At this point in time Apple is still the most grand player in the smartphone shop and other industry are still trying to come up with the next big phone that will be an "iPhone killer".
Htc is about to activate it "Hero" in late 2009 in the Us with the sprint network. We have yet to get our hands on one to test it out for ourselves but with the info ready we can draw a few conclusions.
First and important the fact that this Htc is an android phone makes a big dissimilarity right away. I have owned some nice Htc devices all of which being windows based and although I was regularly impressed with determined features I found them to be sluggish and buggy. The new Htc Hero however seems promising and a few details about its interface works have already been revealed.
Much like other competitors like the palm pre, Htc is going after the iPhone in a similar manner and that having an interface that allows complicated apps to continually run in the background and open. The new Htc Hero allows for up to seven home pages that can have distinct "widgets" running at the same time. This for some can be an advantage over the iPhone and seems to be a trend among those finding to steal some shop share from apple.
As far as the performance goes the phone uses a touch screen and a track ball in a very nice but somewhat awkward finding package. When we can get our hands on one we will be able to discuss further about the potential of the touch screen and other capabilities.
The Camera will be a 5.0 mega-pixel with video capabilities but a some what disappointing 512mb internal memory, however it is expandable with an Sd card. The Hero looks to have a very slick Os but is right on not geared towards the music or media user.
So will this phone cause population to run out and ditch their iPhones for a Hero? Probably not, although the phone has some nice qualities I feel its going to be a Palm Pre sequel with a few population anxious to try it, but I doubt its going to get iPhone users to turn in masses. If any phone is going to do this they admittedly need to step their app store up and nail the interface for both newb and tech savy users alike. I'm retention my iPhone that's for sure.
The New Htc Hero - Is it an iPhone Killer?