Getting Hero today

[lexcoupe2100]

Today should be the day I receive my first android htc hero
My upgrade is coming from a instank m800 so it should be night and day i imagine. Any inputs?

 

[voghan]

Congrats, enjoy the phone. It's a real nice entry level phone for Android. Check out the market place and have fun with your phone. For almost any issue you find there is probably a message thread already started so use the search. You may want to root your phone and take advantage of the development communities work to make the Hero as fast as it possibly can.

 

[lexcoupe2100]

Thanks alot voghan, I cannot wait I'm sure is going to be lots of fun, so you suggest to root the phone? what are the pros and cons?

 

[canterrain]

The pros are that you can adjust the phone to hit your exact needs in ways you normally can't, including a few apps you normally couldn't run.

Example of this include:
wireless tethering,
overclocking,
change out stock keyboard,
some 2.1 features not included on the hero like possibly
live wallpapers (although I don't use them)
friend stream on some roms.

If you end up hating sense and preferring stock android, there are roms that rip it out of the phone as well.

The cons... well aren't many. But there is one need to be mentioned con.

The possibility of instability. Sometimes a rom isn't made well. Or sometimes it is, but a new feature is added and that skews everything for some reason the developer couldn't predict. For some reason not every hero seems the same, and they do well in some cases, while not in others while someone else's hero has completely different results.

I liken it to messing around with cars. You can add custom mufflers, a tweaked engine, and etc. But it means alot of fiddling to find the exact balance that gives you what you want but keeps your phone stable.

I don't want to discourage rooting, I'm really glad I did it. But if you just want to be able to use your hero and never have to mess with it, stay stock.

On the other hand, if you don't mind fiddling with things, and want to get the most out of your hero, then root. Follow the guides here, ask questions, and I'll repeat that, ask questions. The people here are great for helping out on that.

I personally suggest the roms made by Breezy on this forum (I use Iced Honeybun with friendstream). They are very close in look and feel to what the hero comes with, while adding wonderful features that didn't come with... and it's more stable on my phone than any other rom I've used.

Don't be afraid to shop around though, there are some great roms here and at the xda forums.

 

[lexcoupe2100]

Thanks a alot, this is all really good information. I will probably browse the phone and get used to it then decide if I want more of it, put it does point me in the right direction, thanks again well posted.

 

[KyleBuch]

Is there going to be a hacked version of froyo made for the hero??
I am still on the fence about rooting, but if froyo w JIT and the other performance enhancing add ons become an option I will probably take the plunge.
Great info here..
Thanks canterrain!

 

[beezy]

Is there going to be a hacked version of froyo made for the hero??
I am still on the fence about rooting, but if froyo w JIT and the other performance enhancing add ons become an option I will probably take the plunge.
Great info here..
Thanks canterrain!

Yes there will be

 

[beezy]

canterrain hit the nail on the head.great job.Play around first then see if rooting is something you would want todo. Shop around on roms there is alot to choose from stock-to completely custom.
Tip try turning the vibrate off when typing,seems to take away some lag.

 

[lexcoupe2100]

Ok I will do that, I know will spend alot of time playing witht the hero. I think I'm a simple user well I think, I mostly text, aim and yahoo msgr, facebook, twitter.

 

[beezy]

Ok I will do that, I know will spend alot of time playing witht the hero. I think I'm a simple user well I think, I mostly text, aim and yahoo msgr, facebook, twitter.

Just a tip try using the official version of twitter from the market not peep that comes on the phone it tends to eat cpu in the background

 

[lexcoupe2100]

Good tip thank you.

 

[bdizzel1982]

the official twitter app is to slow on the Hero go with twicca its by far the quickest and smoothest I've found for my hero

 

[KyleBuch]

I love my hero.. only reason i want to root is to remove the sprint apps, get froyo and improve speed.
and of course wifi tether.. pdanet is great, but wifi tether is nice
I just need to man up and root.. lol

 

[lexcoupe2100]

Well guys just got my HTC HERO today Trying to activated and see whats all about.

 

[voghan]

Love tweetcaster! Lots of cool apps to check out on android. Hero is a good phone.

 

[lexcoupe2100]

As far as facebook app, is there anything good, maybe one that you can see whos on or one that you can chat from it? i'm loving it and having done much..

 

[SPL15]

My own personal experience. DEFINITELY ROOT THE HERO! But with 1.5c Gumbo. I know 2.1 sounds like a good upgrade & having the latest & greatest is always nice, but I had 3 Hero's with differing 2.1 roots or stock and they all annoyed me to the point where I ended up chucking it as hard as I could against a brick wall & it cost me lots o $ to replace my phone.

I would stick with the 1.5c roots as the Hero wasn't horrible with these. I ended up sticking with 1.5c gumbo on my first Hero after trying out others and it wasn't too bad. Still a tiny bit laggy at times, but it was fully useable. After 2.1 was released, that's when things went downhill instantly when I was trying to find a root that worked well. I went through 3 hero's (1st one new, 2nd refurbished, 3rd brand new as well) & they all failed horribly with any 2.1 root & the stock 2.1 upgrade was downright unuseable.

YMMV, there are quite a few satisfied people with the Hero & I'm sure they all found the root that works for them & are content with it. But for me and the 3 samples I had I wasn't so impressed. I like to mod, which is why I like the Android platform, but I also need a phone that works 99% of the time without the major issues stock.

& to answer your last question, as far as I know, there are no chat apps for FB. I've been looking as well. FB is more integrated with Sense ui, but the Facebook app for android is still pretty primative compared to even Blackberry's Facebook app! FB Chat would be the KILLER app for Android!!!

 

[Hero23]

I've tried just about all of the twitter apps, but I've found the official twitter app for Android with an add-on app called 'ReTweet' to work the best.