Hero as a very handsome and industrial looking device. Well it’s up to you to decide.
Okay enough with the fancy descriptions. Lets see what its like to live with the HTC Hero.
Making phone calls is a breeze with the HTC Hero. Especially so with the dedicated hardware call button which will bring you straight to the dialer from anyone where in the phone. Call quality is fine and the speaker phone is comparable to other smartphones today. When holding the phone up to your ear to call someone, the design of the Hero finally makes sense; the elevated front and curved back makes the Hero wonderfully ergonomic to hold and talk for hours. HTCs bundled ringtones are very very nice. Even the usual default ringtone, which usually sucks in other phones, is a joy to hear when a call comes ringing in. A wonderful touch is that the backlit trackball flashes when the phone receives a call. Very nice.
Running Android 2.1 Eclair and HTC’s excellent Sense UI, the last version of Android that HTC officially released for the Hero, some apps in the Android Market (now renamed Play Store) are left incompatible with the Hero, which does detract the overall experience. However, most common apps like WhatsApp and Facebook work fine albeit with some choppiness due to the ageing hardware.
The camera in the Hero is fine in broad daylight with its 5MP autofocus shooter but bring it indoors and watch the dismal performance come to life. It’simpossible to shoot a photo with indoor lighting without some form of blurriness as a result of the sensor’s poor low light performance. Also, the method of shooting a photo with the Hero, which is pressing the trackball to take a picture, is rather irritating as pressing the ball down causes some considerable camera shake, aggravating the possibility of taking a blur image.
Packing in a resolution of 320 x 480, the screen in the Hero is nothing to write home about. 3.2 inches is manageable but it feels quite cramped to browse the interwebs. As for colour reproduction, the Hero does a splendid job and does impress me even with its age. It’s definitely better than the iPhone 3G of the Hero’s era. Watching videos on it is something you don’t want to do with it’s minuscule screen but it’s passable.
Browsing the internet, as I said earlier, is a downside for the Hero partially due to it’s cramped 3.2 inch screen but mostly due to it’s SLOW processor. Rendering Isle of Droid is fine as there’s little content to display (ha!) but other webpages like gizmodo.com or theverge.com takes an eternity to load (about 25 seconds). Loading up the page is plenty fast due to the 3G HSDPA network but it’s the rendering that bogs everything down. The amazing trackball does help to enhance the browsing experience though. Gotta love that trackball no matter how useless it seems It’s just like the useless light bar that Sony puts in its Xperia phones. Useless but very cool at the same time.
Overall, as a device from 2009, the HTC Hero actually does stack up against some of the entry-level phones in the market like the pathetically miserable Samsung Galaxy Y. Is the Hero usable today? Of course! But would I want to use it as my daily driver? No, the Hero is too slow for my needs. But if you are looking around for a good looking Android phone that has good credentials but is very cheap and don’t want a run of the mill budget phone, then the Hero is plenty good for you. I found this Hero for $70!
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