HTC Hero G3 A6262 Black Unlocked GSM Smartphone Google Android Touchscreen Mobile Cell Phone, GPS, Wifi, 5 Megapixel Camera, Compass, MicroSD

by HTC

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 0.6 x 2.2 inches ; 4.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• ASIN: B002FHD5V2
• Item model number: 99HHM085-00
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #156,735 in Cell Phones & Accessories (See Top 100 in Cell Phones & Accessories)

Product Description

With the HTC Hero, personalisation lets you create a phone that is just right for you. Sporting a 3.2 inch touchscreen display, the Hero runs on the latest version of the Android operating system (known as Cupcake) which lets you download apps from the Android Market and features full compatibility with Google services such as Google Maps and Gmail. The Hero is the first phone to embody HTC Sense - an intuitive seamless experience that puts multiple channels such as Email and Facebook in your contacts and will also show you the latest photos your friends have uploaded. Also included is a 5.0 Megapixel camera with Autofocus, HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, built in GPS and Bluetooth. HTC Hero continues HTCs leadership in cutting-edge design that focuses on introducing a variety of distinct devices to represent your own individuality. Boasting bevelled edges and an angled bottom, the HTC Hero is contoured to fit comfortably in your hand and against your face while youre on a call. The HTC Hero is built to last beginning with an anti-fingerprint screen coating for improved smudge resistance and a longer lasting, clearer display. With its 3.2-inch HVGA display, the HTC Hero is optimized for Web, multimedia and other content while maintaining a small size and weight that fits comfortably in your hand. It also boasts a broad variety of hardware features including a GPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a 5 mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable MicroSD memory. HTC Hero also includes a dedicated Search button that goes beyond basic search, providing you with a more natural, contextual search experience that enables you to search through Twitter, locate people in your contact list, find emails in your inbox or search in any other area in Hero. Includes: Hero GSM Unlocked Quad-band Phone Li-ion Battery USB Data Cable Stereo Handsfree Headset User Manual

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and useful, but also slow, especially after Android 2.1 update, March 10, 2010

By 

Thomas Jhou (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HTC Hero G3 A6262 Black Unlocked GSM Smartphone Google Android Touchscreen Mobile Cell Phone, GPS, Wifi, 5 Megapixel Camera, Compass, MicroSD (Wireless Phone Accessory)

This phone combine above average promise with above average frustration. It's great because it does a lot of what my laptop used to do. Its ability to synchronize Google contacts, e-mail, and calendar are a lifesaver when traveling. This specifications are impressive: GPS, WiFi, bluetooth, internal compass, ambient light sensor, and autofocus-capable camera/video. When I first got it, it ran Android 1.5, an old version with many annoying problems, such as an unusable YouTube app, and battery-wasting default settings. Adjusting the default settings helped with battery life, and after a long wait, the Android 2.1 update arrived, which made some things better (e.g. YouTube) but other things worse. Most glaringly, the phone became noticeably slower just after the update. It was never zippy to begin with, but is now downright irritating, even with a task killer that I use constantly.

This phone reminds me of my first experience years ago with Windows 95. Then, as now, that was the product to compete with Apple, but it had a lot of rough edges, just like Android does at the moment.

Here are my detailed observations, starting first with the good things:

1. If you use gmail and Google calendar, Android will synchronize your life. If you add contacts on your phone, they show up on your gmail account within a few seconds, and vice versa. If you add calender items online, they show up on the phone, and vice versa. It just works. All phones should be this easy.

2. The GPS is downright amazing, much better than my older HTC phone. It finds satellites quickly, even indoors when I'm not particularly close to a window.

3. The ambient light sensor automatically adjusts screen brightness, like the iphone. It works well most of the time.

4. The Android Market, while still lagging behind the iPhone app store, is catching up fast.

OK, now for the frustrating parts.

1. It's slow. Under Android 1.5, simple things like typing sometimes had noticeable delays. After updating to the latest version 2.1, the phone has gotten slower still. Without task killers, I would have thrown the phone against a wall by now. The camera application seems to particularly bog the phone down, so I kill it whenever I'm not using it.

2. Typing. This phone has one of the increasingly common "capacitive" touchscreens (like the iphone). If you're already used to this, you know what you're in for. But if you're used to the older "stylus" type screens, get ready for several days of fat fingers. The screen responds only to the fleshy pad of the finger, not a stylus or fingernail. Your fingers will feel like giant marshmallows on the tiny on-screen keyboard. It was much slower than the stylus on my old phone.

3. Settings are often hard to find, and buried deep within menus. For example, to turn off dialpad tones, you have to exit out of the phone application, then go to "Settings", then "Sound and Display", then scroll to "Dialer Keypad Tone". It took days to figure this out, and the setting really ought to be placed in the phone app itself.

4. Battery life is middling with default factory settings. It gets better if you turn off "always-on" in the wireless settings, but then the phone no longer downloads mail in the background, and you'll have to sync manually. These things aren't obvious - you have to figure them out by reading forums and seeing what other people have tried.

5. Slightly arrogant user community. A lot of Android early-adopters are techies. While setting up my phone, one "helpful" comment I got from another Android user went along the lines of telling me to reprogram the operating system, and that " ... if you don't want to flash your own custom roms, then get an iphone". OK, aside from voiding my warranty, what did I just pay hundreds of $$$ for? If Google and Sprint's highly paid engineers couldn't make things work, why should I have to?

In summary, Android currently feels like a work in progress, and the processor on this phone is already outdated. After lots of fiddles and tweaks, and reading lots of forums, this phone became very useful, but still frustratingly slow.

6 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Quality issues with HTC, February 3, 2010

By 

D. Schreiber (Sharon, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HTC Hero G3 A6262 Black Unlocked GSM Smartphone Google Android Touchscreen Mobile Cell Phone, GPS, Wifi, 5 Megapixel Camera, Compass, MicroSD (Wireless Phone Accessory)

Android is excellent. However the touch screen on the HTC Hero broke in 6 months of purchase. Also had a HTC Touch. The touch screen on that broke after 2 years.

3 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars hero the world should be this easy, December 23, 2009

By 

D. Christopher "chocolatasupathunder" (staten island ny usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: HTC Hero G3 A6262 Black Unlocked GSM Smartphone Google Android Touchscreen Mobile Cell Phone, GPS, Wifi, 5 Megapixel Camera, Compass, MicroSD (Wireless Phone Accessory)

this phoe out class the iphoe in my view its the best smart phone iv'e had nokia has nothing to class with it and the sence ui is so intuitive i dont know how i lived before it