I have had this phone for four days and it is a very good all-round phone apart from one or two minor points. It is easy to set up and use with almost intuitive menus and prompts. I have had minor problems with the phone menu list in that it is so easy to dial someone by mistake when scrolling through the lists. Maybe I am 'hamfisted' but it does concern me. Secondly cosmetics, because of the white colour it stains easily especially when using the cheap leather case supplied with the accessory kit. Mine has already a blue/black stain along the contact areas with the case. Get any colour other than white!! Apart from that it is an excellent phone. Is it an i-phone beater? We shall see.

The HTC Hero is a little hero indeed, it has an excellent user interface and has so much potential, the camera is mid-range (5m, no flash) but the scope of applications is fantastic, being open source you can even pickup the Android developers manual and start coding your own little app! Enabling the wifi/gps/bluetooth is so easy using the on-screen toggle widgets. The new HTC Sense (virtual desktops) is great, it allows you to setup a number of screens with different app's running, simply swiping your finger across the screen switches the visible screen, nicely animated too. Android itself is still developing, it's looking good now but still has some way to go. The HTC Hero hardware is very good, the compass technology (not sure what the sensor is called) is okay, GPS is good but very hungry. The screen can contain *stuck* pixels, I sent my first phone back and the second phone has a stuck pixel too... not annoying enough this time to send back though ;-) Certainly a worth while investment to enter the Android world, the market place is fantastic! Google/HTC rock!

I just purchased this to replace an HTC Touch Diamond that I have only had since March. The Diamond was very frustrating to use but this is an amazing phone. Everything works really well and the phone is very responsive. Typing on the onscreen keyboard is easy and the auto correction works well. If you value your sanity buy this over the Windows Mobile devices you will not regret it.