Anyone else getting phone envy?...

[Guest jonathanmusto]

after seeing the HTC Desire and Legend? I think they look great! I love my Hero, had it for about 6 months now, but I just can't look at it the same now after seeing these :-( I think, given the choice i'd have to go with the Desire for it's larger screen, the Legend is too similar to the Hero, but that all metal casing!!! Wow! Look incredible!

[Guest CitizenLee]

after seeing the HTC Desire and Legend? I think they look great! I love my Hero, had it for about 6 months now, but I just can't look at it the same now after seeing these :-( I think, given the choice i'd have to go with the Desire for it's larger screen, the Legend is too similar to the Hero, but that all metal casing!!! Wow! Look incredible!

I feel exactly the same mate... I saw them today on Gizmodo.

It's the extra power and large screen of the Bravo that appeals to me the most, but as you say the all metal casing of the Legend definitely wins in the looks department.

[Guest kosmiq]

Have had that for a while now. Very happy with my Hero, no question about it, but with the new phones with SnapDragon, 3.5" and larger screens and whatnot makes me wanna change. Have had my phone for about 6-7 months as well.

The hardest thing is to buy a new one right away. Changing phone before a year has passed feels a little... Well too much for me :D

[Guest MultiMartin]

The hardest thing is to buy a new one right away. Changing phone before a year has passed feels a little... Well too much for me :D

I feel exactly the same. I have never been like this - I always got a new Sony Ericsson or Nokia phone when I was due an upgrade just for the sake of it. Now I am actually feeling a real need to get the HTC Desire even though I just got a Hero in July and I'm not due an upgrade until February 2011! I don't think I can actually wait that long but also can't justify a change this early.

[Guest roakes]

I think I'll be going for a Legend, my usage habits couldn't justify the bigger screen and faster processor. Not one for watching videos or playing games. I think the little bump in CPU and the hopefully optimised 2.1 SenseUI will make it feel a bit...newer!

That being said, waiting to see the prices. I hope that the Legend will be cheaper than the Hero was as it's no longer the flagship model.

[Guest Don/Donald/Donnie]

I've had a G1, a Magic and now a Hero. I've loved every one of them but the fact that I'm still on Android 1.5 (albeit a very slick Modaco Custom Rom) with my Hero has made me so cranky at HTC that I doubt I'll ever get another HTC Android phone. In my mind I now doubt their capacity to meet my needs (read: wants) as a customer to maintain existing product ranges in a timely fashion. My expectations of HTC have shifted to the point where I don't expect much.

I know, I don't deserve an update to my OS, nor do HTC have to give me one but it was a jaded dream I had that investing in technology as soon as it is released had some kind of reward ... doesn't appear so.

[Guest CitizenLee]

I've had a G1, a Magic and now a Hero. I've loved every one of them but the fact that I'm still on Android 1.5 (albeit a very slick Modaco Custom Rom) with my Hero has made me so cranky at HTC that I doubt I'll ever get another HTC Android phone. In my mind I now doubt their capacity to meet my needs (read: wants) as a customer to maintain existing product ranges in a timely fashion. My expectations of HTC have shifted to the point where I don't expect much.

I know, I don't deserve an update to my OS, nor do HTC have to give me one but it was a jaded dream I had that investing in technology as soon as it is released had some kind of reward ... doesn't appear so.

Unfortunately that's usually the price you pay for being an early adopter.

I agree it is frustrating though, especially when the likes of Motorolla seems to be on the ball with updates.

Still... could be worse, look how long it took iPhone to get proper MMS! A very basic feature.

[Guest Lordsmiff]

I've had high-end smartphones for years now and in my experience, HTC are the only ones you can count on to actually get an upgrade. Ask my mate who bought a Samsung Galaxy when they first came out (he's on a hero now ).

I had a rant about this the other day but basically, the pace of change for mobiles is so fast that they have to devote more time to new phones than old or they'll fall behind.

I really think the upcoming update will be a good one so, keep the faith with HTC - they're taking their time but they're better than the rest IMNSHO ;-)

Smiffy.

[Guest shokka9]

think of it this way....

when our current Hero contracts come to an end....the current array of NEW handsets willl be old, and replaced by newer & better devices, which we be eligible to get.

