PDA & Gps Nav Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘EngadgetReview’

The RIM BlackBerry Storm brewed up a lot of hype and excitement as the first touch-screen BlackBerry. The touch capabilities were news enough alone but add to that Research in Motion’s SurePress functionality (the technology that makes the screen clickable), an impressive feature list, and the competitive $199.99 pricing, and there were a lot of expectations for the BlackBerry Storm to succeed. However, when the Storm finally blew into town, it was a definite letdown because of the phone’s sluggish performance and bugginess.

Verizon Wireless has since released two firmware updates. The latest, released on May 31, 2009, greatly improves the device by resolving a number of bugs and improving general performance while adding some nice feature enhancements. While we would have preferred all of this from the get-go, the BlackBerry Storm is now a more stable device that should please current owners.

Design

In terms of form factor, the RIM BlackBerry Storm doesn’t stray far from the other full touch-screen smartphones on the market today, including the Samsung Omnia and Apple iPhone. Sporting a black casing with silver accents, the handset is a bit blocky and heavy at 4.4 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep and weighs 5.6 ounces, so it feels a bit wide when you hold it in your hand and it’ll make for a tight fit in a pants pocket. That said, the Storm is a well-constructed smartphone. It has a nice, solid feel and the edges have a soft-touch finish to provide a better grip.
The RIM BlackBerry Storm is a bit shorter and heavier than the Apple iPhone.

While the Storm’s design might not be the most inspiring, the smartphone’s display is another story. Obviously, the fact that the Storm is the first touch-screen BlackBerry is news enough, but its 3.25-inch VGA glass display also demands attention for its sharpness and brightness, showing 65,000 colors at a crisp 480×360-pixel resolution. We weren’t as impressed with the Storm’s screen as the BlackBerry Bold, but it’s still beautiful. You can also adjust the backlighting, font size, and type. The Storm is also equipped with an accelerometer, so the screen orientation will switch from portrait to landscape mode when you rotate the phone from a vertical position to a horizontal one, left or right.

Moving onto the touch-screen capabilities, the BlackBerry Storm uses SurePress, so that when you select an application or enter text, you actually push the screen down like you would any other tactile button. You can see a bit of a gap at the top and bottom of the screen, which but makes the phone. In terms of text extry, the BlackBerry Storm features a soft keyboard in both portrait and landscape mode. Originally, only a SureType keyboard was a available in portrait mode, but with the latest upgrade, you also have the option of a full QWERTY keyboard. It’s not automatic though and you must enable it by pressing the BlackBerry menu key and then selecting Enable Full Keyboard. When using the keyboard or selecting applications, you do a simple finger touch over the item until it’s highlighted and then you press down on the screen to register the action.

The Storm’s SurePress touch screen and onscreen keyboard takes some acclimation.
In addition to the SurePress technology, you can also use a number of finger taps or swipes to perform certain actions. For example, you can tap on the screen twice to zoom in on a Web page or map, or do quick finger swipes to scroll though a page. Also, to copy/paste text, you just touch the screen at the start of the text and then with a second finger, touch the end of the block of text you want to copy. You can adjust the tap interval, hover point, and swipe sensitivity in the Options > Screen/Keyboard menu.

While the SurePress technology is cool, it definitely takes some acclimation. It’s not a natural feeling to physically push down on the screen, and we often found ourselves forgetting to actually press down; instead just tapping or double tapping on the letter button or link. You do get used to it after a while though, but as far as e-mail creation or text messages, we missed having a tactile keyboard. We couldn’t comfortably type long messages as fast as we wanted and when we tried, the message was riddled with errors. The keyboard buttons are just a bit too small and cramped. If I had problems with my small hands, I can only imagine it would be worse for users with larger thumbs.

You get some standard controls below the display, but we missed having the trackball navigator.
Below the display, you do get a set of tactile navigation controls that consists of Talk and End/Power buttons, a Menu key, and a clear button. Unlike other BlackBerry models, there is no trackball navigator and we have to admit that we missed it. It may be that we’re just used to having the trackball, and often we found our thumb automatically looking for the control while trying to scroll through pages and menus. However, even beyond that, we think it wouldn’t hurt to have a trackball navigator since it allows for easier one-handed operation. Also, you wouldn’t always have to rely on the touch screen and it would be useful for certain operations like for selecting links on a Web page.

