• Deleting multiple contacts – To delete multiple contacts, with reference to the official HTC Hero manual (Pg 70), navigate to the main ‘People’ list, press the Menu button, then select ‘Delete contacts’, which will allow you to select multiple contacts to delete.

• Deleting all contacts (from Google Contacts sync) – One of the first things I did with my Hero was to login to my Google account. This resulted in almost everything being imported – including all the contacts I have ever emailed.   To make a fresh start, select ‘Settings’ then ‘Applications’, ‘Manage Applications’ then ‘Contacts Storage’ and select ‘Clear data’. Please bear in mind this deletes all your contacts.

• Troubleshooting – Syncing the HTC Hero calendar with Google Calendar – Events in my Google Calendar are automatically displayed by my Hero. However, I could never see the events I added on the HTC Hero online. It turns out the simple trick – as pointed out by TeaLeaf – is to select the relevant ‘Google’ calendar at the top when you first add the event via your Hero (and not My Calendar) so that the next time you login to your Google Calendar – hey presto!

One thing I have to give credit to Orange UK for is that, at a superficial user level at least, they have given the user (me) what seems to be the ‘full’ HTC Hero Android experience with this phone.  To put this comment into context, my last phone – the LG ViewTY – had so many Orange UK customisations, the interface barely resembled what everyone else was reviewing!

The ROM, alas, is not the latest version released (I am told and have read that it improves the speed of the phone and the camera quality) which is strange, given that the ROM Upgrade for Orange (2.73.61.5) came out on 18th September 2009, and I only got my phone last week.

I have noticed the odd freeze, so maybe a ROM upgrade is due at some point. I will cover my attempt at upgrading the ROM in a future post. It will be a landmark first attempt for mildly techie me, so fingers crossed. The installation instructions look quite bewildering!

Before I start, one of the most useful websites is HTC’s own FAQ section, which can be found here (click on Product Support on the left to find FAQs for e.g. the US Sprint version):

http://www.htc.com/uk/faq_detail.aspx?p_id=283&act=faq&cat=0

• Getting rid of icons in the top bar – I installed some apps from the ‘Market’ place of Android, and this resulted in some icons appearing in the top bar. These are called ‘Notifications’ and can be removed by pressing the  ‘Menu’ button and selecting ‘Notifications’ to show the list.
• Copying and Pasting – Useful when copying and pasting email addresses or phone numbers, but not necessarily instinctive. With thanks to Gizmodo for the info, hold down your finger on the text/number/input box until a context menu appears.
• Removing a widget from the HTC Hero - Like copying and pasting, you should hold down your finger on the app until the option to ‘remove’ it appears. This is also applicable when you want to reposition the widget.

I really love my HTC Hero although, at present, the only gripe is that the Calendar app isn’t perfect.  This has also been discussed on Androidforums.com – the HTC Hero calendar  widget allows you to display just a day’s worth of ‘to-do’s as via the agenda format of the widget; or you get the entire month of dates as a calendar – not exactly useful if you have something ‘to-do’ almost everyday and want to see a few days in one go!

Nevertheless, I have been really impressed by the Hero’s capabilities. The original ‘Home’ setup is so lovely I haven’t had the heart to customise even the wallpaper yet. I am looking forward to finding more to do with the Hero, and before the next mini post, I would like to recommend Abduction as an excellent Android game for download if you haven’t already got it.

p/s: My Orange data bundle doesn’t start till November 1st, so will talk about connecting via Orange to the net in future posts.

Bryan (or Brian) was a lovely gentleman who had, as he put it, only started working for Orange for 6 weeks – strangely knowledgable about the Orange UK upgrade system though.

Anyway, this was the final deal that he was able to offer:

• HTC Hero handset at £20 (one off payment)
• 18 month contract at £25 per month (Dolphin 25 Websave (18mth))
• 400 minutes
• Unlimited texts
• 500MB data/internet

The actual contract for talk time and texts is only £20 per month, so the extra £5 is for the so called ‘unlimited’ internet data package from Orange UK (which does pale in comparison to T-Mobile’s typical 3gb offer)

This works out to be £26.40 per month over 18 months.  Apparently my ‘loyalty’ to Orange meant that the phone, which would normally have cost £100, was only £20.  Still don’t know what to make of that, but hopefully this information will come in useful for others.

In hindsight, I would have loved to get this on a 12 month contract (which meant paying £35-40 online) and really should have asked how much discount my loyalty would get. Ah well.

Looking forward to the delivery next week (not through Royal Mail!) although the actual contract will only start next month. Looks as though I’ll have to start learning to use the phone using the inbuilt WIFI instead!

