Jim’s Blog

April 9th has come and gone with no Sprint Android 2.1 upgrade for my HTC Hero phone. So, all those rumors flying around the past few weeks have been wrong. Maybe next week? We’ll just have to wait and see.

The rumors have been flying the last couple of weeks that today (9 April) is the day for the Hero Android 2.1 update from Sprint. We are now almost 3/4 through the day and still no upgrade available. So far, the rumors have not panned out. I’m looking forward to the increased battery life and being able to answer the phone by just swiping across the screen. The voice to text will also be a great added feature. I can wait, but the upgrades will be nice to have.

Several sources are now saying that Sprint will upgrade to Android version 2.1 on April 9th – next Friday.

• news.handhelditems.com
• evdoinfo.com
• phonesreview.co.uk
• androinica.com
• phandroid.com
• androidguys.com

Sprint will be coming out with their new 4th Generation (4G) phone this summer. It will be the first 4G phone on the market. This phone has both a 3G and 4G radio, so it will operate in 3G mode if 4G is not available. This is larger than both the HTC Hero and Apple iPhone and comes with the new Android 2.1 O/S. Screen resolution is 480 x 800 pixels.

For the past year, I have been carrying both a cellphone and an iPod Touch. I’ve been thinking, “Why am I carrying two devices?” I checked into the iPhone. This is the logical progression from the iPod Touch, since it is the same thing as an iPhone without the phone. The iPhone is a little pricey, and so is the monthly plan at AT&T.

Then two weeks ago, our son Curtis got an HTC Hero Android phone. We are both on the Sprint Network. After looking into the Android features, I found a lot of features and free apps that I like. Then I found an ad in the Sunday paper for the Sprint HTC Hero on sale at Best Buy for $79.99. This was too good an offer to pass up – considering that Sprint wants $149.99 with a mail-in rebate. No rebate at Best Buy – just $79.99. that was really a terrific price. Our monthly plan is $129.99 for TWO phones with unlimited text and data.

It’s 10 days later and I’ve downloaded a bunch of apps, loaded a lot of MP3 and M4A music. Now I’ll have to get a 16GB micro-SDHC card to replace the 2GB one that came with the phone. Right now, the cheapest place I’ve found to buy this phone is on Amazon.com. The last I checked, Amazon’s price was $59.99 with a new plan.