I've had the HTC Hero for a few weeks now. Battery life is 2 to 3 days, running with WiFi when in the office or at home. It's got a fast browser, Flash support (although that is a bit slow but I'm not sure that there are too many Flash videos optimized for mobiles), multi-tasking, some nice widgets. It links to my Google mail, Twitter and Facebook accounts. You can view word documents, PDF and synch to Outlook contacts and e-mail. It has Google Maps, Google Sky and Google Voice if you are in the U.S.

The phone can be slow - although I haven't really noticed it, possibly because network stuff like weather updates goes across WiFi as I'm usually in the office and not across Edge/GPRS or 3G. I've also got a 16 GB Class 6 SDHC in it and caches moved to the card which may also account for the reason I don't notice too much lag. There's an optimized update coming up soon from HTC to reduce the lag. I think it's a nice smartphone to use. Hopefully with the updates to Android itself, including the kernel, Skype will get a full application ported to the platform for full WiFi VoIP.

At least there is choice for smartphones and the smartphone OS platform now. And there are a fair number of applications I think for Android, and they aren't all locked to the Google Marketplace - you can obtain software from other sources. Which I guess is my way of saying, that the wailing is a bit premature about the failure and demise of Android.

Peer review process is as follows: 1. You propose a formal hypothesis, and substantiate that with evidence that supports your hypothesis by way of a formal paper. 2. Your paper is then subjected to review by other experts in the field of study or discipline to which your hypothesis applies in order to ensure that you meet the standards of that discipline. You can poke and prod all you want as long as you are willing to subject yourself to rigorous challenge on each of the arguments and assumptions upon which you have built your hypothesis by peers in the discipline. Scientists are skeptical by nature which is why consensus opinions in scientific disciplines are always couched in the most cautious language. Skepticism by non-experts, on the other hand seems foolhardy at best and willful ignorance at worst.