By We’re all awaiting a handful of Android Phones to splash on carriers in our area and for those in the UK that means the HTC Hero. One lucky guy (from CoolSmartphone.com) didn’t get enough Hero at the London event but someone rescued him – he has a review unit for one week and unboxed it for our viewing pleasure:
Are we jealous? Of course… but we’re probably not alone as I can practically see you salivating through the monitor. Or maybe you were salivating at those rabbits at the beginning of the video – was that hilariously weird or was that me?
Anything not in the video that makes you curious about the HTC Hero and/or HTC Sense?
I’ll tell you what’s weird: the apparently British tendency to add an extra sound to HTC. Instead of “aych” for H, it becomes “haych.” Like because the letter is an H, the Brits feel compelled to add an H sound into the letter’s pronounciation. It bugs me to no end. I would literally rather hear fingernails scratching a chalkboard.
But yeah, Hero. Cool. It certainly seems faster than the Hero ROMs floating around.
at first I didn’t like the look of htc sense but the more I see it the more im starting to like it. I just hope you can still use the compass with google maps even though its not a with google device.
and to JL in Britain H is pronounced haych so he will naturally say that.
jl same here and i actually thought thats how upronouce it
the girl from t3 bugged me the most hash tece it kills me every time
thank god now i know that its just how @theey @ pronouce it
though yeah i agree amazing device cant wait (that is if samsung bigfoot turns out 2 be a lie if not im soo getting it )
I’m sorry but this phone is so damn ugly.. WTF were they thinking.. Jeez.. Looks worse than the G1, and remind u, this comes with no keyboard and it’s fat just like the G1.. The Magic and the Samsung Galaxy is the best looking Google phones, google has at the moment. Even those 2 can be better looking though..
@eric not everyone wants an iphone wannabe. I like the chin and I find it useful. For example on my old treo if I had it in my pocket and accidently hit the corner of a table there was a good chance I would break the screen, but with my g1 it fits in my pocket and protects the screen.
this is the best Android-based phone so far, i would have instantly bought one if it had a larger screen size (ala iphone’s), typing on the soft keyboard on the g1 is absolutely annoying (at least for me)
Its NOT HaychTC..no! HTC H….T….C….ACH ACH as in A+Ch as in (Ch)in (Chocolate) Get it Right!!!! LOL :P
why is he doing it in his car…
@ jay
There are many accents in Britain and only the stupid one’s say haytch.
Just so you know, a lot of Brits pronounce “h” as ‘aych’ (and some of us look down noses disapprovingly at those who pronounce it ‘haych’).
Well I found the video weird as he kept making a clicky noise with his mouth between sentences but the pronunciation of htc didn’t annoy me.
Over here in England, I very seldom hear anyone say “aitch”. I can’t recall the last time I heard it pronounced as that. It is fully embedded into the local dialect.
I’m hoping as you people feel the need to point out the h problem, none of you pronounce z as “zee” in stead of “zed”. Also that you don’t say aluminum but rather aluminium. (If you don’t, that’s good then)
:P
Haych or aych, doesn’t matter to me….I want someone review the phone and put it through some UI speed tests.
Scroll speed, launch speed, zoom speed, rotate speed.
C’mon, can we send one of these to a scientist!?!
hmm is thi coming out for tmobile..any word on that?
** correction – is THIS coming out for tmobile..any word on that..
really wish the person demoing the phone for us knew how to use android at all. “Oops looks like this li’o dummy-bauble here does… nothing, nothing a’ all.” No idiot its the back button, recognize. And his accent is dripping wet with douche.
Speaking as a Brit, it normally amuses me no end to hear the yanks criticising how we speak considering how they have bastardised the English language. In this case, however, I have to agree that the guy sounds like a complete tosser. I’d guess that he is from the midlands -somewhere around Birmingham – but attempting to sound posh. It certainly made the video unwatchable.
Can’t wait to get one in the US
Will the HTC Hero be capable of sending/receiving MMS messages? I know it can do SMS but there was no mention of MMS at the product launch…
Hmm, hopefully this will come to the US soon. I really liked the Samsung Galaxy, but I dunno now. This HTC Hero looks pretty epic with the HTC Sense UI. I just hope the US will get OTA updates…
I’m def into the Sense UI. It looks SO slick. This phone looks cool but I expected it to be thinner since it doesn’t have a QWERTY keyboard, like the G1. Personally, I like having a QWERTY keyboard since I can type faster but I’m willing to accept loosing that if it means making a thinner phone. This phone has pretty much the same thickness with NO QWERTY keyboard? No thanks.
