HTC Hero vs Blackberry Tour

[cjmjmm2006]

For me, that's the biggest thing. I had a Pre and it felt so cheap and thats why I got rid of it and got the Hero.

Not only does it feel "questionably made", but it also seems as if it is too small for me, and I have small hands. I guess you get used to it... but I will have trouble switching to the Palm device. I think this race is between the Hero and the Tour. Any apps on the Hero that would set it way apart from the BB?

 

[doublebullout]

Do you rely on your calendar? If so, DO NOT consider the Pre. The webOS calendar is very weak on features and very slow to load. There's not even a search function. The combined email is nice, but it's not worth putting up with all the other PIM apps. Android is much better in this regard.

 

[T Mac]

For me, that's the biggest thing. I had a Pre and it felt so cheap and thats why I got rid of it and got the Hero.

Agree, the Pre does feel cheap unlike the Hero or Blackberry. But, the Pre is unique with many great features and functions that no other phone has due to the WebOS. There is nothing quite like the blackberry email client using the PUSH email blackberry server which is great, but the Pre just has some other unique email features. Although, it doesn not Push POP email, it Pulls. Which means it is slower to recieve emails and usually doesn't recieve all of them. I find many of my emails don't make it to the device, depending on what my time interval is for the emails to be Pull'ed.

Also agreed with the calendar being very slow. The Hero that I played with at the Sprint store did seem very quick, although it didn't have any entries in it. My Pre calendar is full of entries.

Something else big for me when I gave up my blackberry. Neither the Pre or Hero know what to do with VCal. I for one find this to be a big problem. My wife and I work different shifts and constantly send appointments back and forth regarding planning for our four kids and our lives. It worked seamlessly with the blackberry, but neither the pre or hero can accept email appointments because they don't know what VCal is.

I think you should hang on to the blackberry and wait for some newer device announcements. That is what I'm going to do. There are some nice devices in the works that Sprint may just end up with that would blow any of these out of the water. ie; the Sony Ericsson X3, The WiMax 4G phone, and still waiting to hear about the Touch Diamond 2 for Sprint. Who knows what else is out there.

 

[cjmjmm2006]

Well I am in my 30 trial period with the Tour and I can say I am not totally wow'ed by it. It seems like a curve with GSM capabilities. I can say the BB calendar has served me nicely, but I am growing board of the BB environment. Although quite productive, I guess something inside me wants to see RIM step their game up and overhaul the OS like Palm did with the Pre. I would be sold on the Pre but the feel and the size totally kill it for me. Anyone with a Hero, can you advise me on any must have apps that can sway me away from my BB? The only thing holding me back is the physical keyboard atm.

I also want to add that I am totally disappointed in the battery life on my Tour. I hear that the Hero has bad battery life too, but what are your personal opinions?

 

[meangreengdub]

Well I'm not sure what kind of apps you're looking for but I use a simple app called Notes that works great. It allows you to create a title and then your message along with setting a reminder.

As far as battery goes, my battery is much better than my Pre. I can go the whole day with moderate usage (100's of text's, 1 hour talk time total, 1 hour total web browsing, 10 min's of games) and starting from 10am going to 1am, I was at 10% by 1am. I have plenty of opportunities to charge during the day so I don't see myself ever having the phone die.

Granted I have location and GPS turned off. I have Facebook and Twitter update every 4 hours. I'm satisfied with the battery.

 

[cjmjmm2006]

Thanks for the info.. I appreciate it. That helps a lot, I am really disappointed with the tour battery and also there is such a high amount of heat coming from the screen when talking greater than 10 minutes.

One more test run on the Hero, I think that I am convinced I can adapt to it.

 

[Monkey Brawler]

Well I am in my 30 trial period with the Tour and I can say I am not totally wow'ed by it. It seems like a curve with GSM capabilities. I can say the BB calendar has served me nicely, but I am growing board of the BB environment. Although quite productive, I guess something inside me wants to see RIM step their game up and overhaul the OS like Palm did with the Pre. I would be sold on the Pre but the feel and the size totally kill it for me. Anyone with a Hero, can you advise me on any must have apps that can sway me away from my BB? The only thing holding me back is the physical keyboard atm.

I also want to add that I am totally disappointed in the battery life on my Tour. I hear that the Hero has bad battery life too, but what are your personal opinions?

ROBO DEFENCE!!!!!!!!! Nuf said

 

[c3PreO]

I happen to own both the Sprint Tour and Hero. I personally like the Tour for phone functions and my Hero for multimedia and surfing. I like the camera of my Tour better than the Hero. I'm finding my Hero randomly launches diffrerent apps all the time because of the touchscreen interface - kinda annoying. I usually lock my BB keypad to prevent ramdom launches, but the Hero's screen can be unlocked if you hit the End (Power) button and Menu button without having to slide the Screen Unlock bar down.

Maybe somebody can tell me how to defeat the End/Menu combination to unlock the Hero would be very appreciated.

