HTC Hero: Can the Superphone compete?

HTC unveiled its latest smartphone, and it's a doozy. The HTC Hero packs in everything a smartphone lover could dream of, except the handset won't land on American shores till the fall. Now that we've got a more mature market for smartphones, can HTC compete? We talk to Joel Johnson of Boing Boing Gadgets, and Seth Porges of Popular Mechanics about the situation.

Joel thinks the Hero doesn't have to be the best phone in America, it really just needs to be the best phone for its American carrier, whoever that may end up being. With the wacky smartphone situation, many people aren't willing to switch to the iPhone simply because they'll have to go to AT&T, so when the Hero ends up hitting America, it'll just need to be the best in breed for its anticipated carrier.

Seth, who had some chance to play with the phone a few days ago, thinks it's a winner at first glance. Seth also thinks, like many of our previous guests, that smartphone's biggest asset is applications, and seeing how the Android marketplace, and for that matter the Palm App Catalog, hasn't fully developed just yet, it's hard to see how these platforms will play out.

What's your take? Are you excited about the device, or is it just another phone for you? What would make you stop obsessing about the iPhone for a few minutes, and take a liking to the Hero? Sound off in the comments. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• company
• HTC
• guest
• Joel
• Johnson
• Seth
• Porges
• iPhone
• 3gs

[polikariolis]

i still don't understand what all the fuzz is about.. iphone 3GS is just a phone with feautures that phones had more than a year ago.. the only thing that it has looks and a fairly fast processor.. other that that it isn;t even worth being called a smartphone.. what is a smartphone without multitasking? i wish people would compare every decent phone to iphones.. they say "iphone is fast"..no shit..? it runs only one task at a time.. wake up.. i'm tired of these things..:/

[doze36]

hero beats iphone completely

[reneesheldon]

the ONLY thing i can find that iphone has over the hero is that iphone comes with an insanely larger amount of internal memory. other than that though, this phone is kick ass. i've had it a few weeks now and LOVE it!

[nickorization]

HTC Hero is so much better, not to even mention the potential of Open Source Google OS... Can you even Imagine where can it go?

Something stupid that HTC did recently - their new HTC HD 2, which is pretty much the best cell phone I've ever seen hardware wise, comes with Windows mobile... probably the only reason I'm getting a Hero instead

[hsumra03]

Everyone tells me how the iPhone is sooo fast... That is my same response... lol... any hardware can be fast when only doing one thing LOL

[Jmcker]

Truthfully, if the HTC phone managed to increase the computing power of this phone without hampering battery life to make it lightning fast at all times even after long periods of use, this would utterly destroy the iphone. I dont see the appeal of the iphone myself, nothing is contained within it except the most basic of applications and a phone. the reason the iphone is big, is because its a good touch IPOD that can make phone calls.

[polikariolis]

i know iphone has great screen but features>>screen.. screen u get used to.. android phones have both great screen and features.. i hope i'll get my hands on the HTC Hero coming out in a few days xD

[armed1234567]

the iphone 3gs has the best touchscreen on any phone, better than the htc, touchscreen comes first, features come after

[Jzar89]

Why didn't they stay on topic. One guy goes on about it being a longer war while the other simply goes on about htc's relationship with microsoft.

[parkerlewisrocks]

HTC Hero supports FLASH (!!!!), has a 5 mp camera and has THE ANDROID OS.

That's win.