Well, fortunately, US patent law doesn’t apply here in Europe. It looks as though the Nexus One will get multitouch support in the units sold in Europe, just like the Droid did.

[via Engadget]

User interface

Before getting the Hero, the only touch-screen phones I had tried were the iPhone and the Nokia N97. I really hoped that the Hero could live up to the iPhone that I couldn’t get. Just turning on the phone and seeing the screen, and going through the setup wizard showed that HTC had done a really good job with this phone. They have built a coherent look and feel to the entire experience, called Sense UI. In my opinion, Sense UI is very intuitive. Most functions can be found where you’d think they are. The user interface is really polished and professional looking, unlike the N0kia N97 I had tried earlier.

The initial firmware supplied with the phone was a bit laggy, especially when running many applications. One of my biggest surprises when I moved to Android was that there wasn’t any kind of task manager to kill apps with. Fortunately, there are several applications in the Android Market to help out with this problem. The one I liked the best was Advanced Task Killer Free. It allows you to check applications that you want to kill and then kill them with one tap. The Task Killer remembers which applications you have previously selected, so once you have selected the apps you always want to keep running, you can quickly just tap “Kill all selected apps” and have all the unnecessary apps shut down.

A firmware update came out later and made the phone significantly faster. It eliminated animations from some widgets, like the default clock/weather applet, but made the Hero much more pleasant to use.

What impressed me the most during the setup was that by entering my Google account details, the phone had set up all my contacts and calendar events. Even the correct internet APN was provided,  so I could get to surfing immediately. By entering your Facebook login information, you can have the phone match your contacts to Facebook friends and pull their photos to your contact list.

HTC has extended the number of home screens to seven. All home screens are completely customizable with widgets and icons. Comparing this to the iPhone makes the iPhone’s static grid of icons seem very outdated. For example, my home screen shows me at a glance the time, weather, next calendar appointment and shortcuts to my most used applications.

Browser

The browser on the Hero is WebKit based like the iPhone’s Mobile Safari. This, along with the same screen size, makes most iPhone web apps, like Facebook, work flawlessly on the Hero. Unlike most other Android devices, the HTC Hero has multi touch support with the familiar pinch-to-zoom gestures. The browser is fast and really makes it possible to view full web pages on the phone. Even though the Hero has Flash-support in the browser, it makes browsing a lot slower. This is because most of the Flash content on web pages is ads that don’t add any value to the content. By turning off the Flash plugin from the settings menu, the browser becomes even faster.

Google Maps

Another essential application in a smart phone is the map/navigation app. Google maps works very well on the Hero, even though it still seems to miss a couple of features. One of the missing features is the multi touch support that is used by most other applications on the phone. By not supporting pinch-zooming, the application feels out of place on the phone. Google maps does not either take advantage of the compass in the Hero to orient the map.

What I really miss from Google Maps, though, is navigation support. I hope that the rumored Android 2.1 update will bring navigation support also to the Hero (and to Finland).

One of the uses of Google Maps: finding food.

Email

The Hero comes with two mail clients, which is kind of confusing. One mail client is the default Android Gmail client. In addition to that, HTC have supplied an own email client that supports multiple mailboxes. I needed my phone to check all of my email accounts, so I chose the HTC email client.

In order for the client to display HTML emails, I had to change the maximum message size limit to more than 5kb (text only), which was the default option. I also had to disable Android’s Gmail syncing as I would get two notifications for every Gmail I received.

The mail client itself is quite nice. It displays HTML emails in the same way the browser would, and supports multitouch gestures. It allows you to choose how much mail you want to automatically download and you always have to manually download attachments, so there is no risk that the phone will start downloading huge attachments by itself.

Calendar

The calendar on the HTC Hero uses Google Calendar and automatically syncs events to and from Google Cal. By default, however, it uses a local calendar for some reason. I found it easiest to just hide the local calendar and use my Google calendars instead.

The Calendar application shows each different calendar with the same color coding as on the web. This makes it very convenient to have shared calendars and set up meetings from your phone that will automatically be synced to all those you share your Google calendar with.

Syncing

Syncing the Hero is dead simple. All you have to do is add a contact or calendar appointment, either from the phone or from the web and they will automatically sync over the air. This was a huge improvement form my previous Nokia and Windows Mobile phones that required manual syncing. In my experience, manual syncing = no syncing.