I too have had my Hero since last year sometime. I always pride myself in getting the lastest and greatest devices.

However the last year and a bit has seen some huge advances in mobile technology (with more to come) so keeping your phone new has NEVER been so hard.

I like the Legend (Hero in new clothes), but the Desire (Bravo/Nexus) is very nice.

Lets see what comes out around xmas peoples.

Enjoy your Hero!!

[Guest Paul]

I've played with both the Desire and Legend, and they're both very nice. The aluminium unibody construction on the Legend is great as is the OLED, a real next-step for the Hero.

From the news posts...

[Guest MacCarron]

think of it this way....

when our current Hero contracts come to an end....the current array of NEW handsets willl be old, and replaced by newer & better devices, which we be eligible to get.

I too have had my Hero since last year sometime. I always pride myself in getting the lastest and greatest devices.

However the last year and a bit has seen some huge advances in mobile technology (with more to come) so keeping your phone new has NEVER been so hard.

I like the Legend (Hero in new clothes), but the Desire (Bravo/Nexus) is very nice.

Lets see what comes out around xmas peoples.

Enjoy your Hero!!

I think i'll wait until we finally get our 2.1 update with the newer even more badass sense ui. Then i'll decide wether i'm still happy with my hero (right now i most definitely am) or if i'll go the "extra buck" and get myself a Desire or a Legend. Tough call.

[Guest keef319]

As nice as these 2 new devices are, I can't see myself getting either. With advances in technology seemingly speeding up again, but the time the end of the year comes I wouldn't be surprised to see a 2Ghz chip making the Hero seem archaic!

Hopefully an android update and some MCR optimizations will keep me happy until then. And then who knows, and new Android or iPhone 4...we'll see what appeals the most!!

[Guest SoapyWeasel]

well maybe before the years out there will be phones with one of these in :D

but yer phone envy after only signing 4 months ago in my case is probably a bad thing :D

[Guest TheAshMan]

I'm hoping to get the Desire, it's what I'd actually classify as an upgrade from the Hero. Legend has far too similar specs, but does have a LED Flash on the camera!

The Desire has a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, should be a lot faster than the Hero, plus as it's supposed to be a flagship phone (and according to HTC one of the top 3 smartphones in the world) it'll hopefully have better maintenance and updates from HTC.

[Guest kosmiq]

I feel exactly the same. I have never been like this - I always got a new Sony Ericsson or Nokia phone when I was due an upgrade just for the sake of it. Now I am actually feeling a real need to get the HTC Desire even though I just got a Hero in July and I'm not due an upgrade until February 2011! I don't think I can actually wait that long but also can't justify a change this early.

Same here. Always had the phone for about a year (12 month deal) and then changed to a new one because I could without paying much. But now I am feeling I might get a new one earlier. Only 6-7 months so I might try to hold out.

As for a new phone I don't really know if I will go for anything else then a Google Phone. Frequent updates is pretty important with an OS like Android. Atleast it is still. I am sure that in a few months things will be better as the OS will not be as different as 1.5 is from 2.1. I think that future devices will have a more consumer-ready version of Android and that updates are not as needed.

When that happens I am sure custom versions with Sense and the like will be great. Until then I am not as sure.

[Guest iammodo]

I for one have no envy, due to android platform not needing that much power!

Can someone point out an android app that needs 1ghz?

[Guest squirreleater]

I for one have no envy, due to android platform not needing that much power!

Can someone point out an android app that needs 1ghz?

I've swapped from a hero to a Nexus, you do notice the speed increase, the N1 doesn't hang at times like the hero used to.

You don't need the power/speed, but it is nice to have.

[Guest lysin]

I for one have no envy, due to android platform not needing that much power!

Can someone point out an android app that needs 1ghz?

It's human nature to always want more and more... :D

I just have my Hero for 2 months and I am very pleased with it (a lot thanks to Paul).

I acknowledge that both desire/legend have better looks and specs, but if I upgraded, my main reason would be software update and software performance, as had been proven that "old" phones don't get updates all that often.

And as you said, Android don't need 1Ghz, but if we want to get the new software (android X) we do need better processors/memory to handle it...

