I have been an iPhone user since the 3G came out in July of 2008.  I upgraded to the 3GS in June, 2009.  As of this posting, I am five days out from receiving my iPhone 4.

Having been a tester of smartphones in a former life, it was refreshing to have a hardware/software platform come out and just works, and work well.  I never had my iPhone hang, crash or otherwise become inoperable.  I never had to restart it.  I never turned it off.  It just worked.

Last month, instead of using my personal iPhone for work, I decided to let my employer carry the burden of my phone bill.  My only carrier option was Sprint and my handset options were abysmal at best.

Having already been burned by the HTC/WinMo options and being uncertain about the Palm/WebOS platform, I opted to try my first HTC/Android phone.  Why not? I have 30 days to return it, right?

I have used my HTC Hero now for 2 weeks and to be candid, I am ready to take this phone out to the gun range and use it for target practice.  I have daily frustrations with this device.  Sometimes it the hardware.  Mostly software.

Below is a list of gripes or warnings should you be considering a Hero or Androd based phone:

• The phone is slow.  It has similar hardware specs to the iPhone 3GS (Hero: 288MB RAM/528Mhz CPU | iPhone: 256MB RAM/600Mhz CPU) yet it is no where near as responsive as the 3GS.
• When I tap on a button (hardware or software), I expect it to do what I told it to do.  When I press a hardware button on this phone, I have to press it 2-3 times before it does what I asked.  When I tap a software button, It recognizes my request by changing the color of the button I tapped, but does NOTHING! I have to do this several times before it will proceed with my request.  Sometimes, it will do something entirely different altogether.  I have missed numerous phone calls because Android decided that I didn't really want to take the call despite my swipe to answer.
• If I have a touch screen phone, I should not have to be dependent on an additional track ball to get things done.
• Why do I have to bring up a hidden menu to do something when it can be done with either a swipe gesture or a small on screen button? Because of this, it takes three or more actions to do something that could have taken one or two.
• When I have an email open and I delete it, why does it take me back to my list of emails instead of opening the next email in the list?
• Why can't I delete more than one email/text message at a time?
• When in a text field, you have to have the precision of a surgeon to place your cursor somewhere else (to correct a typo, etc...).
• Copying text is a task, shouldn't this be easy?
• The Android's response to the touchscreen is way too sensitive.  Makes for a lot of accidental input.
• Managing two phone calls is not intuitive.  It is almost as if they expect you to conference in any additional calls you make while already in a call.  I have yet to find a way to end a second call without ending my first one.
• Because of the oversensitive response to the touchscreen and because the mute button on the phone screen is too close to the End Call button, I end up killing a call when all I really wanted to do was mute it.
• When on a call and the screen goes dark, there isn't a good way to wake the phone without issuing a command like hanging up on the call or dialing another number.  The only safe way I found was to use the volume keys.
• There can be such a thing as too many options.  In settings screens, why not have a general set of settings then a separate screen for advanced settings?
• Why isn't there an obvious way to close out an application and feel assured that it is actually closed and not running in the background?
• Why do I have to power cycle my phone!  I am constantly doing this to reset my data connectivity or increase my performance.
• Why do I get out of memory errors from applications when I have 70MB of RAM available?
• I have yet to get my Google voice commands to work.
• Default browser is abysmal (page formatting is very poor, all of the page content doen't always load). Having installed the Dolphin browser too, if I choose to go back to the default browser it is constantly asking me whether I want to use it or Dolphin EVERYTIME I click on a link or go to a different URL.
• Anything that scrolls (web pages, settings menus) scrolls very choppy.  If I barely flick the menu, it scrolls at mach speed (web pages behave better on flicks).
• When I tap on a URL, I really would like to visit it.  Why do I have to tap it multiple times in order for the destination page to load?  Apparently, the default browser needs more convincing of my intentions.
• Camera function is kludgy and slow.  Picture quality isn't the best for 5MP.  I have to use the dang trackball to take the pictures!
• When I input my Google information on a site, why does Android assume I want to use all of the Google based functionality on the phone?  I have to explicitly remove my credentials and/or turn off the Google functionality on the phone.
• I use my phone with Exchange.  Although I have my phone set to push as emails arrive, it is far from realtime.  I have seen upwards to 45 minutes descrepancy.  This isn't good when you are required to respond to system alerts within 10 minutes of the event.
• If I read an email from my desktop client, it doesn't mark it as read on my phone.  And vice versa.
• Although my appointments are pulled from exchange and stored locally, it appears that if the calendar can't sync with the Exchange server (because my data needs to be reset :-P) then my appointment alarms don't go off.
• Software from the Android Market often doesn't work.  I attribute this to the fact that there are way too many choices for Android devices.  Too many differences in hardware.  I see a lot of software on the market that is device specific.  So if I don't by the hottest Android phone, am I just screwed?  What happens if my phone is 1-2 years old?
• If I want my phone to get the latest Android update...AND have it actually work, I either need to wait for my carrier to provide one or some platform enthusiast to produce one.  My carrier could drop support of the phone at any time and not provide any updates.  If I wait on the community, I could be waiting forever or be in a perpetual beta.

- boogybren