Other applications

There are also a whole lot of other smaller applications included in the phone. The phone will always stay logged on to Google Talk, which is a handy and cheap alternative to SMS for those who have your gtalk username.

The SMS/MMS application collects all messages to one person into a chat-like thread. It makes it simple to keep track of the discussion even if it has been a while since the last message.

Another nice touch on the Hero is that all communication with a contact can be seen from their contact page in the contacts app. It lists all messages and email correspondence you’ve had with that contact in one easy to find location.

In addition to all these apps, you can choose and install from tens of thousands of applications from the Android Market. You can see some of my favorite apps in my earlier post.

Build quality and battery life

The biggest weakness of the Hero is the same weakness that plagues all large-screened smart phones – battery life. During normal use, the battery lasts about a day and a half, but in real life you will want to charge it daily. On a positive note, I’ve never had the battery die on me during a day of usage.

The build quality of the device is fairly solid. I have still not got any scratches on the screen, and the screen stays easily clean as it is oil-repellant. A minor complaint about the build is that the back cover gets a bit loose after being taken off a few times. It squeaks a little if pressed near the volume button.

It was also nice to notice that iPhone headsets worked on the Hero, allowing me to both talk and control music.

Conclusions

I can honestly say that this is the best phone I’ve owned. Even though I got it because I couldn’t buy an iPhone, I’m more than happy with my choice. I wouldn’t trade it for an iPhone anymore, it offers me much more functionality and I like the openness of the Android plattform. Even though the phone is starting to get old in gadget-years, I can easily recommend that you get one if you find one cheap.

1. MyTracks

MyTracks is Google’s sports tracking software for Android, much like Nokia Sports Tracker is for S60 devices. With this application you can track your sporting (or other) routes and see statistics over your performance. The application lets you upload routes to Google maps and statistics to a Google Docs spreadsheet for easy analysis.

I really like this application as I bicycle a lot. Being able to measure routes and see average speeds, resting time vs moving time and other statistics really make working out more interesting (and geeky).  It allows you to concentrate on the sports performance without having to worry about pausing the application every time you take a break for instance.

[Image courtesy of Google]

2. Fring

Even though I mostly use Google Talk on my HTC Hero, I occasionally need to contact people without Google Talk accounts. Fring is by far the best application I have found to do this on the Android platform. Fring lets you access contacts on pretty much any imaginable instant messaging network, like MSN, AOL, Yahoo, Skype, as well as its own Fring protocol. To make things even better, the application has support for making Skype calls over 3G and WLAN, which has come in handy while traveling.

[Image courtesy of Fring]

3. Google Maps

I want to mention Google Maps even though it comes with the phone. I use the application almost daily, looking up nearby services or routes to places. The Maps application on the HTC Hero lacks navigation, which would definitely place this application at the top of the list. Once you have gotten used to having a GPS in your pocket, there is no going back.

4. handyCalc

This is probably the best calculator I have found for Android. It allows you to do simple calculations easily, but also supports much more. For instance, it supports solving equations, plotting graphs and converting currency. This application is a must-have for anyone that has to do some more advanced math once in a while and doesn’t like lugging around a Texas Instruments calculator all the time.

5. ConnectBot

ConnectBot is a very handy SSH client for Android. It allows you to easily connect to SSH servers and perform maintenance tasks without having to bring along your laptop everywhere. Combined with the large screen of the Hero, this application is really useful.

[Image courtesy of ConnectBot]

6. Bebbled

The final application on this list is a game. The game is much like Bejewled, and easily as addicting. The major difference is that it supports turning around the device have the blocks move to the “ceiling.” This brings a new dimension to the game and makes it really addictive.

[Image courtesy of Bebbled]

What are your favorite Android Apps? Please share any apps that you have found useful in the comments.

A year went by and the iPhone finally got 3G capabilities, like all the other phones many years earlier. Not only that, the iPhone now had the possibility to use and install third party applications. Watching Steve Jobs’ keynote on the device, I thought to myself that this device would probably again be limited to the US. To my great amazement, Jobs announced that the device would be available in many smaller European countries, Finland included!

At this point I was ready, my wallet in my hand, waiting for the phone to come out. But then disaster struck. Not only did Apple export their device to Finland, but along with it they exported the completely incomprehensible way of selling phones locked to carriers. There had never before been a phone that I couldn’t buy without a contract. The custom in Finland is that people can buy the phone they like, and then choose a carrier that suits their needs. The system works very well – Finland has among the cheapest cell phone rates and best coverage anywhere in the world despite being more sparsely populated than the US. Buying the phone separately also allows people to freely buy new phones when they come out and keep their existing phone number and services without interruptions.

