Okay folks, today I went to my nearby SPRINT store to check on the HERO.
I spent about good 20 minutes on that phone. ( sorry limited review).
Of course I had my Pre with me for comparison purposes.

Pre is better than Hero in the following areas

Browser Speed

FWIW , HERO's browser was good, bad and ugly. The rendering times were indifferent. Sometimes they were quick , other times the phone seemed like calling Mountain View (Google) for instructions if not Taiwan (HTC). Rendering was slow overall.
I checked engadget, gizmo, NYT, CNN, precentral and few car dealership sites ( that was SPRINT STORE girl's idea, she said the car dealership sites have heavy images , flash ... etc). Speaking of flash , hmm, thanks but no thanks I will wait for the full version on my Pre.

To summarize , rendering times were a good 5 seconds slower than Pre. Pre ran circles around Hero in the browser cache department. The cache worked like magic for frequently used sites.

Small note to Dan Hesse, sir, when your store connection switches between 1 Rt to EVDO to roaming in 5mins , how do you expect new customers to buy all these cool phones ? UnDependable 3G NOW network !!!! hmmm.

Multi Tasking

On the Hero the home page had 5 panels which switch between. But when you are have two open apps say Email and browser open , you cannot "JUMP" from Email to Browser with single user action ( "click" or "Tap" or "Press" ... or whatever). To jump back and forth between the apps you have to press the back button then use either screen panel or track ball.

On the Pre , hmm should I explain that again ? you folks are knowledgeable I am sure you knew the answer, "ADVANCED GESTURES".
Thank you very much Google/HTC for the big track ball and back button but I love my swipes.
Out of habit I swiped couple of times on Hero.

Full marks to PALM for the gestures feature.

Camera

Pre's Camera is quick , you can take continuous shots with almost no lag. Hero's camera is slow between shots. Takes a good 5 - 10 seconds between the shots. Also the quality of the pictures on Pre is much better than the Hero.
Don't pay attention to all those biased reviews about HERO's 5 M.P camera and such. If you don't trust me , go to any sprint store and check it for yourself.
Pre wins in this area by a wide margin.

Folks if shot to shot speed is very important to you , don't even buy Hero.

Universal Search

This one is one of the best feature of the Pre. I couldn't search the apps and address book entries ( there were only three or four on the DEMO) by using the keyboard on the Hero, may be there is something in the settings that I am not aware of.


Okay let me tell you the things I felt better in the Hero over the Pre

The screen

While I love the Pre's screen , I was amazed at the glass capacitive screen of the Hero. The quality of the glass and the touch responses were precise. The screen looked little bigger than the Pre and it was almost iPhonesque. Full marks to HTC here. I can't wait to see the Touch HD2 ( or Leo) in 2010. I am sure APPLE is watching.


Build Quality

Build quality is absolutely the best of all the available SPRINT phones. Though the gap is narrow when compared to the blackberrys and the Touch Pro2s. But it can beat them in the screen department, back door, quality of the button panel and the click feel of the track ball. To me it looks like a phone built to last ( I mean at least 1 year without any complaints ).
Someone please fix the Pre's gluteus maximus .
I just can't stand the OEM back door. It looks like PALM ordered the door from the cheap Chinese manufacturers who makes those fake phones.
I felt the quality of plastic in the dollar stores to be much better than the Pre's back cover.

SD Card Expansion

Well Pre looses this one. nuff said.

Trackball

This is the best feature of the phone. Not only the tracking is precise, the click has a good feel to it. I dare say the Hero eats BB. First Hero's got a bigger ball than BB , second, the click gives a good feedback than BB.
Also it looked like the ball is not going to be stuck in the hole after a month usage. You almost get a sense of holding an iphone with a blackberry track ball. The package of the screen and track ball is that good.

Pre looses badly here. May be PALM will convert the center button to the trackball.

Summary

I would not buy the Hero ,
First , browsing on the phone is very important to me. Hero's browser is slow , rendering is not smooth.
Second the UI,swipes and cards implementation on the Pre are serious time savers. I wouldn't want to give up these things for the Hero.

Having said that , Hero is very capable phone. Especially folks who are coming out of contracts from their INSTICNKS would be amazed by this phone.

I have to admit you , the big trackball on the Hero is something I would desperately want on my Pre.

Just a FYI, if you want to compare browser speed you have to disable flash in the hero and then compare.