On the left side, there’s a user-programmable shortcut key and a micro USB port, while the right spine has a 3.5mm headphone jack, a volume rocker, and another customizable button, which is set as the camera activation/capture key by default. The camera lens and flash are located on the backside, and behind the battery cover, you’ll find the microSD/SDHC card holder and SIM card slot. Finally, though not readily apparent, there is a device lock and mute button on the top edge of the Storm.

Behind the battery cover, you’ll find the Storm’s SIM card and microSD expansion slot.
Verizon Wireless packages the RIM BlackBerry Storm with healthy set of accessories, including a travel charger with various adapters, a USB cable, an 8GB microSD card, a SIM card, a wired headset, a software CD, and reference material. For more add-ons, please check our cell phone accessories, ringtones, and help page.

Features

While the RIM BlackBerry Storm might be the first touch screen for Research in Motion, the company wanted to make sure the smartphone offered the same feel and functionality of previous and current BlackBerrys. The Storm runs the latest BlackBerry OS 4.7, bringing an updated user interface much like the BlackBerry Bold and the BlackBerry Pearl Flip. You now get DataViz Documents To Go Standard Edition, so you can now edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files as well. If you want the capability to create new documents, you will have to upgrade to the Premium Edition. We had no problems opening and working on Word and Excel documents, but we can’t imagine doing more than minor edits on the Bold or any other smartphone for that matter. Other PIM applications include a Calendar, a task list, a memo pad, a voice recorder, a calculator, a password keeper, and more.

You can also get more applications for your Storm through the recently launched BlackBerry App World. The store was not available when the Storm was first released, but you can download it through the phone’s mobile browser. We installed it on our review unit with no problem and were able to download apps such as Pandora quickly and easily over Verizon’s 3G network.

For e-mail, the Storm can sync with your company’s BlackBerry Enterprise server, with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise, to deliver corporate e-mail in real time. You can also access up to 10 personal/business POP3 or IMAP4 e-mail accounts via the BlackBerry Internet Service. Like all recent BlackBerry models, the Storm has a spell-check feature that will look for errors in e-mails and memos, but not text messages. There’s also an attachment viewer for opening Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Corel WordPerfect, PDF, JPEG, GIF, and more.

As a phone, the BlackBerry Storm offers dual-mode functionality, so the phone switches automatically between CDMA and GSM networks to offer seamless international roaming–all while keeping the same phone number. (Note that the phone does not support domestic GSM bands.) In all, you get voice coverage in 157 countries (22 of those on CDMA) and e-mail coverage in 62 countries. Just be aware that you’ll still incur roaming rates, which range from $0.69 to $2.49 a minute. Verizon also offers technical support if you need help while overseas. First, there’s a 24-hour Global Help Desk that’s open seven days a week. In addition, you get a calling card for free support calls while traveling outside of the United States from any landline phone to technical support your BlackBerry Storm is lost, broken, or stolen.

The address book is only limited by the available memory with room in each entry multiple phone numbers, e-mail addresses, work and home address, job title, and more. For caller ID purposes, you can assign a photo, group category, or one of 32 polyphonic ringtones. Other voice features include a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, smart dialing, conference calling, speed dial, and text and multimedia messaging. You can also download Visual Voice mail. Bluetooth 2.0 is onboard with support for a mono and stereo Bluetooth headsets, serial port profile, phone book access, and dial-up networking. To use the Storm as a wireless modem for your laptop, you will need a subscription to one of Verizon’s BroadbandAccess plans, which start at $15 per month.

The BlackBerry Storm runs on Verizon’s EV-DO Rev. A network, which allows for faster Web browsing, e-mail, and downloads. The Rev. A offers an extra boost over regular EV-DO, bringing download speeds up to the 450Kbps-to-800Kbps range versus 400Kbps-to-700Kbps, while upload speeds will average around 300Kpbs to 400Kpbs (compared with EV-DO’s 50Kpbs to 70Kbps). Of course, this is all dependent if you live in a coverage area (you can find a coverage map from Verizon’s Web site. The smartphone also offers support for the 2,100MHz UMTS/HSDPA, so you can get 3G support while overseas. Unfortunately, there’s no integrated Wi-Fi, which we find disappointing. We realize and understand the argument that the 3G radios does away with the need for Wi-Fi, but we still like having that option, especially if you drop out of range or don’t live in a coverage area.

