blackberry-storm-vs-htc-heroWe have written a detailed comparative analysis of the top smartphones like iPhone 3GS, BlackBerry Bold, Palm Pre and Nokia N97, but here are two more contenders in the list which we could not include. The BlackBerry Storm is the full touchscreen mobile phone from the house of RIM showing the world their capability to produce not only those ugly looking keypad filled phones but also a nice and decent touchscreen mobile phone. The HTC Hero is a new phone that appears to be an iPhone killer with its superb design, excellent interface and nice feature set. We have made a detailed examination of the features of these phones and compared their strengths and weaknesses. Let’s take a closer look at these phones and decide which one you should go for.

1. Design

HTC Hero : The overall look-n-feel of the phone is very sleek and looks very modern. It measures in at 112mm X 56.2mm X 14.35mm and weighs at 135g. The build quality of the phone is also solid from within and the casing feels soft and comfortable in hand.
BlackBerry Storm : This one also has a striking design though looks much boxy like other BlackBerry devices. It measures very close to the HTC Hero at 112.5 X 62.2 X 14mm and weighs a bit more heavier than HTC Hero at 155g. The build quality is also very good.
Conclusion : Though very subjective, I personally like the HTC Hero’s awesome design despite Storm’s ground breaking design. HTC Hero also looks more sleek, lees wide and more pocketable device with its lightweight. HTC Hero is a winner here.

2. Touchscreen Display

HTC Hero : It has a 3.2 inches capacitive touchscreen that can show 65K colors in 320 X 480 pixels resolution. The response of the touch screen is also nothing to complain about. There screen is coated with oleophobic coating to resist the fingerprint smudges.
BlackBerry Storm : It also has a 3.25 inches capacitive touchscreen that can show 65K colors in 360 X 480 pixels resolution.  The display looks very clear and vivid as you can expect from a device like this. Response of the screen is also good.
Conclusion : The BlackBerry Storm has a greater screen real estate with 40 pixel extra along its width but the HTC Hero has the olephobic coating which is more important for a touchscreen mobile phone. This point is a tie here with two phones having their own strengths and weaknesses.
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3. Connectivity

HTC Hero : It has a quad band GSM Connectivity and also dual band 900/2100 3G HSDPA Connectivity supporting upto 7.2MBPS Speeds. There is standard GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth with A2DP Connectivity and also WiFi and HSCSD Connectivity.
BlackBerry Storm : It is also a quad band GSM phone with single band 2100 3G HSDPA Connectivity. There is standard GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth with A2DP but no option for WiFi or HSCSD.
Conclusion : HTC Hero wins here with its broad array of connectivity options.

4. Interface

HTC Hero : The system uses a HTC-fied version of Google Android OS and they call it the Sense UI. Almost every skin of the device is tweaked to give you the sense experience. However, the reworked graphics takes toll on operating speeds.
BlackBerry Storm : On the outside, the BlackBerry Storm feels like a BlackBerry Bold with a touchscreen. There are some interesting multitouch functionality like copy / paste duties but at the end of the day it feels somewhat laggy.
Conclusion : Both Operating Systems have spaces to improve and the game is a tie here.
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5. Camera

HTC Hero : It has a 5 MP camera with autofocus capabilities. But it has no flash, which means that the camera is not usable at night.
BlackBerry Storm : It has a lower resolution 3.15MP autofocus camera but it has LED flash which takes good enough pictures. It also has Geo-tagging and Image stabilization features.
Conclusion : HTC Hero Camera has a higher resolution and BlackBerry Storm Camera has an LED Flash. We would like both options in the camera unit.

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6. Browser

HTC Hero : Here is a good news for the mobile surfers. It has the flash support in its browser. Though the loading time of the pages with flash content is much more but at least you have the flexibility to see them.
BlackBerry Storm : It has a decent browser but no flash support as with other BlackBerry Phones as well as the most hyped iPhone 3GS.
Conclusion : Though the HTC’s browser has space to improve a lot with its page rendering techniques, but still it will score better than the Storm for its flash support in its browser.

7. Processor and RAM

HTC Hero : It uses a Qualcomm MSM 7200A 528 MHz Processor with 288MB RAM and 512MB ROM.
BlackBerry Storm : It also uses a Qualcomm processor model no MSM 7600 clocking at 528 MHz. It has 128MB RAM.
Conclusion : The processor specs are the same for the two devices but you should be able to do more multitasking in HTC Hero for its larger capacity RAM.

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8. Battery

HTC Hero : It has a standard Lithium Battery with 1350 mAh capacity that can provide a claimed 440h standby, 8h talktime in 2G and 750h standby and 7h talktime in 3G.
BlackBerry Storm : It has a 1400mAh Li-Ion Battery that will be able to provide a claimed battery life of 360h standby and 5h 30min talktime.
Conclusion : From the spec sheets it looks that HTC Hero has better life but our experience suggests that both devices would have nerly same battery life with all features turned on.

9. TrackBall

HTC Hero : It has got the trackball.
BlackBerry Storm : No trackball here despite the trackball being one of the trademarks of a BlackBerry Device.
Conclusion : HTC Hero wins for having one more input interface.

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10. Overall

HTC Hero : It is the best Android phone ever made. It will come as the closest competitor to the iPhone 3GS.
BlackBerry Storm : If you are a hard core BlackBerry fanatic this the only touchscreen mobile phone that you can have but if you are not then there are better options for you.
Conclusion : HTC Hero is the overall winner in our comparison.