Samsung Moment vs. HTC Hero

Just my two cents on Sprint’s two (so far…) Android phones…

As a longtime Sprint customer, I waited patiently for an Android phone to arrive. The HTC Hero was finally announced and the Samsung Moment shortly after. At first glance, the Hero was a much slicker device — both in hardware and software. Coming from a Blackberry though, I was hoping for a real keyboard.

A friend ( who owns some HTC Windoze phone with a slide out keyboard… ) convinced me that slide out keyboards weren’t worth the extra thickness, so I jumped on the Hero as soon as it was released. And I was not disappointed. The Hero is a very cool device with a nice interface. HTC has done some cool things to pretty up the standard Android interface and give it some of the eye candy we’ve come to expect from modern OSes.

So, the day the Samsung Moment came out, I went and made the switch. According to the sales rep, you can exchange ONCE in the first 30 days. And boy am I glad I did. The Samsung is MUCH faster! It boots faster, loads apps and web pages faster, and it is much more responsive to screen gestures.

The Keyboard — I couldn’t get past the virtual keyboard on the Hero. My gigantic thumbs didn’t quite get along with the little buttons – especially in portrait mode. And the auto correction it rams down your throat was a saving grace in some instances, but a curse in others. If you weren’t paying attention it would auto correct a word to something completely different and you might not notice until your message was long gone.

The Screen — the AMOLED screen on the Moment is as bright and vibrant as advertised. The Samsung definitely wins with 16.7 million colors compared to 65k on the Hero. AMOLED is supposed to consume less power too. Check goes to the Moment.

HTC Hero

The Interface — HTC’s SenseUI is pretty cool. The social networking integration was pretty nice — it was nice to connect my Google contacts to Facebook and have it use people’s profile pics, update their status in the contact list etc. HTC wins in this category… if you care about that sort of thing. I don’t. Even on my desktop — I run a minimal desktop with all the eye candy stuff turned off. Performance is much more important to me. The Moment sports a plain ol’ vanilla Android interface.

The Camera — HTC wins here too — 5MP compared to 3.2MP on the Moment. But again… not important to me. I’ve rarely used the camera on any phone I’ve owned. Not sure why… I’ve probably missed some good memories. If you take a lot of cell phone pics, check goes to the Hero.

So for me, the Samsung is the better phone — the speed, screen, improved reception and slide out keyboard win out over thickness, weight and a boring interface.

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