Otherwise good preview.

Can you tell me some of those things the pre does better?

Thanks, I will do that.
I would want Palm to add an inch to Pixie,
increase the processor, add wifi, replace the plastic screen with glass, add SD slot and finally a trackball.
Call it Pixie Pro.
here is my $ 299 for a pre order.

You forgot one very important point to consider about each phone: Their respective app libraries. HTC Hero has access to Google's android app market where users can find thousands of apps. Pre on the other hand has only about 100 or so official apps and close to 250 homebrew apps at this time.

Also, did you get an idea about the Hero's battery life?

ya I think I may be trading my pre for a hero tomorrow, like the pre and will probably go back to the pre when the Pre2 is released but I just can't wait for more apps to be released

Think you left out the kb. Trying to get the wife to switch to an iphone (from the Pre) to be on one plan but she doesn't want a virtual kb.

Like you said, a pixie pro would be a winner. Going cheaper when the 8gb Pre is already headed there seems like a waste of time to me.

Nope, it was about 20 minutes, But I have to tell you the battery icon was about 80-90% mark when I picked the phone by the time I was done it was close to the quarter mark.

I haven't checked the APP library.
Sure Android has a bigger market. I am not worried about it now.
In couple of months Pre will reach 500 apps. Pre's apps are better than many current platforms. I know the old timers here disagree with me. But PALM OS is history. So no point arguing that they had better APPS. If you compare WebOS , Iphone, Android and BB, WebOS is the youngest of them all while BB is the oldest OS. And the fact that there is one fart app in a total of 250 will speak for the mindset of the developers and the choices of the Pre users. I love the fact that Precentral is helping the WebOS with homebrew Apps.
The SPRINT store staff were praising the Hero until I showed them the virtual keyboard. They were amazed ( their mouths were open for a good 10 seconds ), I told them to join our forum.
Lets wait and see how PALM can provide updates. Particularly I am waiting on the FLASH.

I got the Hero yesterday and battery life was horrible on the first day. My phone was fully charged at 11pm, I left wifi on and when I woke up at 6:30am my phone was dead. I'll continue to use my Hero and switch back and forth with the Pre. I love the build quality on the Hero but WebOs is still the best Os.

Errr I wouldn't want the trackball, give me the 5 way Nav pad back. My brother has a blackberry and he always has to go in, remove the trackball and clean the dust it builds up in there. Otherwise yes, Hero is looking very nice indeed.

I was playing with a Hero at the Sprint store today myself. I am actually considering getting it, because I love how the phone feels in your hand! The virtual keyboard is actually better than the iPhone, in my opinion, and I like the screen better than the iPhone (and about as much or a little more than the Pre). It was nice having some real buttons instead of using the gesture area on the Pre for things like going back, which the Pre takes a second to respond, which is just a little thing. I like going to your notifications by pulling down on the top bar where your signal and other statuses are, which was nice. The thing that might push me to get the Hero over the Pre (or Pixi) is how you can customize it. The phone is so easy to customize by just dragging the widgets around on your home screen, and you can put new ones on there so easily. I like being able to customize, and this is great. I also like the Twitter and weather widgets, and how some widgets like the clock have multiple styles. It is just great at personalizing. I just wonder if they have an Opera Mini browser for the Hero? It works great on my Lotus and is super fast.

You should tell her to wait for Pixie. I have a feeling that they will sell couple of millions in few months ( in spite of missing wifi and SD card slot and only 8Gig). Pre's keyboard gets the job done , but I prefer Pixie. The sliding thing bothers me on Pre. And keyboard thing is personal, some folks just don't like the virtual keyboard.

The keyboard on Hero is similar to the iPhone's , responses were quick. If you are familiar with iPhone/touch , you should find it to be exact replica ( though a bit smaller).

Yes I love the Pixie Pro idea ( if they do such thing). I don't mind half an inch or more increase in length. But for the love of the old timers here and to attract the any BB folks PALM should do that Pixie Pro.

Then I would say PALM is back in the business.

Yup, I just love how HTC is making these phones.
The build quality is best I have seen, sadly the whole OS and UI thing is no where near the WebOS.

What's the difference with just leaving cards open on the Pre?

I got a Hero today and I agree with the OP's points. The build quality is really the only thing that shines for the Hero. The Android market is great cause there are so many apps out. I'm going to take by the Hero and keep my Pre. I'm hoping the app market will grow much larger in time.