The BlackBerry Storm has a full HTML Web browser that you can view in Internet Explorer or Firefox mode, depending on your preference. You can check out sites in page view or column view, and navigate via pan mode or cursor mode. In pan mode, you can move around pages simply by dragging your finger and then double-tapping the screen to zoom in. To select a hyperlink, you just highlight the link and then click. Meanwhile, in cursor mode, you can just place the cursor over the link and click or use the onscreen magnifying glass to zoom in. There’s also a collapsible toolbar along the bottom that lets you go to new sites, change views, and more. There is support for streaming media, including YouTube’s mobile site. As we’ve said before, the BlackBerry browser has greatly improved over the years, but it’s still not as easy to use as the iPhone and its multitouch screen.

Last but not least of the wireless radios is integrated GPS. You can use the BlackBerry Storm as a handheld navigator, but to get real-time turn-by-turn directions, traffic data, and more , you will need to subscribe to Verizon’s VZ Navigator location-based service, which costs $9.99 per month or $2.99 per day.

The BlackBerry Storm features a 3.2-megapixel camera with video recording and auto focus.

Moving onto multimedia features, the BlackBerry Storm is equipped with a 3.2-megapixel camera with video recording capabilities, as well a flash, auto focus, 2x zoom, and image stabilization. In camera mode, you get a choice of three picture sizes and three picture qualities. There are white balance settings, and you can add various effects to your photos, such as black and white, and sepia. With the built-in GPS, you can also geotag photos. As usual, options are more limited in camcorder mode as you only get a choice of two video formats (normal and MMS) and three color effects. The volume rocker can be used to zoom in and out in both camera and video mode.

We were pretty disappointed by the picture quality, as colors looked flat and gray.

Picture quality was subpar. While we could identify objects in the picture, they looked a bit soft and the colors were completely washed out. Video quality, on the other hand, was pretty impressive with good light and better image quality than other smartphones we’ve tested.

The Storm’s built-in media player can play various music and video formats, including MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-NB, and MIDI music files, and MPEG4, WMV, DivX4, XviD (partial support), and H.263 video clips. There’s a search function, playlist creation, shuffle and repeat, and you get a full-screen mode for video playback. The included software CD also contains a copy of Roxio Easy Media Creator, so you can create MP3s from CDs and add audio tags. Like the latest BlackBerrys, the Storm also works with the BlackBerry Media Sync application so you can load your iTunes library. There’s 1GB of onboard memory and 128MB of flash memory onboard, while the microSD/SDHC expansion slot can accept up to 16GB cards. Unfortunately, for now, it looks like the BlackBerry Storm will not support Verizon’s V Cast music and video services.

Performance

We tested the RIM BlackBerry Storm in San Francisco using Verizon Wireless service, and call quality was quite good. We enjoyed clear audio with no noticeable background noise or voice distortion, and we didn’t experience any dropped calls during our test period. There were also no problems using an airline’s voice automated response system. On the other end, our friends reported similarly positive results and said they had no problems hearing us. Unfortunately, the speakerphone didn’t fare as well. Both sides experienced choppy call quality as words occasionally were cut off. There was also some slight voice distortion on our end. Overall, we were able to carry on full conversations and volume was not a problem, but we definitely had to ask our callers to repeat themselves on more than one occasion. Finally, we successfully paired the Storm with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.

Verizon’s first firmware update, version 4.7.0.113, definitely improved performance, but there were still multiple issues. We downloaded the software upgrade using the desktop manager, and the entire process went smoothly with no problems. The biggest improvement we noticed was the improvement in the accelerometer. The Storm was much faster to change the screen orientation when we rotated the phone. However, page redraws are still on the slow side and there’s continued bugginess. For example, while checking out a Web page, we turned the phone to check it out in landscape mode and the screen went on the fritz for a couple of seconds and went completely blank, though eventually the site came back up. Also, when we were listening to music, we changed orientation and the player controls started to flicker. Launching and using multimedia applications like the camera and multimedia player were definitely better, however, with faster response times and the problems with the inconsistent camera toolbar looks to be resolved.

Now, with BlackBerry OS version 4.7.0.148, the smartphone is even more polished. The browser and camera didn’t freak out when we rotated the phone, and in a two-week period, we didn’t have any system freezes or crashes. There are also some nice additions, such as a phone icon on the home screen and better test selection for copy/paste–it’s the simple things. Since we haven’t been using the Storm over a long period of time, we didn’t experience first-hand some of the problems and bugs that plagued its owners. However, some of features of 4.7.0.148 include a fix for the phone freezing during incoming calls or a blank screen appearing while on a call and improved camera functionality.

