Last update 21 July’09 – Review @ Pocket-lint
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» Review Index – (updated 22 July’09)
CNET UK
“The HTC Hero smoothes many of those rough edges, with a shiny new UI that covers Android in widgety goodness. Additions like multitouch zoom, lovely Flickr and Facebook integration and a great keyboard make the Hero the best Android phone yet, especially since it’s not as ugly as we feared. In fact, we’ve grown to like its jutting jawbone. If only it were slightly faster and slicker, we’d consider it an iPhone killer. As it is, we’ll class it as an iPhone peer.”
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Pocket-lint
“We love the design and the build too, and the flexibility of an open source operating system like Android excites us: the community is there, making applications to enhance the experience so the phone can give that seamless integrated experience. It’s not perfect and it’s the room for improvement that really excites: you know the Hero can get better, and with a few software tweaks no less. We’ve waited a long time for a smartphone to be confident about challenging the iPhone as number one, and finally the HTC Hero arrives as a viable contender.”
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Slash Gear
“Best of all, HTC’s dedication to developing Sense and treating UI as a long-haul process rather than a short-term prettification exercise gives us hope that the few shortfalls and omissions we’re currently seeing in version one of the Hero will be addressed over time. It’s reassuring to know that not only is the Hero a great smartphone but that it’s only likely to get better as HTC continue their tweaks. It’s safe to say that, in the HTC Hero, Android has come of age.”
TechRadar
“We’re very impressed by the whole UI, especially as we are such big fans of the TouchFLO 3D interface, even though it’s a little surprising that HTC didn’t decide to make a bigger deal about the fact the new skin is so closely linked. The model we got our hands on was a pre-production model, which made the whole process a little slow, and resulted in a considerable amount of judder when accessing some screens or scrolling through the device.”
Gizmondo
“Far from the horrible carrier interface overhauls we’re used to seeing on featurephones, the facelifts given to Windows Mobile over the last few years, courtesy of HTC and Samsung, have been the only thing keeping that tired OS alive. Now Android’s getting the same treatment. The difference is, customization is easier, the changes are deeping, and Android is a good, modern OS in the first place.”