[Guest dipje]

what I don't get, and please correct me if I'm wrong (but I'm very up2date about this actually :D,

I'm concerned about the speed of the Legend. Don't get me wrong, with the new screen and the body it's a good Hero _replacement_, but it doesn't really step up much above it if you ask me. The Bravo / Desire is almost the same as the Nexus One, so it's what company you prefer when it comes to support.

Nexus One will probably get more (frequent) updates when Android moves along, and with HTC 'you just do not know'. But if you consider the Desire to be rootable somewhere in the near future, there will surely be ROM's for it, since the hardware inside is basically Nexus One hardware. Putting an AOSP ROM on a Desire isn't illegal (or not that much :lol:), but officially I bet you are not allowed to rip Sense out of the ROM of the Desire and make a Nexus One ROM with it.

Anyway, back to the Legend: It's still the same old ARM core as the 72xx older packages used in Diamonds / Heroes / Touch Pro's / etc, right? I mean, the step up from 528mhz to 600mhz will be almost unnoticeable. So you will probably still get the same hick-ups here and there the Hero has.

If you compare the Droid / Milestone to the Hero, the Droid can be almost twice as fast in benchmarks. It runs on 550mhz, but the Cortex A8 core in the Droid / Nexus1 / Desire is _way_ more powerful per mhz as the old one in our current Heroes.

If you look at http://tweakers.net/reviews/1543/4/shootou...resultaten.html for example, they compare a Hero (stock and custom (MCR 3.1)), a Milestone (Droid) and a Nexus One (forget about the LG please :lol:). The Milestone and Nexus One are pretty close in performance, if you compare it to the Hero. It's _way_ behind.

Now, if I would go for a Legend, I really think I would be buying last years technology. When the Hero came out if was already criticized for being kinda outdated around that time. And now almost a year later the Legend wouldn't really surpass it, I think. You would really want it for the body or the screen, that's about it.

How nice MCR or other custom ROMs can make the Hero, I still feel the device is struggling to give me a fluid nice experience. Typing still doesn't go without lags here and there, when a mail is received you will notice it if you are scrolling that moment and the swiping on the home screen will still lag or even freeze for a bit if one of the widgets is doing an update right that moment. I'm happy with my Hero _for now_, but my new phone would have to be an improvement in the user experience. I'm thinking the Legend is not it.

Am I talking non-sense or do I have a point? Or do I have a point but I'm the only one with this opinion? :D

Edited February 16, 2010 by dipje

[Guest stevenz]

Hopefully Telus gets the Desire so I can import an 850Mhz version to use, no sign that the network here is going to support Android properly anytime soon so no option but importing the things. As much as I like my Hero (1st phone out of about 8 to replace my 5 year old W900 for more than 3-months), a higher resolution screen and more CPU power would be nice.

A stable Eclair might tide me over for a bit though if it fixes their BS WiFi functionality :D

[Guest tdohappens]

what i like about this: f*ck iphone

what i don't like: i have my htc hero for a month and a half. it's a good phone ... if you don't compare it with others

the only thing that i regret about my hero is that it isn't white. it's graphite but it looks brownish to me.

[my opinion - my conspiracy theory]

htc could of released 2.1 for hero by now but it's not good for business

if all android phones had the same android rom you will have to choose the phone only for the design and specs

a htc hero with a 2.1 rom could probably satisfy the needs of most of the people [i know that some want a larger screen and better cpu/gpu]

htc knows that a lot of people will buy the phone just for the android version

this is why i think that a 2.1 rom from hero will be available when these phones [legend & desire] will be released or after.

hero will get cheaper with the release of these phones and if it already had a 2.1 rom it would of been a rival fot htc legend and desire. not good for business.

i personally think that these phone will get a >2.1 rom ... 2.1.1? 2.2? 2.5? why? one is a nexus one with sense and one is a hero with a makeover

a person who buys an android phone probably knows some things about android before it has it. i think that most people that have an android phone are not stupid and most are at least medium or advanced in using a pc. [you can't say this about iphone users]

scenario: you want an android phone, you don't get the hero because it has a 1.5 rom. you don't get a droid because it's ugly, you don't get a nexus one because it doesn't have sense or smth [idk]

by this time you find you about htc legend and desire. do you still want one of the above phones? no ... you want a new one.

and it goes on and on and on and on ...

