HTC Hero questions

[SFWD1934]

Hey there everyone!

I am a member on Crackberry and Pre Central under the same username. I have had obviously Blackberries, and Palm phones. Currently I have the Palm Pre. I have it rooted as well as patched through PreWare, and WebOS QI. I have been eyeballing this HTC Hero as of late.

What I wanted to know is the guys who are hacking/rooting theirs, how has it been for you?

How is the battery life on it? The one real knock I have on the Pre is the battery life. My old Curve and 8830 had very good life. All my Treos were exceptionally well with battery life.

Correct me if i am wrong but is this the same as that G1 phone from T mobile? So can I use the colored track balls that I have bought previously and used for my Blackberries?

Thanks guys.

Jason

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

1. Very easy root, and minus the busybox toolchain the shell understands standard unix commands. With busybox built and installed, it's exactly a terminal on a linux box. On the Windows side, the dos prompt can shell in and access the system through the SDK. A little more complex than the Pre, but still on the easy to very easy end of the difficulty scale IMO

Before rooting and tweaking I got a solid days work out of it. Now I get 18-20 hours of heavy usage.

No, it's a bigger trackball. It's easily 3/8th of an inch in diameter, but it's more recessed...and it "floats" a little more. I love it.

 

[SFWD1934]

Right on. 18-20 hours of heavy usage is nice. The email is all pushed I'm assuming? No issues setting up pop3 accounts?

Jason

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Email can be pushed through gmail, and IMO it works very well. Only issue would be with POP yahoo.

 

[SFWD1934]

Well I went to pick up a Hero today. Charged it up and turned it on. Started to play around with it. There are a few things that are bothering me at this point.

1. I live in Pittsburg, CA. Which according to the digital "flip clock" face it realizes this as it says "Pittsburg" with the correct temp. Only thing is I can not get the time to match what the top bar shows. It seems to think that since it says Pittsburg, it thinks it is Pittsburgh, PA. (See there is no H and the end of my Pittsburg), so it is 3 hours ahead of the top bar time. I tried to input Oakland or San Francisco, as they 2 cities are about 20-30 minutes from me, but I can not get them into the flip clock face.

2. WiFi not working. I can use EV which is very fast as it is on the Pre. But when I connect to my secured wireless network, it will not load any pages, or google map location, etc. As soon as I turn WiFi back off, everything works. It worked when I first started. But then I set the phone down and took a nap. After that it would not work. I pulled the battery, did a factory reset (wiping everything out that I had put in), and got rid of my network, and resigned back in. Still no go. But all the while the 2 Pres in the house and my daughters iPhone were having no issue with my Wifi. As well as my laptops. So I am lost on this one. Not sure if I should take the phone back for an exchange?

Other then that, that is where I am. Just trying to get used to it. If anyone has any input on either of my issues, please chime in.

Thanks,

Jason

 

[red250]

start with a firmware update, it has a few fixes, including the clock widget not showing the proper time. sorry not sure about the wifi, i'm sure someone will chime in.

Settings>about phone>System updates>Firmware update

it's the thread that says "sprint update available" apparently i'm too tired to figure out how to link the thread.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Yep. Both of these issues were fixed by the update. Or they can be fixed by rooting the device.

I'd recommend updating, then rooting.....then again I like to tinker (or break lol).

 

[SFWD1934]

Did the firmware update this morning when I got home. Fixed the flip clock on the main screen. WiFi is still a no go. Kind of a bummer that out of the box this is an issue. Not sure if I should take it back to Best Buy and swap for another unit (I understand that I may have to do the firmware update on that unit as well, but the WiFi maybe an issue on the current handset).

I did have every intention in hacking/rooting eventually, because I too like to tinker with stuff.

Jason

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

I was under the impression the router connection issues were fixed with the update. If not, it's an easy fix once you're rooted. I'm not at my pc right now, but i will certainly grab the command and post it here once i have access.


And pardon the caps lock. Posting through a term client and i can't quite figure out how to change the case of the keys lol

*EDIT*
EXCELLENT. THE FORUM FIXES MSGS TYPED IN ALL CAPS. +1 TO ANDROIDCENTRAL.

*DOUBLE EDIT*
PERHAPS NOT :0)

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Here's the timestamp fix that SHOULD let you connect to your router.
(After device is rooted of course) from a terminal app on the phone itself, or shelled in through adb or ssh:

echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_timestamps

This fixes the bug in the kernel thats causing most issues.

 

[SFWD1934]

Got it. Will get this thing rooted and see what happens now.

Thanks.

Jason

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

No problem. Happy hacking lol