Anyway, all I can say is its hard to choose between the two phones if you end up owning both phones like me. I end up carrying both phones with me all the time. When I have to pick just one phone to carry with me, I usually pick the one with the most battery charge. That ends up being my BB Tour alot of times. Based on my phone/internet/application usage, my Hero only last one full day but my BB Tour will last 2-3 days on a charge (this will vary depending on your own personal useage).

I think the Apps on the Android platform have more potential than BB. The BB data structure is more limited than Android so you'll have more robust applications on the Android. Remember that Android is Google too. Thats SOLID!!!

I just hope Sprint & HTC will make Android 2.0 available on the Hero soon.

Any more questions or concerns???

 

[cjmjmm2006]

Thank you so much for your response. I am within my 30 days of having the Tour and I think I am going to go with the Android device. Great point, it is google, and they are know for making good things better. The Tour is just lacking anything different from my curve 8330.

Thanks again, everyone on here has been great with addressing my questions, I hope I can add something to the Android community when I come on board.

 

[techgeek32#WN]

I have the Palm Pre and am using push and pull emails on it. I have no problem with push email from gmail, but pull from POP3 sucks. Say you have it set on every 5 minutes, if you have an email sent out every three minutes your going to miss quite a few emails. For instance, I had mine set on 15 minutes and would get about three emails during a nine hour work day, but when I would get home and check emails on my home PC there would be about 15 emails there. Not Good! Also, my Pre does not know what to do with VCAL in emails. So if my wife sends me an appointment from her blackberry, my Pre email can't support the function. Apparently Android email can't do this either. What a dilemna, I thought about switching to the Hero, but now maybe I'll just go with an old fashioned Blackberry Tour. LOL At least everything that is on a Blackberry phone does work and work well.

BB is great when their BIS servers aren't down. Their servers have gone down over 10 times this year so far. I have had a BB most of the year and I got tired of their servers being down and not being able to get email. That is the big advantage to Android and Windows Mobile over BB is that you are not tied to RIM and at their mercy for email!

So you guys are saying that the Pre has better email functionality than a BlackBerry? I also can not use the keyboard of the Pre as well but that maybe due to lack of familiarity. I do not dislike the Pre at all and have no objections to trying it, but I will say that the form factor seems somewhat flimsy and I can see it having durability issues over time. I usually keep a device for a year so that is not asking it to last too long, but I want its integrity to be maintained throughout me owning the device.

I have had 12 of them since June. The build quality is terrible and very flimsy. It is all plastic and no metal at all. I love the Pre and the O/S but just got tired of having to exchange devices.

 

[sprint_fan]

The Pre is probably one of the worst phones that you can get with build quality. They really did a great job on the OS but forgot to focus on making a solid handset. Probably because it is their first slider or something

 

[doublebullout]

The Pre is probably one of the worst phones that you can get with build quality. They really did a great job on the OS but forgot to focus on making a solid handset. Probably because it is their first slider or something

Palm has made a slider before. It was the Tungsten T, and also had some build quality issues. However, if the Pre's slider was merely as bad as the Tungsten T's, there'd be a lot more happy Pre owners.

 

[babyfacecgp]

I have been testing tmobile bold also mytouch also have sprint htc hero.
If you need a phone to get email done fast and also drive a lot.
You can not use the hero or the mytouch. The mytouch is a little better on voice dialing but not even close to bb 9700. I have been really hoping the android platform would give me more for the business world, but looks like I will have to keep on the bb till the android software, as far as email gets better for the travling person. great idea but we will see.

 

[usmc.2years]

I NEED major help

i just got the BlackBerry Tour and am very annoyed with how it freeze's non stop. and other different things about it. i like that the Hero has all the Apps and goodies.

Bottom line though is i am on my 8th day of my 30 day grace period and i need to pick fast. I make all my money through Criagslist, i need a phone that i can get on craigslist with and be able to up load images to post and post them on the Web, my Tour will only let me do one picture if that at times !! So if any one has a hero and wants to quick try throwing a random add out on craigslist with pictures and wants to let me know how if it works better then the tour PLEASE let me know. I use myspace, facebook, youtube, craigslist, Gmail on my phone and thats about it. I don't have a computer with the internet so my phone is my computer. So please help me see what phone is better for surfing the web, putting out adds on criagslist and Emailing through Gmail to people who look at my adds.

I googled Tour Vs Hero and this was the top link so i quick made a account to add a reply... i would like Cjmjmm2006 to let me know what his final decision was and if he is happy with it and what helped him make it.

Please any1 Email me at Usmc.2years[AT]Gmail.com [put the AT SIGN were AT is b/c it won't let me put an Email link in here]

P.S. i see ppl say the tour camera is better then the hero, hows that... i have to be able to take pictures witht he phone and up load them to craigslist with the phone.????

:/ plz let me know what i should go with ppl

 

[ballroomdru]

This thread interests me because i used my 30 day trial on a Samsung Moment and returned it due to issues. I will either get the Hero or the new tour 2 and i am leaning more towards BB for productivity at this point.