Android Initiation
In August of this year I was adopted into the Android family sold my Nokia N95 8GB (after replacement post beer immersion) for a decent sum using the massively over-advertised service MazumaMobile. After a fair bit of research I was attracted to the Samsung i7500 (Galaxy), but after waiting a number of months for its delayed release, went with the HTC Hero instead.
The HTC Hero with Sense UI
In hindsight this was without doubt the best decision due to a few reasons:
- it’s the first Droid with custom UI (SenseUI), and while slow/buggy at first has moved in leaps and bounds since (now other manufacturers have their own UI
- the developer community supporting HTC Android devices helps with update and optimisations
- hype around the Hero and its release (as well as an ‘award’) have made it very popular boosting community support
- right from the start there’s been a few dedicated devs who’ve been releasing custom made and highly optimised ROM’s/kernels based on pre-released HTC and Google builds
- did I mention SenseUI yet?
In contrast, the Galaxy has a large OLED screen with fantastically vibrant colour output and clarity, but there’s just no dev community and the hype has all but died since its initial release.
The Samsung Galaxy i7500 with stock Android UI
Stating the obvious, but one of the things that makes Android a great platform and sets it apart from the iPhones, Symbians and Blackberrys of the world is its open nature and customisability which doesn’t help when there’s no developer community to hack away at kernel compilation, optimise builds and boot process, make customised themes or cross breed apps/software accross other Android devices.
With Motorola Milestone, Sony Experia X10 and a multitude of models from Acer, Dell, HP (some big names in the computing industry there!) as well as a whole list of upcoming HTC Droids, the next few years is looking exciting.
Stay tuned for a series of posts about the Hero, and its hackery.
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Analytical Genius
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