Hero now or wait? and some questions

[gabe3]

I'll number these questions to make answering easier.

1) I'm only looking at GSM phones, I'm thinking about buying the hero on ebay next week. I'm wondering if I should wait for the GSM moto droid or a GSM htc passion. Or just get the hero now. The benifits of waiting for me personally is faster hardware, and better screen/resolution. The downfalls of waiting is I could be waiting a long time for a GSM version of those phones.

2) The biggest thing that concerns me is about buying the hero is performance. I have a iphone 2g and what pisses me off about it is the performance, and that it has no multitasking. If I get the hero I don't want the performance to bother me. I have no issues if I need taskiller to close a few apps every now and then to keep the performance good. I'd like to know if performance is a real problem, or just a minor annoyance.

3) Is the "jump to letter" feature in the music player? for example can I jump to the music artists that begin with Y, instead of scrolling from the top all the way down?

4) Is there a button to show your currently running apps? or your most recent apps? If so, which is it? running or recent? Can you launch apps from that screen?

5) Is the warranty on the European GSM hero valid in the United States? Is the warranty card that comes with the phone used for anything? do you need it to have a warranty on your phone? What does it say on it?

 

[doublebullout]

I can answer a few of these:

2) This is highly subjective -- only you can really decide whether the performance is fast enough to satisfy you. However, I'm very satisfied with the performance of the Hero. It's not as butter-smooth as a 3Gs, but it's pretty close. I've not had any problems or frustrations with lagginess. Moreover, the only time I ever use a task killer app is to kill the Messenger or Google Maps apps. I'm not convinced that I can do any better managing memory than Android does automatically.

3) You press the Search key and then use the keyboard. Search is real-time. For example, if I type "ze" the list narrows down to both Zebra and The Brian Setzer Orchestra.

4) Hold down the Home key. This displays a popup window with the currently running apps (up to 6.) Tap on app's icon in the popup window to return to that app at the point you left it.

 

[gabe3]

I can answer a few of these:

2) This is highly subjective -- only you can really decide whether the performance is fast enough to satisfy you. However, I'm very satisfied with the performance of the Hero. It's not as butter-smooth as a 3Gs, but it's pretty close. I've not had any problems or frustrations with lagginess. Moreover, the only time I ever use a task killer app is to kill the Messenger or Google Maps apps. I'm not convinced that I can do any better managing memory than Android does automatically.

3) You press the Search key and then use the keyboard. Search is real-time. For example, if I type "ze" the list narrows down to both Zebra and The Brian Setzer Orchestra.

4) Hold down the Home key. This displays a popup window with the currently running apps (up to 6.) Tap on app's icon in the popup window to return to that app at the point you left it.

3) Say I'm at the top of my artist list and I want to get to artists that start with Z, the only way to get there instead of scrolling all the way down is to do a search? From the videos I've watched I think the contacts list has a bar on the right side of the screen to do fast scrolling. Is there a way to add that to music?

4) When you say up to 6, is that the amount of apps that can be running at once, or the last recently used running apps, or is that as large as the screen will show? If you launch a 7th app, does one of the 6 close?

 

[maddmatt02]

I use taskpanelx because if i dont Ill have 15 apps running in the background before i notice it. only thing I wish is that it had an exception for an app you are actually using. because if I set it to autokill at a threshold every x amount of minutes, if it checks, and its below the threshold, it will kill the app even i im in the middle of using it. Ive only had a day to play with it though, so eventually I think ill have it set liek I want and only have it closing the apps that dont matter, because I dont want it closing abduction if Im about to beat the ol ladys score. lol

but I definitely notice a performance difference when I have ~90MB available memory vs ~30-40MB available.

screen rotation is faster on the pre (only other phone ive used recently) and as far as videos show, doesnt auto rotate as fast as the 3gs either.

I think even G1 I had used a while back rotated quicker, but not sure.

but its an awesome phone, Im glad I got it.

 

[gabe3]

does taskiller or taskpanelx require a rooted phone?

 

[asapelectric]

Another question: Can we open the phone up and type in a name or google search or app and it pulls it up? You know, kinda like the Pre does. That will be the most missed feature. Say I still have it on the Hero!

 

[doublebullout]

If you press the Hero's search button at one of the home screens, you get Google search for the web. If you press the search button while using an app, you get search for that app. Personally, I didn't care for the webOS "universal" search function because it isn't truly universal. On Android, the apps screen isn't split between 3 different screens like in webOS, so finding an app is a little easier. Moreover, webOS limits you to 4 icons on the quick launch bar. No such limit in Android; just add a shortcut/widget for that app to one of the 7 home screens. I don't miss the webOS "universal" search function at all. It didn't work well enough for me to love it anyway. YMMV.

3) Say I'm at the top of my artist list and I want to get to artists that start with Z, the only way to get there instead of scrolling all the way down is to do a search? From the videos I've watched I think the contacts list has a bar on the right side of the screen to do fast scrolling. Is there a way to add that to music?

You can scroll all the way down to the "Z" if you want to, or with two clicks you can get everything that has a "z" in the title (search button, then "z"). There is no quick scroll tab that I know of.

4) When you say up to 6, is that the amount of apps that can be running at once, or the last recently used running apps, or is that as large as the screen will show? If you launch a 7th app, does one of the 6 close?

It's the most recent 6 you've used. There may be other apps still open, depending on what they are, what they're doing in the background, and whether Android has closed them on its own because another app that you're actively using needs more memory. This is a common misconception: Android apps do not stay open until you close them, like WinMo or webOS. Android actively manages its own resources. Sometimes it needs a little help, and that's why so many people insist that having a task killer app is a necessity. I don't think so, but I'm apparently in the minority.