I think people are missing the point.I am a hero owner, and personally I have found most android apps to be pretty weak overall. Visually the majority of the apps look far far worse than most iphone apps. Visually good looking apps are hard to find on android and lets face it people are superficial particulely un tech saavy people.

Secondly we still have not got decent basic apps. Facebook for example is a complete pisstake to the point that i just go to the site on the browser cos the app is such a joke, can't do f**k all on it. Unlike on iphone where it is a pleasure to use.

Thirdly. Because of the lack of continuity on the android platform it means features like mulitouch are not supported in many apps...apple wins again.

Fourthly, as people have explained before games on android are a joke, we know why this is but still...Apple cleans up again.

Fifthly because these apps have to run on these weak ass qualcomm cpu's and now we are seeing cortex A8's coming to android, whats going to happen? Developers are probably not going to be able to make use of the extra horsepower because they have to cater for the lowest common denominator, e.g this arm 11 based sluggish qualcomm junk. Howver I appreciate that this is just speculation and may not be the case.

Finally. Androids lack of support from big names also means that we have to put up with half assed apps made by clowns who often make pale imitations. Take the bbc iplayer for example. While apple iphone users get amazingly crisp rendering and nice streaming, andorid users get 'beeb player' which pixelates to shit and isn't even worth using.

My hero has shown great promise and some aspects of it are great, and while I don't like apples 'closed platform' outlook it does bring certain benefits....namely quality control/big name support/proper gaming.

Yeah that is a good point, I agree cpu speed is irrelevant if something runs smoothly. I was not aware that there was a new rom for the hero that runs more smoothly. The problem with the cpu in the hero is i think it would strugle to decode VGA+ res video at 1.5Mbps bitrates (as doe sthe blackberry bold), not a deal breaker in itself but when you consider what a cortex A8 or snapdragon is capable of it does seem a bit lacklustre. Video capture is shockingly poor on the hero too, when you consider vga_ video capture has been a feature on certain phones for 3 or more years.

On paper the Galaxy and the hero look like the best. The HTC Sense Ui is easily the best customised version of android to date, looks far better than stock andorid and most other Cell phone Ui's on the market atm. The main problem with all these devices is the poor cpu. Especially as mentioned considering the G1 came out a year ago and still no one has managed to put a proper fast cpu in an andorid handset to date. If any of these phones were powered by a cortex A8 or a snapdragon, particualrly the hero, we would be seeing a really strong performer capable of going toe to toe with the iphone in most tests. The Hero was particularly disapointing as the Ui looks great but it is horribly sluggish. Amazes me how they are still bringing sluggish Ui's out when the iphone is esentiually their main competitor in this category.

Another major issue is androids pathetic Media playback/video capture performance/support which can partly be atrributed to the cpu but also the Ui itself. Although HTC's sense Ui has rectified certain issues in the music/video player they really need to rectify this across the whole platform, the music/video player is an embaressing joke and a real stain on android. From day 1 this should have been at least on par with the iphones media playbakc/management functionality. Android still has a long way to go, but is showing great promise..especially when coupled with next gen cpu's and hardware graphics processing capable of 720p video decoding like in the Creative Zii.

definitely agree with tmarks11, that home screen is appaling, very convoluted, hard to read, unesesary cpu sucking block animations. The whole thing looks ugly to me....

I'm suprised no one has comented on the fact that this looks like cr*p. Nokia really need to step their UI game up quick time. This has possibly one of the most un-inspiring generic interfaces I have ever seen. And when are the going to stop using that 1980's calculator typeface? I think they should stick to selling low end handsets top the 3rd world or hire a new dsign team. A lot of the interface reminds me of some cheap chinese clone. It makes you wonder if they have ever seen an htc hero, iphone, palm pre, blackberry in their whole life. Nice to see a cortex a8 in there after the shambolic N97 that may as well have been running on 2 aa batteries and the cpu from a speak and spell it was so damn slow. Nokia are in desperate need of a flag ship device with a UI that actually looks nice IMO. They're stuck in the past. That music player interface is laughable.

Yeah looks pretty tidy. If they drop this in a phone with a snapdragon cpu and a cpacitive touch screen this could actually be a useful touch based WinMo phone.

eeeeerrrrr, this device looks amazing and I am genuinly excited about it but just one thing......has no one noticed that this device LOOKS EXACTLY THE F**KING SAME AS A BLOODY IPOD/IPHONE!!!!!!!! To the point that the whole chassis is almost the same the resolution/ screen type is the same. In fact this it is visually so iphone like it is actually unbelieable they are not getting sued.

And before anyone chats that fan boy smack I have never owned anything apple. The incredible double standards and Brand brainwashing that has become evident from this is actually unbelieavble. Meizu drop the M8 and immediatly they are clone manfacturers. Creative do almost exctly the same and in some aspects worse and no one mentions a thing. Absolutely incredible.....

Man this is very dissapointing. As I suspected that qualcomm cpu is out of it's depth. No wonder Apple are cleaing up, these clowns still can't seem to get it right. Why would you possibly bring out some laggy piece of c**p when iphones are flying off the shelves at a ridiculous rate? A moron could have told htc that to have some seriously laggy Ui is not going to be a winner depsite the fact I do think aesthetically the Ui is nice. Even the Pre although it is looking nice too as people mentioned has a number of flaws like weak battery performance etc etc. Not to mention all these gaming/SDK issues.

It is also funny cos I was speaking to an un tech saavy person the other day looking to buy a new touch based phone and she was talking about how unresponsive and laggy the s60 based samsung touch phones are and how she doesn't want to go on O2 here in the Uk but wants an iphone as there is nothing else around that is as good to use.

I have never owned any apple products but it is just so startlingly obvious to everyone, even people who aren't tech saavy can see how much better implemented the Iphones software/hardware is than any other touch based handset. As josh rightly mentions in the article why make such a nice looking Ui then put some sh***y old qualcomm cpu in this when your main competitors are using next gen CPU's? I can't even take HTC seriously after seeing this.

I hate to say it but Apple is battering it on almost all fronts. I mean christ it took this long to even get multitouch on to android. At this rate none of these companies are ever going to take on apple in the media touch phone space. Bring on Winmo7 I say. From the looks of the Tegra based Zune HD at least microsoft seem to be taking the portable device market seriously.

It actually makes me quite vexed that these jokers are so f**king stupid. When your a huge multinational corporation like samsung or htc and any old stupid moron can see your phones are laggy as f**k and apple is battering you silly, why wouldn't you fix up?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............oh sorry , was so bored with all these half arsed junk netbooks i just nodded off. Acer are literally having a complete laugh if they think they can sell this tat. There are so mnay other net books on the market already that completely obliterate this and have 2 times the battery life. If I was them, I would stop right now and not even bother bringing this junk to market. 3 hrs battery? having an absolute laugh....

1.33 atom cpu, windows vista, inflated price tag......1 word...............morons. How is it is possible for one of the biggest tech companies in the world can honestly believe that a higher price machine running the most unpopular operating sytem on the planet (vista) on a less powerful processor than most of it's rivals who also happen to be running the best version of windows ever made (and under cutting them on price) = winner. I love sony but always get the impression there is some gargantuan bureaucracy/red tape/ego problem within the people running the company that leads them to make unbelievably stupid moves despite being last to enter an oversaturated market and have all the possible insight into the sector they could possibly want. How long did these jokers hold on to atrac for? i mean christ you would have thouht they would have got a clue by now. I say it again....MORONS.