Comments on: HTC Hero review

By: admin

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:56:10 +0000

It’s possible. HTC can be hit of miss with their updates. However they have been good to the Magic. My guess is that they will update firmware a few times but probably leave the radio alone. Radios vary depending on your network and where you are in the world so I can’t imagine them release new radios for all variations. XDA Developers might be one of the best bets.

By: alex

alex — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:48:06 +0000

Signal Problem – thank you for explaining this as many people including myself suffer from this probl,em on HTC Hero. So the aerial is to blame, does this mean that there is no possible firmware upgrade possible to sort this problem, and I shouldnt wait for HTC to bring out any upgrades to sirt this out?

P.S. your review is the best, if only I saw it before…

By: macs

macs — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:42:53 +0000

Just like to say well done Gareth in the review, I have read a few reviews of the Hero and your’s is the only one I have read that picked up on the signal issue. Well done.

By: macs

macs — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:39:30 +0000

I have the Vodafone HTC magic (we where screwed on the memory front though) and I have a really good signal much better than my old TYTN II which was reasonable. Considering I am also in the Belfast area and the hardware is very similar to the hero its strange that the Hero is so bad. Here’s a link to Talk Android where many people in the forum are pointing out the poor reception on the Hero and not just on Orange. Orange are aware of this problem though the likely hood of a firmware update from Orange/HTC , I think is very unlikely considering the two companies past record.

http://www.talkandroid.com/1303-htc-hero-approved-by-global-certification-forum/

By: admin

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:19:30 +0000

In all fairness this is the worst aerial I have seen on a phone. Aerials, in my opinion are always a sore point. I have yet to be satisfied with any since signal drops intermittently where I live. This is not just a just of the phone but a fault of the network provider. The phone does work as a phone in the right environment, however it does not were the environment is unfavourable.
Some people will find it frustrating and some will not.

If your present phone has bad signal in your area, then don’t get this right now.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:19:12 +0000

I’m not so sure the counter arguments of good coverage and firmware updates are really that valid. Again going back to the mp3 player analogy, could you really recommend a player to someone that had really great side features or potential when you knew it had issues playing mp3′s? I’d understand it if the reviewer stated that coverage in his/her area was bad for all phones, but that isn’t what was written at all. In fact it sounds like other phones did just fine except for one and even that one wasn’t nearly as bad as this.

The most optimistic thing you can say is that (maybe) the issue will be fixed with a firmware update but I still can’t fathom recommending a device where the primary function has a good chance at being unacceptable to certain people. Plus, it might be a decent number of people as the reviewer indicates other phones aren’t showing the same problem which I interpret to mean the reviewer’s location can’t be extremely remote. Maybe it’s me but if my phone can’t do a decent job at calls then I can’t really get into all the other things that it does do.

I should say that I am highly interested in this phone so I’m coming from the point of view of someone who wants to like it. But if the device can’t do a satisfactory job at it’s primary purpose when compared to other similar devices (as indicated by the reviewer) then what I walk away with from the review is that the device is very poor (or at least below average) and should be rated as such.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:35:40 +0000

As Chris states, this can be sorted in an update. However, there is a vast majority who do not have to worry about signal in their daily routine. I wouldn’t write off a phone when there is a chance that someone will not suffer the problem, it’s just a warning.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:49:41 +0000

Matt, I understand what you are saying however the signal issues are often sorted out with a firmware update so the phone should not be dismissed just because of this, having said that HTC need to sort it out and fast as my iPhone 3G S on software 3.0 was awful, now running the beta of 3.1 it is much improved, if you are in a good signal area you would never know there was a problem.

At the end of the day though, I had the Hero for 24 hours and found it unusable where I live because of the weak radio.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:35:39 +0000

After thinking about this review a few days I had to comment because I’m still unable to figure out how you can give favorable comments when the phone had such serious signal issues. The best comparison I could think of was trying to say the iPod Touch was a nice device even though music sounded bad on it. How can a phone even be considered marginally acceptable if it has serious issues with connections?

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:33:56 +0000

So once again we are served inferior hardware (Qualcomm crap) and a poor UI experience, HTC really need to either give us something decent or get lost