HTC Hero

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CodyyC

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#51677 30-Nov-2009 18:07

Hey Guys,

I am considering purchasing a HTC Hero but first I need a few questions answered, if you guys wouldn't mind.

1. Will all features of the phone work on the Vodafone NZ network?

2. Does anyone with the phone have any sort of review of it that they can share with me?

Regards,
Cody

1 | 2 | 3

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#277999 30-Nov-2009 18:21

A phone like that has many features so confirming if ALL features will work would will be trial and error.

CodyyC

17 posts

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#278000 30-Nov-2009 18:24

That doesn't really help me, but nevertheless, there could be someone who has one with everything working on it.

johnr

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#278002 30-Nov-2009 18:27

What is everything? do you know how many features the handset has all up? it would aslo depend if the end user is prepay or on account with vodafone.

CodyyC

17 posts

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#278007 30-Nov-2009 18:46

Lets assume the user is OnAccount. I mean all the basic functions, not including those provided by 3rd party apps you can install.

johnr

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#278009 30-Nov-2009 18:54

Most features should work

CodyyC

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#278010 30-Nov-2009 18:57

Could you be more specific.

"Most features should work" does not help at all.

nzbnw

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#278012 30-Nov-2009 19:12

CodyyC: Could you be more specific.

"Most features should work" does not help at all.

If the device isn't sold by VF, the they won't guarantee all the features will work. Unless John has a non VF HTC Hero then I doubt he will be able (or have the time) to tell you if all features work.

You need to be more specific in your question, what features do you want to know about, and then someone should be able to help you.

nzbnw

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zocster

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#278017 30-Nov-2009 19:19

there are two flavours of the hero, 850/2100 and 900/2100, hero stays on cupcake only at the moment (Android 1.5), and will jump to 2.0 or 2.1 as we seen on some sites. There is still no sim tools (where you can check your prepay acc balance, weather, hotlink etc, which is available on my parallel imported windows mobile that is running a cooked rom, will try post a screen shot when i can be bothered), but other than that, all should work, you'll need to get a map that gives turn by turn voice commands etc etc which i have not yet looked for one yet.

Andy Ghozali Geekzone Member	E: andy@ghozali.ru M: +64 21 395 458 A: Andy's Business Services, 231 High St, Christchurch 8011, NZ
www.andy.mobi

CodyyC

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#278024 30-Nov-2009 19:36

What do you mean by Cupcake and a Cooked rom?

zocster

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#278027 30-Nov-2009 19:40

Android 1.5 cupcake, 1.6 donut, 2.0 eclair, 2.1 filo? just what they call it, and cooked rom is someone who takes apart a shipped rom and put together a nice and light one.

Andy Ghozali Geekzone Member	E: andy@ghozali.ru M: +64 21 395 458 A: Andy's Business Services, 231 High St, Christchurch 8011, NZ
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CodyyC

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#278031 30-Nov-2009 19:42

Oh right, I see. Thanks for explaining them.

Will I be able to use this device on a standard BBLite (Vodafone) plan, where all data is accepted as just being 'data' and I don't have to set up Vodafone Mail? So all the features like Google Maps, Email and Browser just count as data usage?

stevenz

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#278528 1-Dec-2009 22:47

The HTC Hero will work fine on Vodafone. About all you might miss out on is some of the handset dependant Vodafone Live stuff, so no real loss.

Google Navigation doesn't work outside the states at the moment. Eclair (Android 2.0/2.1) will likely be out before the end of the year supposedly. The most popular "3rd party" ROM for the Hero is the MoDaCo one (currently v2.9), it adds a few minor things that aren't hugely useful, the main benefit is the speed improvement due to the optimised kernel and a few other tweaks.

Unlocking the phone is easy and if you buy it from one of the grey-market importers in NZ, they should have already done it for you, otherwise if you import one yourself it'll cost you about another $20-$30 to get an unlock code from someone. Expansys sell unlocked units also.

A new model Hero is a bit of a task to "jailbreak" (called "rooting" in the Android world). You'll probably need to make a "Gold card" (altering the file structure on an SD card), then flashing a modified recovery firmware onto the device so that you can install the customised ROM/kernel etc.

There's not really a massive benefit to the custom ROM for most people, unless you're fairly technically minded I'd just wait for HTC to release the Eclair ROM and put that on, it'll be less problematic. If you don't know what a kernel is other than of the corn variety, then I wouldn't bother with it.

Vodafone sell the HTC Magic, the Hero basically an updated version of the same phone, there's _very_ little difference from a functionality standpoint. Same screen size, both quad-band GSM & dual-band HSDPA, same processor.

The Magic has Android 1.6 versus 1.5 on the Hero so technically is a more up to date OS, however it's unlikely that the Magic will get v2.0/2.1 ported to it unlike the Hero.

Other than that, the only real improvements of the Hero over the Magic is a 5 megapixel camera instead of 3.5mp and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The camera is virtually useless as it takes 3-4 seconds after pressing the button before it actually takes the shot so that's a rather moot point.

Not sure how happy VF will be putting the phone on the HTC plan or not, guess you'd find out :)

The HTC Magic is sold by VF for $749, a store in Wellington has the Hero for about $850-ish from memory.

I've got an HTC Hero (on Telecom) and it's great. For some reason I can't get it to receive MMS's although it does so fine if I put my 2Degrees SIM in it (haven't tried with VF), but if the Magic works with MMS on VF then so will the Hero as they use the same software to do so.

You can buy stuff from the Android market in NZ too.

@KnightNZ