Here are a few of my notes:

It's very responsive - definitely less lag than the Pre all around. Not used to the virtual keyboard yet at all. But the mail setup was no problem, tons of apps on the android store. Hero's browser is generally easier to read because the type is is larger. Also the browser's type usually automatically reflows according to where the browser edges are, so there is far less scrolling/resizing to do.
The launching of apps is very, very fast: email and sms apps launch in maybe .3 seconds.

The Hero seems to shut down in about 1 second. Agian, very fast.
Startup takes about 1:05, then another 30 sec to stabaliz after lock screen.
After booting email takes under 2 sec to start. Anytine after that it's instantaneous to start it.
Messaging takes around 1 sec the first time after boot, and it's instantaneous after that (until the next boot.)

Very refreshing to be able to use web sites with Flash! I work in the photography industry, and there are many, many sites I use every day which are flash-based.

Both browsers seem to be equally fast when loading pages via Wifi.

The hero's browser may be a little less smooth when pinching, but there is a lot less pinching required because the type is larger and repaginates - so its less work to view web sites. And less eye strain because of the larger type. Haven't used email much yet, but setup was easy and switching between 3 accounts is very easy.
The font size can be adjusted in the browser for easier reading, and the tiny scroll bars on the right and bottom help you see how far down the page you are. Very helpful.

The one place I see lag on teh Hero is rotating the phone from vertical to horizontal takes -a sec.

Visual Voice mail - of course is very cool.

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The Multi tasking seems to work by keeping any app you have started running in the background. So switching back to them is instantaneous and you are right where you left off. Probably not as elegant as the cards but it seems just as effective.
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One thing everyone with the Hero should try is the calibration tool where is has you type a few sentences - it helped my accuracy dramatically.
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I agree that the hardware feels good - the keys work the first time you press them, no dead pixels, very solid. I can definitely put it in my pocket without worries. So far the call quality has been loud and clear, and ringer volume is ear shattering at the highest setting ;-)

Your opinion of the phone within 20 minute is biased and leaves out key points about the app catalog which crushes the pre in every way. Open platform, 10,000+ apps and a great user interface that actually let's you customize without hacking.

The browser is a little slower because of flash. When flash comes on the pre we can re-evaluate. I have both, and the pre losses in the build quality hands down. I know this was pointed out but has to be said again. This is very important in the longevity of the phone. If I bought a car that had to be replaced three or four times because of the horrible build, nothing it did good would make me want go keep it. I think a lot of people want the pre to be on top. Seriously analyze the posts in here versus other high end phones and you'll find more complaints here than anywhere. True other phones have defects, but when palm isn't doing anything about it, where does it leave the consumer that stuck in a contract.

This reminds me of the iPhone commercials.... there's a patch for that. If you spend more time trying to make your phone function the way it should out the box then your fighting a losing battle.

The pre has its positives but when you really look at the phone as a whole you realize that palm but off more than they can che w by rushing the phone. I know this will start flaming but it has to be said. A lot of pre owners will be jumping ship shortly. I am not trying to tell anyone what phone to get but give the hero some real hands use before you make your decision.

I gotta say, the early Pre quality is complete crap. My is needing replacing because the oreo effect is getting worse and my power button doesn't exactly work.

But as being a Hero Advocate(meaning I've been carrying one for the past couple of weeks), I agree with most of those points except the camera. Auto-focusing makes a HUGE world of difference. Flash is nice, but makes the browser a tad slow.

What REALLY annoys me is the virtual keyboard, and what is truly the deal-breaker for me, is that the Hero has no week view in its calendar app. Who forgets a week view?! That's one of the most basic(and if not important functions) of a calendar for me! So, in the end, I'm sticking it out on my Pre. I doubt Pre users are going to leave their phones in droves. The App Catalog is now growing, and the Hero lacks some slightly basic functionality in my opinion, and most importantly, a physical keyboard.

My friend has it and the battery life right now is much worse than my pre, but this could be something that gets better with time like the Pre...I dunno. Also I noticed from playing with it that the touch screen randomly does not register...it can be annoying. Other than that I liked it.

Also. re: your comments about multi-tasking and "jumping" between open apps on the Hero: a press and hold of the "home" key will bring up a list of open applications, allowing easy switching between them.

-R