Music playback through the phone’s speakers sounded blown out, though there was plenty of volume. Thankfully, the built-in 3.5mm headphone jack so should allow you to enjoy better sound quality. Video performance wasn’t quite as dazzling as the BlackBerry Bold’s. There was a bit more pixilation, but we still enjoyed smooth playback. Web browsing was pleasantly swift thanks to Verizon’s EV-DO Rev. A network. It took about 25 seconds to 30 seconds for graphics-intensive sites such as CNET to fully load, while the mobile sites for CNN and ESPN loaded in about 10 seconds.

The Storm’s GPS capabilities were great. It took the smartphone only about 2 minutes to get a fix on our location, and we used VZ Navigator to plot a course from the Marina District of San Francisco to CNET’s downtown headquarters. Route creation was quick and it was able to get us back on course in a timely matter after we purposely missed several turns. That said, the voice-guided directions sounded blown out at the medium-high level and too soft at the medium level, so that was a bit of a struggle.

The BlackBerry Storm comes with a 1,400mAh lithium ion battery with a rated talk time of 5.5 hours and up to 15 days of standby time. In our battery drain tests, the Storm offered 7 hours of continuous talk time on a single charge. The battery performance in day-to-day usage was better. Before the firmware update, the battery would already be at 50 percent after just a couple hours of using the phone, Web, and multimedia applications, but after the update, it would only be drained about 25 percent. One thing we noticed, however, after a period of use the phone gets a bit warm where the battery is located on the back.

Good

The RIM BlackBerry Storm features an innovative touch screen that provides tactile feedback to confirm your selection. The Storm offers dual-mode functionality for world-roaming capabilities as well as EV-DO Rev. A and UMTS/HSDPA support. Other highlights include GPS and a 3.2-megapixel camera.

Bad

The Storm’s SurePress touch-screen takes some acclimation and the onscreen keyboard is a bit cramped. The smartphone can still be sluggish even after the firmware update. Speakerphone quality was a bit choppy

Verdict

The RIM BlackBerry Storm may blow in a frenzy for Verizon Wireless subscribers wanting a touch screen similar to the Apple iPhone. However, there are bugs and performance issues that prevent the Storm from delivering its full potential.

Compare prices of RIM BlackBerry Storm on Priceandoffer.co.uk

Click here to check all offers for RIM BlackBerry Storm

Click here to check price of other Blackberry smartphones

Click here to check the price of all PDAs

The HTC hero is a full touchscreen smartphone, in fact, it is born to remain always under UMTS or WiFi connection, to function as a powerful vehicle that can take the user beyond the simple use of a cell phone. After other models, HTC produces a full touchscreen devices with Android, confirming the intention to focus on the operating system in this period. Will be repeated the goodness of Magic? Let’s see togheter.

Package

We have a USB data cable, headset jack, 3.5 mm and controls on the wire, the 2GB memory card, the travel charger, battery.

Features and Materials

The new HTC Hero is a full touchscreen candy bar device which operates in the dual system UMTS – GSM Quadband. Connectivity is very complete: there is the HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps, the HSUPA with 2.0 Mbps, but the wi-fi and bluetooth (unfortunately only audio, but there are additional programs that expand the functionality), which added to the data cable, return to “talk” telephone and home computer.

Aesthetically, Hero offers a nice change from the usual: the body is not in fact flat, but rounded on the bottom, in a curve that gives harmony to the whole body and personality.

The white color gives extra luster to the entire structure, but it should be noted that, compared to the images you see here, the model on sale will have a more grayish color.

Remains, skiing, the back cover with a covering of Teflon, which finally takes off from a HTC those annoying fingerprints with which we were accustomed. The terminal, in addition to being compact, it is very solid, but not heavy. On the front, sits on a 3.2-inch display, resolution 320×480 pixels, TFT 16 million colors.

The shades are returned with excellent sharpness, and also touschcreen capacitive allows the combined operation of more than one finger, quite agile. Although UMTS, Hero does not have a second camera on the front (not video calls). At your disposal there is only one, the one on the back cover. Si tratta di una cam a risoluzione massima 5.0 megapixel, munita di autofocus ma non di flash. This is a cam-resolution 5.0 megapixel camera, equipped with autofocus but no flash.