[/my opinion - /my conspiracy theory]

[Guest Don/Donald/Donnie]

Am I talking non-sense or do I have a point? Or do I have a point but I'm the only one with this opinion? :D

I couldn't have said it any better. I don't see the point in continuing my HTC Android love affair because of a lot of your points.

When the Hero came out I was practically drooling all over the place and told EVERYONE how great it was. I bought it Sim Free so paid out just to get HTCs cutting edge phone, even though the hardware specs weren't all that different from my Magic. It didn't stay cutting edge for long enough before HTC released the Nexus One (with Google fronting it) and now these two other models and it feels very much like the Hero is a poor relative. I feel no desire for and no excitement about these phones

I also own a Magic (yes, off topic but I think relevant) I've now read that the Magic won't be getting 2.1 and I only got that in June last year. So by the example being set for the Magic, perhaps we'll see these Android powered handsets failing to receive any development investment in less than a year so why should I invest my money to feel the way I do now (about the Hero) in another 6 - 8 months time with another HTC handset.

I'm falling out of love with HTC but still believe very much that Android is a great OS. I would be more than happy to be proved wrong but only time will tell. I'm watching the Nexus One and Google with a lot of interest to see how quickly they manage translating Android OS updates into Nexus One updates. This will be the key deciding factor for the next phone I shell out for (unless Apple dazzle the world with something really special in ~June).

[Guest TheAshMan]

I for one have no envy, due to android platform not needing that much power!

Can someone point out an android app that needs 1ghz?

There's no single application that needs 1GHz but you can still get a significant increase in speed when apps and widgets are loading, especially when you're using a resource heavy service such as HTC Sense. Android supports multi-tasking and each application and service requires it's fair share of the processing power.

Also, within the next 12 months hopefully we'll be seeing an increase in 3D games, the introduction of Adobe AIR applications being deployed on Android by means of Flash 10.1 and more obviously, applications that can take advantage of the better processor and thus providing a better overall Android experience.

10 years ago people would have said a 1GHz PC was overkill, but within a couple of years of that anything less than that was considered too slow and needed an upgrade. Phones are a developing technology, just like PCs and therefore follow the same trend. Then again, there's people who still have a Pentium 3 running at 800MHz and are happy, I guess that trend too will follow with people not wanting all bells and whistles.

At the end of the day it's each to their own, but I know my Hero lags at times, theres more things I'd want to do with it and would gladly buy a new phone with better specifications.

Saying all that, the HTC update news makes me consider the Nexus over the Desire now, but I'll wait and see how quick Google are at delivering updates. It's better to be waiting around for just Google for updates, than waiting for the Android update from Google, and then waiting for HTC to make the Sense-compatible version if and when they decide.

Edited February 17, 2010 by TheAshMan

[Guest Dr Hotdog]

Good points from TheAshMan, but in response to iammodo I think I can actually name an Android app that while it might not need a 1GHz Snapdragon it does seem to need more power than the Hero has. The Copilot Live 8 satnav app really pushes the Hero to its absolute limits, when it's running the phone lags badly. It's still usable (and I do really like the app) but you're aware the hardware is struggling. Several updates have improved things (earlier versions actually drained the battery faster than my car charger could charge it!) so perhaps software optimisation is a factor here, but I think this gives an example of a legitimate, useful Android app that would genuinely benefit from more powerful handsets.

[Guest iammodo]

Good points from TheAshMan, but in response to iammodo I think I can actually name an Android app that while it might not need a 1GHz Snapdragon it does seem to need more power than the Hero has. The Copilot Live 8 satnav app really pushes the Hero to its absolute limits, when it's running the phone lags badly. It's still usable (and I do really like the app) but you're aware the hardware is struggling. Several updates have improved things (earlier versions actually drained the battery faster than my car charger could charge it!) so perhaps software optimisation is a factor here, but I think this gives an example of a legitimate, useful Android app that would genuinely benefit from more powerful handsets.

Odd I use copilot a lot and not noticed any problems. I only use Copilot with nothing else running due to battery.