First some background. I?m a pretty big tech nerd and I switch devices fairly frequently. In the last 2 years, I?ve been on AT&T and Sprint, I?ve gone from the original iPhone -> iPhone 3G -> Blackberry Bold -> Palm Pre -> Sprint Hero.
In the last 5 years I?ve gone from T-Mobile -> Verizon -> AT&T -> Sprint as well.
Out of all of the devices, so far all around my favorite through both the first impression to daily usage has been the Hero.
Out of overall usage, customer service, reliability, and overall cost, my favorite wireless service provider would have to be Sprint. T-Mobile was fine, Verizon was WAY overpriced as well as impossible to get a hold of along with horrible phones (in the past), AT&T is way overpriced as well, and their service is no better or worse than Sprint. Sprint has been fantastic so far. I may not have the overall ?bars? I had before, but my overall service in my office has been better with lower bars than I had with AT&T with higher bars. Even with 1 bar, I get fine reception in the lower levels of our building compared to AT&T which had 2 bars or more, but had far more dropped calls.
The only downfall to the lower reception of the Sprint service has been battery life. It does necessitate my phone working harder and using more power to give me the call quality and reception I receive.
Now with that out of the way, let?s get to the perceptions of the phones.
I owned the Pre for 2+ months, I used it daily, I still own the phone and I am in the process of selling it. I wasn?t sure the transition would be as smooth as it was, but I am happy with my decision to switch.
I will make the overall review simple. I will list what I think the Hero has over the Pre, and what the Pre has over the Hero. This review is highly objective and should be taken as such. Your mileage may vary.
Hero ?
*I love the widgets. It really does put information at your fingertips.
*Menu?s, really overlooked, but the menu button on the Hero makes it much easier to access information, options, and features than the Pre.
*Expandable storage. If you like your music/video, this is really the only option.
*Email client, both the Gmail and regular have a lot more options, and are easier to access than the Pre?s.
*The larger screen isn?t really all that physically bigger, but it seems a lot bigger when using the phone.
*I LOVE the keyboard features, adding custom words is so easy, and the ability to have predictive inline suggestions is huge when typing a lot.
*The phone has a considerably more solid feel than the Pre. It?s lighter to me than the Pre, but feels better built.
*Battery life is infinitely better. I make it easily through a whole day compared to 7-8 hours before I hit 20% on the Pre due to low reception. (Yes you can buy a larger and MUCH uglier battery, but that defeats the purpose)
*Programs launch MUCH faster, upwards of 3 times faster I would say. Most of the time they are instant where the Pre, it was literally (select program, look up to say something to someone, look back down and it was just opening).
*The program options at this point are much more robust and most of the really useful apps are free. Android Marketplace has a lot of apps. Not as much as the iPhone, but most are more useful.
*Having hardware buttons are a nice touch and make things more useful overall.
*The integration of Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Gmail, etc etc is infinitely convenient.
**There are likely more I am not thinking about.
Pre ?
*The hardware keyboard is a nice feature and makes typing one hand possible. Impossible to do with the soft keyboard of the Hero.
*Cards, makes multitasking extremely easy and I will miss the cards.
*Swiping back and forth, I still find myself trying to do this on the Hero to delete things etc. Really is a great concept.
*The hardware silence button. Why all phones don?t have this beats me.
*Conductive charging ? I will miss this immensely. It was a first and a fantastic addition to the Pre although severely overpriced at ~70.
In the last 5 years I?ve gone from T-Mobile -> Verizon -> AT&T -> Sprint as well.
Out of all of the devices, so far all around my favorite through both the first impression to daily usage has been the Hero.
Out of overall usage, customer service, reliability, and overall cost, my favorite wireless service provider would have to be Sprint. T-Mobile was fine, Verizon was WAY overpriced as well as impossible to get a hold of along with horrible phones (in the past), AT&T is way overpriced as well, and their service is no better or worse than Sprint. Sprint has been fantastic so far. I may not have the overall ?bars? I had before, but my overall service in my office has been better with lower bars than I had with AT&T with higher bars. Even with 1 bar, I get fine reception in the lower levels of our building compared to AT&T which had 2 bars or more, but had far more dropped calls.
The only downfall to the lower reception of the Sprint service has been battery life. It does necessitate my phone working harder and using more power to give me the call quality and reception I receive.
Now with that out of the way, let?s get to the perceptions of the phones.
I owned the Pre for 2+ months, I used it daily, I still own the phone and I am in the process of selling it. I wasn?t sure the transition would be as smooth as it was, but I am happy with my decision to switch.
I will make the overall review simple. I will list what I think the Hero has over the Pre, and what the Pre has over the Hero. This review is highly objective and should be taken as such. Your mileage may vary.
Hero ?
*I love the widgets. It really does put information at your fingertips.
*Menu?s, really overlooked, but the menu button on the Hero makes it much easier to access information, options, and features than the Pre.
*Expandable storage. If you like your music/video, this is really the only option.
*Email client, both the Gmail and regular have a lot more options, and are easier to access than the Pre?s.
*The larger screen isn?t really all that physically bigger, but it seems a lot bigger when using the phone.
*I LOVE the keyboard features, adding custom words is so easy, and the ability to have predictive inline suggestions is huge when typing a lot.
*The phone has a considerably more solid feel than the Pre. It?s lighter to me than the Pre, but feels better built.
*Battery life is infinitely better. I make it easily through a whole day compared to 7-8 hours before I hit 20% on the Pre due to low reception. (Yes you can buy a larger and MUCH uglier battery, but that defeats the purpose)
*Programs launch MUCH faster, upwards of 3 times faster I would say. Most of the time they are instant where the Pre, it was literally (select program, look up to say something to someone, look back down and it was just opening).
*The program options at this point are much more robust and most of the really useful apps are free. Android Marketplace has a lot of apps. Not as much as the iPhone, but most are more useful.
*Having hardware buttons are a nice touch and make things more useful overall.
*The integration of Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Gmail, etc etc is infinitely convenient.
**There are likely more I am not thinking about.
Pre ?
*The hardware keyboard is a nice feature and makes typing one hand possible. Impossible to do with the soft keyboard of the Hero.
*Cards, makes multitasking extremely easy and I will miss the cards.
*Swiping back and forth, I still find myself trying to do this on the Hero to delete things etc. Really is a great concept.
*The hardware silence button. Why all phones don?t have this beats me.
*Conductive charging ? I will miss this immensely. It was a first and a fantastic addition to the Pre although severely overpriced at ~70.
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