The photographs are quite good, especially those caught with lots of light and macros. Meno buoni i filmati girati a 352 x 288 pixel. Less good movies shot at 352 x 288 pixels. Integrated into the shell must not forget the chip GPS, digital compass, and even the accelerometer. Tutti funzionano alla perfezione. Everything runs smoothly.

Dimensions and Touchscreen

HTC Hero is one of the most ergonomic terminals that we have ever used.

Is it because of its compact size, it will be for the solidity of the chassis, or more likely will be for the form factor with that curve on the bottom, but all these things, together, contribute to a great handling and a simple alloggiabilità the terminal.

That is in every pocket, from jackets to skinny jeans to tight (suits curves back …). Hero has a height of 112 mm, a width of 56.2, and 14:35 mm thick, with a weight of 135 grams. As we have already noted more than once in this review, Hero is a terminal full touchscreen, no physical keyboard.

The center control arranged below the display, however, there are a total of six buttons: start and end call, homescreen, menu, and just below the search function and the back, near the excellent BlackBerry trackball style. On the backs, however, have the volume buttons on the left, while right-back is completely clean and seamless.

In the top of the chassis, we have the jack and 3.5 mm, while below you can engage the charging cable / sync the device. The touch screen, capacitive, it works very well: the sensitivity is above average, but perhaps slightly less than the iPhone.

Great it’s the possibility to act on screen with two fingers, for example, when we decide to enlarge or shrink your content.

Our test

As soon as a car produced and marketed, this Hero is completely new.

Not only the interface Sense, but in general the whole user experience is one step further usability of the manufacturer to simple and concrete.
Obviously, this product is a no brand, and will be marketed at a price of 499 euros.

To which you add the digits necessary to equip yourself for a flat subscription data with which to use all round the new model created by HTC. Hero is powered by a 528 MHz processor from Qualcomm, has 288 MB of internal memory and an optimized resolution to determine a simple user interface.

The only flaws of this system to cycle from light delay that in some cases affecting the software: we do not stop dead, but not exactly lightning-quick responses, as we had to wait, if we use fully all the features and widgets that HTC provides. In general, however, be said that the phone has never crashed during our tests, has suffered delays so strong.

The interface is completely customizable, ripetta standard Android, here we have 7 pages Home with the 3 classic., With up to a page indicator in use over the crescent on the phone and dedicated to the menu. In addition, HTC has decided to increase its customization of Android. How? By placing many widgets that you can insert and remove at will on each of the 7 faces. Widgets time, clock, shares of stock, Twitter etc … are all very nice and functional, some of whom need access to data but to stay up to date.

Almost all widgets are present in two versions, small and explosive, depending on how many blocks we want to occupy in the page that are customized. Obviously these shortcuts to contacts and favorite programs. Widgets do not replace the widget HTC Android, which remain available for those who wish to use them.

The screen, a command may be removed, cleaned, changed, to have a phone again and always suitable for every situation.

This enables us to create shortcuts functional, and the merits of virtual keys is that we always have on the bottom of the device.

Very interesting is the possibility of creating custom profiles, or create different homescreen to suit many different situations, switchable with a quick command.

Comfortable touch buttons placed in the bottom of the phone. Among these is also included in the button “telephone”, which we will allow a rapid typing contact numbers (with a quick search of contacts). Navigating between the different sides is almost a game, especially because we will never have fear of missing a notification through the top bar that will keep us updated of any event and that you can open each page by simply sliding your finger from top to low.

The trackball, in this sense, comes to our rescue flashing, and also to display a notice on the front further notice, and even preview (even with the phone locked), for instance for text entry. The icons in the menu, organized in a grid, we access via dedicated keys, the virtual and the physical.

Each item is easily accessible, every feature is accessible with just a few steps of the fingers on the display, from the point of view of the touchscreen there never creates obstacles. The party machine was equipped with a powerful speakerphone, with the reception that is abundant in the media and always sound very good. Maybe a little cold, but clean.

Messaging, in addition to displaying HTML email input, we devise ways to enable the mere writing of the text available, we reduced the QWERTY keyboard, and extended wider, and even the alphanumeric. The user will only have to choose. With Gmail, you have the push email and a virtually equal to that site, folders are included.

Our advice is to always use the T9, the system quickly enter the text may be too intrusive when using the qwerty, but very often effective. Be noted that, whenever we decide to orient in a different terminal, Hero all’accelerometro we will follow through with the positioning in the vertical and horizontal.

