In Retrospect... Upgrade Hermes to Kaiser or just keep the Hermes?

[joel32137]

Hey all,

I currently own an 8525/Hermes and was thinking of upgrading to a Kaiser Tilt.

I mainly use my Hermes for video and music playback (using TCPMP), RSS Feeds, and traditional PDA functions such as calendars/email/contacts....

I am a bit hesitant however due to the video driver issues and GPS-Battery drain issues....

For all you past Hermes owners, in retrospect to your Kaiser purchase, do you recommend upgrading to a Kaiser or just keep the Hermes until HTC or our XDA developers finds solutions to the Kaiser issues?

As always, best regards to all and I do appreciate your advice :)

Thanks...

[fb401]

In my opinion, my Kaiser crushes my old Hermes...but I'm also the type of person that doesn't care whether we get drivers or not. To me it's faster, cooler and I always use the internal GPS. I also use Newsbreak for my RSS feeds and have no problems.

[RemE]

I agree, I find my Kaiser to be better in every way than my 8525, no regrets whatsoever. I use GPS every day, Slingbox, watch many full length movies, photo viewing with the HTC album are great, streaming radio stations, it's all good.

[hollywould]

The only reason I have my Tilt, is because the screen on my hermes broke. If it hadn't, I would defately stuch with my hermes. I loved my hermes. The video playback was twice as good as the Tilt. And the keyboard was a lot nicer and easier to use. I would just wait and see what the driver upgrade brings. IMO

[joel32137]

Hi RemE,

Quick question.... do you have to encode/rip your full length movies (assuming you use divx or xvid codecs) to lower video bit rates and resolution to watch videos smoothly on your Kaiser?

What bit rates do you generally use for your videos? (I say generally b/c I'm sure these bit rates varies depending if the movie is an action movies vs non-action movies :) )

I'm just trying to get a gauge on the video playback performance of the Kaiser as compared to the Hermes :)

I agree, I find my Kaiser to be better in every way than my 8525, no regrets whatsoever. I use GPS every day, Slingbox, watch many full length movies, photo viewing with the HTC album are great, streaming radio stations, it's all good.

[RemE]

I've always created my video content as Divx / Xvid at 320 x 240 audio at 96k stereo and a total bitrate between 475-500kb/sec. I've used these settings for hundreds of movies to be played on my Archos players (with 4" screens), iPAQ's (even the 4" VGA hx4700). They play perfectly on all of these plus the Hermes, and now the Kaiser. I've used TCPMP and Core players with great results. These smaller screen players just don't need higher rez content to be very enjoyable to watch on the go.

People can say whatever they like, but my movies look very good and sound great, even better with WOW SRS active. Benchmarks in TCPMP and Core run between 148-204% and I never see stuttering or artifacts.

I know that the video drivers would make the Kaisers better, but right now everything is "just" good enough for everything to work as one would expect. I use this thing all day every day and it's much better all-around than my 8525

[Sarumiso]

There are a bunch of little things I like better about the Kaiser (better camera, stylus, spring-loaded slider, color scheme). But the built-in GPS really puts the it head and shoulders above the Hermes.

The video driver issue isn't a deal breaker for me yet (even if the Kaiser vs. Magician Tom Tom video made me want to cry). I don't really see the point of watching a full length video on my phone. I just hope they get the driver issue fixed by football season... Orb server plus Hermes gave my wife her weekends back last year.

I do think the keyboard on the Hermes was a lot better though. It's probably because they had to cram the GPS components into the phone, but the Kaiser keyboard seems less responsive.

For me, the perfect phone would be the Kaiser with a Hermes keyboard and decent video drivers.

[Malik05]

i miss my hermes camera more than anything. it took such great pix

[joel32137]

Thanks to all so far for your feedback :)

I'm sure there are a bunch of Hermes users curious about the Kaiser performance (as of today without the video drivers fixed) compared with the Hermes. There seems to be so many bad posts related to the kaiser (drivers,battery issues,random cracking screens without abusing the phone). Don't get me wrong, the Wizard, Hermes, and now (it would seem) the Kaiser have all been sensitive devices and requires some kind of protective case (I use the aluminum cases for both Wizard & Hermes) unlike the Apple crude phone where apparently, it can be dropped onto a marble floor from 4 ft without cracking the screen. Why couldn't HTC build a sturdier screen?!?!

Anyways, the Hermes is an awesome device but since I currently don't need GPS, I may just stick with the Hermes a bit longer until some tragedy befalls on it.... but then again.... my wife's Wizard is going on the fritz and I may just give her my Hermes and upgrade to a Kaiser... ha ha.... now that would be a poll to post..."How many users gives there spouses/partners their hand me down phones?"

I hope more Kaiser owners vote in this poll.

Thanks again :)

[tsadek]

The only reason I have my Tilt, is because the screen on my hermes broke. If it hadn't, I would defately stuch with my hermes. I loved my hermes. The video playback was twice as good as the Tilt. And the keyboard was a lot nicer and easier to use. I would just wait and see what the driver upgrade brings. IMO

Now I've tracked my instability issues to pocket plus and low memory i really wish I'd stuck with the hermes. Agree with all of the above really.

[compact_bijou]

the Hermes is an awesome device but since I currently don't need GPS, I may just stick with the Hermes

Good move. The built in GPS is the killer feature for me, one less device to carry.

I gave my Hermes to my girlfriend as she rarely uses GPS and it does everything the Kaiser does (except GPS) and just as quick.