HTC HD2 or HERO??

Any object, particularly one that you use on an almost continuous basis should, primarily, do the job it was designed for. Any other functions should be a welcome addition... It seems that with the new generation smart phones, the more gadgets the phone has, the better the phone and some work very well indeed - this one however, does not! Making a call takes longer than cooking a Christmas turkey and by the time you connect, you've forgotten why you were calling the person in the first place. If you manage to work through the dreadful interface, heaven help you if you have to enter a number in response to call system options... The HTC touch flow system tries hard to make up for the inadequacies of the rest of the system by allowing you to use a finger to navigate... However... once you select an option, you have to use the fiddly stylus in conjunction with text so small you need a microscope to read it... The touch sensitive screen is vague at best and mine has needed repair within a few months of purchase. Don't worry about trying to text and drive with this phone... It's hard enough whilst your sitting at a desk. There is no voice dialling - or at least not as I can find - and the maximum volume makes calls in busy environments impossible. The web browser is yet another area which is anything but intuitive. Overall - don't touch this phone with a long handled toilet brush!

Cheers Frankie, had mine a few weeks now and have to say a majority of the well know faults have not appeared on mine albiet the speaker is a little on the thin & tinny side sound wise but still audible. Like you i was spoiled by the very good quality of the Samsung in this department, i had the Tocco F480 but i found battery life and the meter reading deplorable plus texting a nightmare with the touchscreen numeric keypad layout.

I have had no probs with YouTube either, not sure what the issue is meant to be with that?

Not had it crash once on me once either, even when pushing the ram much as i can.
The only thing i am finding with this smart phone is knowing the reports the battery with heavy use would last around a 1.5 - 2 days, in my world with medium use i need to charge on a daily basis usually overnight, overwise i would be running on empty the following day, so it surprises me they have not managed to innovate a type battery that can do a few days or two at the very least.

Apart from that and i am a experienced phone teccy when it comes to navigating, this phone has been like trying to tame a stallion with all the criss cross inerweaved Sense me and Windows systems merging with many different routes to achieve the same thing takes some time to figure out and remember to really get this phone tweaked to make this a usefull tool, once done though it is a joy to use (only due to the HTC UI) and much prefer this to the i-phone in many respects.

Just hope mine does not do a H.A.L at some point and behave's!

Have to say i have had mine now for a few weeks and have not had any of those problems at all and that was before i done a ROM update, did you do one of them? fixed a lot of bugs
apparentley.

My phone has the phone book tab bottom corner, then select all people and choose the letter of the contact and select the person which gives you the option to call, text or email, which is not to different to any of the many brand phones i have encountered which is not to hard or time consuming in my opinion, plus you also have the favourite people tabs page to store your most used contacts and not forgetting there is still old fashioned speed dialling available.
When connecting it is a lot faster than some other makes also i could mention so mine must be a microwave when cooking... ping!

I would have to say my hands are not the smallest, but i have not trouble with touching icons and text unless in browser mode then you have the zoom function to adjust screen/font size on display but i have never needed the need to use the stylus if with the smaller icons.

Plus one of the biggest worries for me was texting after my first touchscreen being the Tocco (bad experience) and this is easy even in portrait mode with querty and most of the time very accurate if not holding with one hand and using my thumb as that tends to allow for more error in striking wrong letter.
For me it is close to and almost as good as the I-phone for typing.

I find the speaker in load environments very good and cohearant, just a tad scratchy like the previous poster had mentioned.

contd...

As for voice diallng, it never has stated it does, but then i done my homework on what it can and can't do before i maje a purchase ; ).
And which browser did you use and what fo you not find intuitive about it?

It comes with Explorer and Opera for starters and can have other browser providers installed so should be just as good as usingsay Safari on the i-phone if you find the right browser that suits you best.

I can think of worse than the Opera or explorer on this lovely 4.3 inch screen, what screen do you need, 42" plasma? lol

So maybe you had model with the bugs on by the sounds of it as the last ROM update came out i think in December time to fix a lot of issues.

Only time will tell if i get anything develop fault wise, but a lot of the issues come out of the box and need firmware upgrades as it is all software driven.

The Sony Ericcsson Aino & Idou where recalled because they had major issues with their software and had to have new software overhaul installed to resolve the problems, and they are good phones in their own right minus the sofware issue, but they are dead in the water now as their reputation goes before them.

I must say it takes quite a while longer to overcome the mix up of HTC Sense UI (on it's own great) and the Windows Mobile system, but once mastered this is a logical system for the basics once you know your shortcuts and best routes and does things with a bit more common sene than other phones i have seen that class themselves as a "Smart" phone.