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Android

There has been lots of hype for the past year surrounding Google's Android operating system for smart phones but what is the hype about and is Android radically different than, say, the Symbian OS on the Nokia N97 or the OS on the Blackberry or iPhone OS?

Where Android is outstanding is in its open-source nature, and because the smart phone is all about applications, or apps, as we like to call them, the wide offering of applications available for download from Android Marketplace is a large part of its appeal.

This, of course, is something that all Android phones (including the Samsung Galaxy Spica, which is also on sale in Ireland) have in common, but what makes the Hero stand out from the others is HTC's own user interface called Sense.

Having used the iPhone, N97, all of the recent Blackberrys and the Palm Pre, I can safely say this is the most customisable smart phone I have encountered to date.

User interface

There are plenty of HTC and Android widgets that can be placed anywhere on screen. You can also place icons to your favourite apps and programs much like on the iPhone screen, and it is as simple as popping them onto the home screen or dragging them away again.

Sense means you can have several different "scenes" for work, weekend or evening, and there are eight screens so you can pack plenty of apps and widgets in there.

After playing around with the Hero for a couple of hours I already had my own wallpaper and a completely different mix of Twitter widgets, mail widget, weather widget and my favourite icons, including Gmail, Facebook, my address book and Google Listen (a great podcast utility for Android).

The usual suspects

As smart phones go, it already has all the basics that you would expect: a 3.5-mm headphone jack, a 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen (with 320x480 HVGA resolution), internal GPS, a digital compass, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 5-megapixel camera and expandable memory in the form of MicroSD.

These features in and of themselves are a great reason to buy this phone: the camera is top notch and has auto focus, the internal storage isn't fused into the handset like the iPhone and the screen is fantastically bright and the colour pops. I was really quite impressed.

Flashy web experience

While it comes with its own full HTML flash-capable web browser, you can also download others, like Opera, from the Marketplace. For me, the idea that there isn't just proprietary software is wild, I love being able to choose what web browser I use, what podcast player and so on. This is where the smart phone is really beginning to approach the desktop in terms of unlocked and open choices. There were even a few Twitter programs pre-loaded. Talk about spoiled for choice.

Speaking of browsing the web, it couldn't be easier on the eye. Full pages load like on a desktop but double tapping on a given area will bring the text into focus and resize and readjust automatically. Pinching will zoom even further.

Battery life

Battery life is all down to what functionality you have switched on or off. I switched on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and had automatic updates for my Gmail, Twitter and a few other programs so there was a constant stream of live updates and I found that the battery drained within the day.

Toggle the essentials and you'll get a much longer life out of this handset.

3G coverage

One thing I did notice about the Hero on Meteor was that the 3G coverage was not always 100pc, so sometimes it's prone to go in and out of coverage and a few times the network dropped and I couldn't make calls. I know Meteor's network is growing all the time so hopefully this won't be a problem going forward.

This brings me to making calls: when you bring up the dial screen it's a bit like the iPhone in that you type in the first letter or so of the person and it will bring up the entire name as well as all their contact details, including their Gmail, Facebook, phone number and so on. Handy.

Apps

Right now, for Irish users, all downloadable applications from the Android Marketplace are free. This, as reader Vishal points out, is one of the main drawbacks so let us hope Google gives us paid-for apps soon.

Verdict

Battery power can drain easily if you switch on all updates and it can run a little sluggishly if you've lots of applications open at once, but if you're looking for a powerful smart phone that has a world of great apps at its fingertips and does everything from voice to web surfing to listening to music and using maps, well, the Hero is a good choice.

By Marie Boran