What a waste of time that was – he could’ve prepared for the video by at least sticking the SIM in.
Only those who are ill-educated say ‘Haytch’
Those with some proper regard for the English language say ‘Aitch’
Anyway,the Hero is a great device, genuine iPhone 3GS contender and kicks sand in the face of the N97.
You dumb stupid stupid stupid YANKS…….we’ve given you a language called ENGLISH…..USE IT!
It’s only commoners who say haitch instead of aitch. Unfortunately they keep breeding, so it’ll only get worse.
this uk-based online store “superetrader” confirmed that this friday july 3, htc hero is gonna be available for sale….hopefully its true….and around the same time i think orange said they were gonna launch early july…followed by t-mobil uk mid july…
@ JL It’s not BRITISH people who pronounce H like that, it’s ENGLISH people that do it.
Exactly the reason why I hate being called British!! (I’m Scottish by the way)
Good grief who gives a flying monkey snot about how stuff is said, I thought this was a site to get info on phones not elocution lessons. The hero is a massive step in the right direction, hopefully they will improve sync features with windows and have blue tooth data transfer rather than just headset; then it would be a champion phone….. touch pro 2 with android hmmm now that would be interesting….
Very mature JJ, anyway it shouldn’t be pronounced “haitch”, but as noted frequently above – “aitch”. It’s not the English way it’s just that teachers over here won’t tell students how to pronounce words beyond primary school. I work in a school in London and the misuse of grammar pervades most of the students vernacular.
Back on topic: Just wished they’d added AMOLED screen. Maybe the next one.
Arrgh, much worse than his “Haytch” is him trying to film with camera in one hand and phone in the other, I just want to go in there and yank the camera out of his hands and onto a tripod. And him doing it in the car doesn’t help.
hmm. . . .i really hope that at&t will put this on the lancaster WITHOUT adding any proprietary crap.
Did anybody notice it took more than 60 seconds to boot this phone. I don’t know what extent of customization HTC did to Android, but I hope their hardware can keep up with it….
Unfortunately as I’m at work at the moment, I can’t actually watch the video (corporate filters) but after reading through the comments, I can’t wait – not just because of the phone – but really because of the ‘aitch’ or ‘haitch’ debate.
Both pronunciations are found in the UK, but the former is more common imho.
Really want to know what the camera is like. All the other videos I’ve seen (inc. the official Orange UK one) just show the ‘scroll’ functionality of the phone.
JL – I could not agree more. This tends to be an English trait rather the rest of the UK. I am Scottish but live near the Scotland/England border and get frustrated everyime I hear someone pronouce “H” the way they do. I used to work in a shop named H Samuels in Carlisle, everytime one of those idiots picked up the phone it would drive me crazy. You’d think they could speak their own language properly wouldn’t you? Rant over. Should I mention the phone? Nah
wow, once he realized he needed a sim card…he could have stopped the video, put everything back into the box and started over, but wait, maybe those rabbits were gone….he looked up and was thinking “I wanted to have a slap and a tickle, before me fag.but i dont want spend anymore goolies out of love for the queen..argh!!!”
This whole “discussion” about how to pronounce the H in HTC, just goes to show how stupid the English language really is. If you pronounce it “aych” as many are arguing it should be, you don’t even make the most simple form of the sound. Instead, you are pronounce it in a consonant blend. Pronouncing it “hay” would make a lot more sense.
Why not just get a group of high-brow, snobbish people together and form a committee to put some controls on this language? Oh yeah, that’s what the French did, and we see how well that’s worked. ;-)
haych?
The British made the language, if you dont like it, go speak french
The pronounciation as ‘haitch’ is not so much an English trait as a personal one, I have encountered that pronounciation from all nationalities around the UK; although in my experience ‘aitch’ is the predominant form. I can only assume that those who say ‘haitch’ are doing their bit for the environment and recycling all the letter ‘H’s that our cousins in the US insist on dropping from the pronounciation of the word ‘herb’.
As for the phone, if it had a bigger screen and better connectivity it would be a sure thing, as it is, though…