HTC Hero S (U.S. Cellular)

The HTC Hero S ($199.99) is probably misnamed; it's more of a hero's sidekick. The real leader of U.S. Cellular's?smartphone?lineup is the more powerful Motorola Electrify ($199.99, 4.5 stars), our current Editors' Choice. Given that the Electrify and Hero S are the same price, it makes it tough to choose the HTC model. Even so, the Hero S is a solid Android device, particularly if you're fond of HTC's Sense UI layer, or have an aversion to Motorola's controversial PenTile display on the Electrify.

Design, Call Quality, and Apps
Like many other Android phones, the Hero S is a nondescript slab with a glass touch screen that measures 4.5 by 2.4 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.6 ounces. It's made of a mixture of dark gray aluminum and plastic, with an aluminum piece in the center of the back panel. The 4-inch, 540-by-960-pixel (qHD) capacitive touch screen looks sharp and crisp; if you're particular about the way your fonts look, you'll like this display more than the one on the Electrify. Four capacitive touch buttons sit beneath the screen. Typing using HTC's upgraded on-screen QWERTY keyboard was easy in both portrait and landscape modes. I usually prefer HTC's keyboard to other Android phones, thanks to its well-tuned haptic feedback and predictive text algorithm.

The Hero S is a dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. Call quality was mixed; in back to back comparisons with the Electrify, the Hero S sounded thinner and more computerized through the microphone. The earpiece tone was okay, if slightly harsh. Reception was also below average. There were some audible dropouts in calls with this phone that I didn't experience with the Electrify in the same spot. Calls sounded clear through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129, 4 stars). Voice dialing worked over Bluetooth, but it was hopeless; it always heard my test phone number incorrectly. The speakerphone went pretty loud, but it distorted at the top two volume settings and had an unpleasant, piercing quality. Battery life was good at 6 hours and 12 minutes of talk time.

There are seven customizable home screens; you can either sweep between them one by one, or swipe quickly to send them all flying by. There's a lot of bloatware, which makes for a cluttered main menu. While you get separate categories for downloaded apps and frequently used apps, you can't create your own app folders. The combination of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and the single-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor make for solid, if decidedly midrange performance. Our benchmark tests indicated the Hero S is fine for casual use, but low frame rates mean gamers should look elsewhere. The Android Market offers over 250,000 third-party apps, most of which should run nicely on the HTC Hero S provided they support the qHD screen.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
HTC houses the microSD card slot underneath the small bottom portion of the battery cover; my 32GB SanDisk card worked fine, and there's also 1.07GB of free internal storage. A standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack sits on the top edge. Music tracks sounded clear through Samsung Modus HM6450 Bluetooth headphones ($99, 4 stars). HTC's music player app is fun to use and offers a smoothly animated jukebox-style display. Standalone videos looked sharp and brilliant in full screen mode, including DivX and Xvid files, but only up to 720p; the Hero S refused to play any 1080p files I tried.?

The 5-megapixel auto-focus camera includes an LED flash and an F2.2 lens; there's also a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video chats. Test photos with the rear camera were sharp and balanced, if not particularly detailed, both indoors and out. The weak flash helped a bit, but the auto setting was calibrated conservatively; it almost never came on in my tests. Shutter speeds were quick. Recorded 1280-by-720-pixel (720p) videos were a little shaky, averaging 20 frames per second, and looked excessively dark in indoor rooms; step down to one of the lower settings (960-by-540-pixel or 640-by-480-pixel) and you get better results.

So the Hero S is a solid Android phone, and one that would have been top notch less than a year ago. But today, the Hero S falls short of the Motorola Electrify, which offers better voice quality, faster performance, and a larger screen. The Electrify lacks the Hero S's HTC Sense UI, though, and the Electrify's PenTile display isn't quite as sharp as the HTC panel. Other alternatives: The year-old Samsung Mesmerize ($49.99, 4.5 stars) has a single-core processor like the Hero and is now much less expensive, but that processor is a bit slower, and the Mesmerize is a version behind with Android. Finally, the HTC Merge ($149.99, 4 stars) is essentially a Hero S with a slide-out, hardware QWERTY keyboard. But the Merge also doesn't run the latest version of Android, and at seven ounces, it's one of the heaviest phones we've reviewed in recent memory.

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 6 hours 12 minutes

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