Early in our review, but we are left with an important premise: if you want to use Hero the best, forget to go offline with the data connection. The reason is the many points of agreement with social networking, and browsing online, that make Hero the ideal vehicle to reach friends, workplaces and even “virtual”.

Especially with Facebook, Flickr and Twitter, Hero proves capable of a great synergy. Facebook account with no canon, viewable to the special section, but real shortcuts designed for this application.

The contacts in our address book, for example, have a bar on the bottom which not only give us the history of phone calls, messages, e-mail, we can establish a direct dialogue with the Facebook application, as well as Flickr.

Let me explain: we can see, entering a contact, such as text messages I exchanged with that contact, such as mail, its status on facebook and his album uploaded on Flickr, in addition to the historic calls.

All of them, in a single screen. Brilliant indeed!

The additions, however, does not stop there. Even looking at the gallery of images, for example, besides our shared’ll have those of our contacts, Facebook and those of Flicker. A real treat, especially because the speed of loading of the albums online is really good. Web browsing, then, confirms truly remarkable: the scrolling of pages is straightforward and fast, rendering even the size of the disply more than enough to determine an easily readable font even smaller. Full support to flash then allows browsing experience closer to that PC.

And then, we can always zoom in with the movement of the fingers: two on the screen simultaneously to broaden or tighten the magnification. Among other features, you can not forget the multimedia course, with good audio part (no FM radio) and a 5.0 megapixel camera with autofocus but no zoom. The pictures taken are of good quality, especially those made with such light. In the dark, of course, you will have problems. HTC also deeply customize the menus on the camera, which are very similar to the corresponding versions of windows mobile.

Less well, however, the video, shot in a simple resolution of 352×288 pixels. The excitement for this final end there, though, came from the use of GPS. Of course there are the maps of Google, but not all. The fix to the satellites is quite fast, the system functional.

To cheer us, if anything, is the Street View built (as seen on magic). In practice, we can see directly, as on the pc, reproduced not only by our location map on the display terminal, which rotates the rotation of the phone, thanks to the digital compass (you first see him explain that). Hero is proving an all in one device, with a general speed of the processor more than sufficient, and a host of features that will delight owners. A device to promote, a success that can reach significant numbers, thanks to the battery that allows us to use multimedia for a whole day.

SPECIFICATION

• Processor Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz
• Operating System Android™
• Memory ROM: 512 MB
• RAM: 288 MB
• Dimensions (LxWxT) 112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm ( 4.41 x 2.21 x 0.57 inches)
• Weight 135 grams ( 4.76 ounces) with battery
• Display 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution
• Network HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz
  Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
  (Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)
• Device Control Trackball with Enter button
• GPS Internal GPS antenna
• Connectivity Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
• Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
• HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• Camera 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus
• Audio supported formats MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media® Audio 9
• Video supported formats MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media® Video 9
• Battery Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
• Capacity: 1350 mAh
• Talk time: Up to 420 minutes for WCDMA
  Up to 470 minutes for GSM
• Standby time:
  Up to 750 hours for WCDMA
  Up to 440 hours for GSM
  (The above are subject to network and phone usage.)
• Expansion Slot microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
• DC output: 5V and 1A

CONCLUSION

Value for money
Terminal without keyboard born to remain connected, with lots of technology and multiple ways to get to talk with friends and acquaintances, even in unconventional ways. Qualities are there, then. Price? 499 euros. In line with the top of the range.

Packaging and envelope
Good. There is a 2GB memory card, the stereo controls bell’auricolare thread, travel charger, battery, USB data cable. Niente male, dunque. Not bad, then

Ergonomics
We really enjoyed the chance to have a phone with a sharp corner on the bottom. Truly ergonomic, this Hero, and easy to use even with one hand. Cover with Teflon and display scratch complete the facilities.

Usability
User friendly and easy to use. With a rapid and only a few small delay to be addressed. The many great shortcuts that are available. Obviously it is not like having a physical QWERTY, but the keypad is defended well.

Multimedia
Lacks the FM radio, but instead the well 5.0 mpx digital camera available to us gives excellent performance (not video). Well even the music player. Incredible synergy with the world of web and social networking.

GENERAL RATING

A terminal that ultimately we liked it very much. Capacitive touch screen performance, and generally lots of opportunities to complete a huge variety of operations. A device created to stay under cover data.To be taken into account. Success.

Compare prices of HTC Hero on Priceandoffer.co.uk

Click here to check all offers for HTC Hero

Click here to check price of other HTC smartphones

Click here to check the price of all PDAs