Sprint Hero vs Droid

[wbbgjr]

I have both devices in front of me for at least the next 3 hours.

If you have any questions if you are thinking about switching then let me know and I will test it out.

My initial impressions after 1 hour is:

- Droid on-screen keyboard is easier to type on. Seems more sensitive and the bigger screen means the keys are bigger. I miss HTC's compact qwerty and the awesome predictive ability of the compact qwerty, however, the on-screen full qwerty in the Droid in portrait mode is better than the hero.

-Definitely can feel the Droid's faster processor. Webpages load faster. I think this is a cpu thing because that's the bottleneck so i doubt software updates will let hero ever catch up.

- I was able to play with the Eris in the Verizon store. It's essentially the Verizon version of the Hero. I like the Eris better than the Sprint Hero version. The phone and end buttons are not lodged in the middle of the other buttons so you don't accidentally hit the other ones. It's important when you are hitting the button without looking at it.

- I like the way the Hero looks much better, but the Droid is not bad. It's much better than what the pictures on the internet shows. My opinion only of course.

 

[johninbigd]

I'm getting a Droid, but my boss got an Eris this morning and I have to say it's a pretty darn cool phone. I really like it a lot.

 

[Aerimus]

Yeah, I went in really excited about the Droid, and left really excited about the Eris. I think I'll wait and pray for the HTC Passion though.

 

[wbbgjr]

Yup. The HTC Sense user interface is very nice. Hopefully, with the home programs, the Droid will look a little better and still retain the speediness and great battery life.

That reminds me. There is a lag on the home screen for the Droid when you swipe to see the other home screens (there's 3 in total). However, it really doesn't hurt anything functionally and I don't think it slows me down to get to where I want to go. It's just aesthetics. Weird how it lags there but the other apps are faster then the hero. Hopefully, there's a software fix in the future.

 

[derrickonline]

I have used the Sprint Hero, and MyTouch as well.

And now I own a Droid. Gave up my Palm Pre.

I can confirm that it's not only the processor that makes the browser load so much faster. It's the changes made in Android 2.0. I believe if they port that same browser code to 1.5 or 1.6 you'll see similar improvements.

 

[wbbgjr]

Both the Hero and the Droid have 5 megapixels camera.

Not to repeat and harp on what the reviewers all said, but, yes, the camera is not as good as the Hero's.

The graininess is pretty bad if you zoom in. It's obviously good enough for emails, facebook, and standard websites. In fact, it'll look decent since you won't see the graininess at all if it's not blown up.

Maybe there's a software fix? Maybe it's the compression algorithm? One can only hope it's not the hardware itself.

One thing to note though is that the camera's lens on the Droid looks like it's not removable. Meaning if it's scratched up then you're camera is screwed. And the Droid's lens is not recessed very far in so when you put it down on a table, it seems like it can easily be scratched. On the Hero, the camera's outside lens is actually part of the cover. If the lens becomes scratched up you can always replace the cover and it should be fine.

 

[wbbgjr]

Just took a few more test shots with the regular camera app, with snap photo, and with camera magic, and then some with the Hero.

The picture quality in sunlight is close, with Hero still being a bit better. The hero also has the option to select brightness and saturation right from the camera program.

In the shadows, there's no contest. The hero kills the Droid. there's so much noise in the Droid's photos. I believe this is a hardware issue. Very dissapointing.

I felt like Camera Magic and Snap Photo were faster at taking the pics and processing it then the regular camera app.

Anyone know of a camera program that allows you to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, etc?

 

[lexshero]

Its interesting to hear peoples opinions about phones, the best phone is the one you like the best, i personaly think the droid looks sexy, i think the eris is a terrable looking phone, especialy from the back, not a goid looking version of the hero. Iv owned a palm pre, palm pro, touch diamond, touch pro 2, mytouch 3g, iphone 3gs, and now the sprint hero, best phone to me is my sprint hero, but i can go on for ab hour about how each phone iv had is better at something than the next one, just gotta find a phone youthink is sexy thats best at the features you like best, no phone is best at all of them

 

[lexshero]

Oh yeah la@t thing, hero has the best soft keyboard iv used, i dissagree that the droids is better, the droids is a larger screened version of the mytouch, not close to the hero althou its descent, and unfortunatly, the droid physical keyboard is not even kind of good compared to something like a touch pro 2, but. like i say, no phone has all the best features, im liking android, and im happy to see phobes coming out ;-)