This is probably the smoothest upgrade I’ve had since I’ve been with Orange, and it would be great to find out the experience of others.  So if you are upgrading/buying a new HTC Hero on Orange, please let me know how it goes!

Having watched the lovely Connor from Orange UK demonstrating the phone (below):

it turns out that with a 4.1″ WVGA screen and a 1Ghz CPU, it makes it the fastest phone with the widest screen in the UK at present, yet surprisingly, it only weighs a featherlight 129g and is a mere (some say impossible) 9.9mm in depth. It has Windows Mobile 6.1 installed although this is upgradeable to 6.5, and before I forget – it even has a 3.2 MegaPixel AutoFocus camera.

ITPro‘s Maggie Holland gave the phone a 4 page review and reckoned that if this was Toshiba’s first generation smart phone offering, then we should really look forward to in their 2nd generation. Will Park at IntoMobile did a video hands-on review on Youtube and the phone did look incredibly sleek next to his iPhone 3g, but the current User Interface menu (not Toshiba’s User Interface by the way in this review) seems to be more than complex, although Windows Mobile 6.5 seems to have simplified the interface in this review by Noah at PhoneDog.com.

The Toshiba TG01 will be FREE for those happy to take out a 24 month contract at &pound 39.15 per month. This will give you

• 1200 any network call minutes
• Unlimited texts
• Orange Maps
• Inclusive anytime internet browsing
• Free 8-GB MicroSD card

Not unlike the contract offered for the HTC Hero and yet another LONG tie-in.

However, one comment by SteviDVD caught my attention, as he said that:

I got a message from Orange to say that it will be out within a week but didn’t give a date as it is still in testing.
I think it will be coming out on contract before sim only.

I think I might have to join the legions of people ringing up Orange on a daily basis to find out when this phone is going to be launched! Clearly the most desirable phones – HTC Hero and the Nokia N97 – are so in demand that the mobile operators are finding it difficult to get them out on time.

Sadly, as I am now into the first 15 days of my SIM only 30 day rolling Dolphin 20 contract, it will be at least another 2.5 months before I will be able to upgrade.

More information about the phone can be found here and the phone is listed as pay monthly from free. However, the devasting news for Nokia N97 fans is that, according to TradingMarkets.com, Orange UK staff have been told that sadly, Orange will not have stock for another 3 weeks.

p/s: According to a thread on AVforums, this might possibly be due to the phones failing Orange’s tests and so they needed to be returned.

Orange UK made a press release on 9th July 2009 announcing that they will be the first European mobile operator to introduce mini SIM cards to customers in a bid to reduce the amount of waste produced by a standard SIM card by half.

The solution?  Embed two SIM cards per current credit-card sized plastic holder instead of just one. According to Orange, the standard SIM card takes up a mere 10% (of  the material) used for the plastic holder.

Their press release states that a trial run of these new mini SIM cards with some pay monthly customers has already begun, and they will be rolling these out to all other customers in the future.

Even though I’m not a super avid environmentalist, this sounds like fantastic news, since really – what do we all do with that leftover bit of plastic once we pop out the SIM card?

I’m assuming these mini SIM cards will probably cost a little more to produce in the short term, but once the templating machines are up and running, I personally would love to receive one of these mini-me versions.

p/s: I suppose Mini SIM cards sound much more catchy than ‘reduction of SIM card plastic holder size’. I really thought they were referring to possible Mini-SD card sizes at first!

Image courtesy of Pocket-lint

I might well pop in to one of their branches in the next few weeks to see how it compares to the graphite version that will be launched exclusively and directly by Orange UK.

It seems the unofficial ’7th July 2009′ release date wasn’t quite true… it’s still showing as Coming soon… on their website. Very disappointing.

However, according to a recent comment by Robzor on the Engadget comment section for the most recent HTC Hero entry, it seems that the phone will – unofficially – be released on July 7th 2009?

Just spoke to a guy at Orange, “unofficial release date is July 7th” according to him, and he advised going to a retail store sometime in the next 5-7 days as they will get them first.

I’m tempted to visit an Orange Shop tomorrow just to see if this is true. In the meantime, visit the link above for more user comments or have a look at a similar comment thread on Android Phone Fans debating the pros and cons of Orange UK and T-Mobile‘s contracts for the HTC Hero.

p/s: It seems Mobile Industry Review’s Jonathan Mulholland got his hands on an Orange UK exclusive ‘graphite’ HTC Hero demo unit for a very brief moment!