Sonera was, and still is, the only operator in Finland that sells the iPhone. They are notorious for having the most expensive calls and text messages of any operator, in addition to the premium price of the iPhone. For example, changing from my existing provider would have meant that I would have paid 9.90€/month for 384kbps maximum 3G in stead of 9.90€/month for 2Mbps 3G.

I started looking at options. Some European countries, like Italy, had managed to coerce Apple into selling the device unlocked. Many Finns that were in the same situation as me, unwilling to sign a 2 year contract with Sonera, decided to import the devices themselves. The phones worked fine, but the problems started coming in as they began to break. The European Union dictates that the warranty of any product sold in the EU is valid in all other EU countries that have that product for sale. Despite this, I read several horror stories on forums about how people had tried to get Apple to fix their broken phones, but had got rejected. A few determined people decided to push Apple on the issue and finally got their phones sent for repairs. In some cases the phones came back operator locked to the countries from where they were originally purchased. The clear picture here is that Apple does not want to have their phones sold unlocked, even at full price.

After going through my options time and time again, I realized that I had in essence 2 options:

• Pay almost 800€ for an unlocked phone from Italy without a working warranty
• Sign a 2 year contract with Sonera and pay significantly more for the service I currently had

Since there really wasn’t an option that was acceptable, I decided to look into alternatives. Nokia had released the N97, which based on reviews and my own short tests proved to be a total failure, and was out of the question. Another alternative was the HTC Hero. Even if the first reviews complained about it being slow, I could see potential in the phone and finally decided to get one.

I have to say that having used Android for about 5 months now, I really couldn’t even think of owning an iPhone anymore. What Android lacks in esthetics it more than makes up for in functionality. Sure, multitasking makes the phone a bit slow at times, but having to close applications when switching between them is really not an answer for that. I like the fact that I can have a chat program on in the background, listening to Grooveshark while still being able to read emails when they come in.

What really excites me about Android as a platform is its openness. Unlike the iPhone App Store, anyone can have their application added to the Android Market. In the long run, with Android gaining a bigger market share, I can see more and more of developers switching to Android as their main platform. The risk of developing an application for the iPhone and not getting it approved to the App Store will surely make many developers choose the the open platform with the larger growth potential first.

Me not getting an iPhone because of Apples policies was annoying, but the big issue here is that Apple has most likely shot itself in the foot, allowing Android to take over a market that the iPhone once dominated. Google has clearly also noticed this and will be selling their upcoming phone without contract to those who want it.

Interestingly, the agreement text hints at international shipping. If the device shipped to Finland, the price would be 370€ + 22% vat, totaling just over 450€. That would still be a very competitive price point, as Nokia N900 is selling for almost 600€ and other Android handsets at almost 500€. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 with similar specs is available for pre-order for 750€.

It will certainly be interesting to see if the phone is sold directly by Google, and if it will actually be an European version with the right charger. If the phone is sold through third parties, the price will probably be right up there with the X10 at over 700€.

If this is a marketing stunt by Google, which I think it is, its very effective. The device certainly looks good.

Engadget had managed to get their hands on one of the devices and seemed to be very impressed. They noted that the Nexus One has: “… probably the best screen we’ve seen on a smartphone so far.” They were also impressed by the speed of the device, something that has been a major issue for most Android devices so far. Comparing browsing speeds they noted:

When comparing the three phones in loading a webpage over Wi-Fi, the Nexus One loaded first, the iPhone 3GS came in a few seconds later, and the Droid came in a little while after that. This was constant throughout many webpage loads, so it’s indicative of something going on inside with the hardware.

A video walkthough of the interface looks very promising. The interface moves quickly, and the screen seems very spacious compared to my HTC Hero.

The Nexus One is rumored to be sold without contract, for $199 or $99 for existing Google account holders. If this is true and Google sells the phone to Finland, I’m definitely getting one. The low price point seems too low to be true. If it is true, I’m sure that Google will have some ads and/or usage monitoring to recoup the hardware costs.

Reuters reported that the phone should go on sale directly from Google on January 5th. We’ll just have to wait until then and see which rumors are true.