I’ve blogged previously about the HTC Hero, which has been the first Android device with which I’ve spent any time. I still like the device, but have fundamentally ruled it out as a primary handset due to the absence of a tactile keyboard; while I can type on the on-screen keyboard, and find the auto-correct works well, I just know that when I need to use my phone as an e-mail sending device, my productivity on it would be about 10% to that of the Blackberry.

For about four weeks now I’ve been using my latest Blackberry, the Bold 9700 and as expected, it works well for me. It feels much lighter – although equally robust – than the Bold 9000, and the primary UI difference has been the optical touchpad that’s replaced the white trackball. I was concerned this wouldn’t be very easy to use, as I’ve found previous models with the touchpad to be off-putting, but after around 30 minutes it felt like an old friend.

However we are in the QA phase for a Blackberry development project at the moment, and it’s been an opportunity to revisit the Hero while the Bold spends time in the testing pool. And I have to mention that one simple little feature has dampened any residual love I have for HTC. And it’s a timing issue.

The Blackberry has some clock-related features that I use every single day. Like auto on-off, which as you’d guess can turn the device on and off automatically at set times each day. But it also has an alarm clock which will wake the device up when it’s time to really wake up. While the Hero has an alarm clock application, a simple test last night saw the device sleeping soundlessly. I suspect that it’s something to do with Blackberry’s “we never sleep, not really” architecture – as most RIM users will know it’s non-trivial to turn a Blackberry off, as it goes into some resting type of mode. Unfortunately there’s no great analogy in HTC land, so when the ‘droid device is off, it’s off – and so effectively was my alarm clock this morning.

Some would consider this a minor issue, but for a handset that acts as a lifestyle accompaniment, this is a major black mark for the Hero, and yet another reason why I’m sticking with RIM.