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HTC Hero

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The HTC Hero and The Samsung Moment Android Phones

THE COMING OF THE ANDROIDS

For a very long time, it did seem that the king of the PDA phones was Blackberry by "RIM", Research in Motion.  Instead of just talking and listening, or even texting, the Blackberry has long added email, and a synchronizing of calendar and tasks with computers for business people.  Palm gave Blackberry some competition in this, and the two formed the cellular PDAs of choice for business people.

Then as we know, then entered the touch phones.  The iPHONE which stayed with ATT never to be seen anywhere else it seems, and then its copies - such as the Sprint Samsung Instinct, and Instinct s30 along with others.  The first touch screens were fun, but in our honest opinion, the first had some issues.  They were pricey and sometimes when one touched the screen, they did not get what they wanted.  We engineers sometimes call that the "bleeding edge of technology".  But as these touch phones were done and redone, of course the technology got perfected.  So where are we now?

I am certain that you will find different opinions on this, but we at About Wireless find the most interesting cell phones of this generation to be the "Android Phones".  Android is a software company owned by Google.  Unlike Apple who only allow iPhone technology to be used for Apple, Googe allows its android cell phone operating system to be used by other manufacturers - such as HTC (the Hero), Samsung (the Moment) and Motorola has an android phone coming out for Sprint.  The question in our mind is this:  Is history going to repeat?  Apple kept their computer system only for themselves while IBM pc allowed others to use their operating system.  While Apple may have begun its on screen visual computer system, the pc to an extent copied it but also did their own thing and became far more popular and far more widespread.  Also, over time, much more software was written for the pc type computers than for Mac, simply because there was many more computers pc based out there.  So our question is - since the Android system is used by multiple suppliers, over time, who will have more applications? - the system called iPhone which allows only one manufacturer - or the android system which will be used by many manufacturers?  We believe that history will repeat and more applications will be available for the android - and that more features perhaps of other kinds also will also want to accommodate this system that is certain to be widespread.

So, what features do you have?  Well of course, talk and listen, and texting, and email (preferred via google mail than outlook), plus of course internet, tv and navigation.  Okay, you say, Blackberry does that.  But in addition, the androids also will do screen applications such as solitaire and many serious applications - many of which in fact are downloadable for free.  Not a bad price, eh? - this free application stuff?  So these are business plus phones.

Which is better?  The HTC or the Samsung?  Depends on the person.  One of the first limitations of touch screen cell phones was accuracy during keyboard texting.  The newer touch screen phones, such as these are better, but perhaps some customers will be suspicious.  For those customers, the pull out full qwerty keyboard of the Samsung Moment solve that nervousness.  So that would be the choice of the pragmatic, so to speak, who just want to ensure everything works.  For the adventurous, there is the HTC Hero at about half the size and weight (seems that way to use - we did not measure size or weight) but uses an on screen keyboard.  In addition to all of this, these android cell phones sport multiple screens - that you can personalize.