HTC Hero and HTC’s All New Sense UI for Android June 29, 2009

Posted by Nik G. in : Cell Phones, Google , trackback

Recently we ran a search looking for new writers to join us here at TeenTechBlog. And as a product of that search, we are proud to reintroduce Nik back to TTB.

hero_pers_right_0616 HTC’s All-New Hero

So on June 24th, HTC held a press event in London, England and New York to introduce a new phone– the HTC Hero. There was lots of speculation of it being Android related and as a matter of fact, it was a huge announcement about Android. HTC’s latest adventure into the Android game hardware wise (following the G1 and the new myTouch3G– which we wrote about here) is the Hero. Software wise though, is a different story, and HTC showed off their brand new user interface for Android called Sense. Hit the break for more pics and a breakdown of the new software and hardware.

Software

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HTC’s All-New Sense UI

Ok, so let’s start with the new Sense UI– it’s basically a prettier interface for Android (similar to HTC’s Touch Flo 3D for Windows Mobile phones). Not that the default Android UI was bad, it just lacked the polish and beauty that Sense is able to bring to the table. It is also very similar to Palm’s WebOS, as Sense is able to sync with all your social networking sites, making all the information about a contact available at your fingertips from the social networking sites he/she is using. Yes, all info about each contact’s latest activity on services like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and even YouTube is neatly organized to make it easier to keep in touch with everyone on your contact list. Also, HTC is touting this phone as being capable of supporting Flash right out of the box. What does that mean exactly? Well it pretty much means that you can watch videos embedded into websites, like YouTube or as they demoed, a trailer on Yahoo! Movies. Many, many websites nowadays use Flash to embed videos (Hulu and ESPN.com are other examples of sites that use Flash) and as of now, the only way to see them is by using a proper web browser that supports Flash, which not many phone before could really do well. Now that the Android platform is capable of supporting it, you won’t run into that little issue anymore (iPhone users for example, still can’t view Flash sites, one of the biggest complaints people still have with the device that is said to view “the real web”).

Just a note for T-Mobile G1 and future myTouch 3G owners: HTC won’t be officially giving this out as an update to your phones because those phones have “with Google” branding (just check the back of the phone for that logo), and Google won’t let them do it. We are pretty confident though you’ll be able to find it online somewhere, but everything you do with it is on your own with no help from either HTC or Google.

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The Hero

Hardware

Yes, like I said at the beginning, there was also a new phone announced: the HTC Hero. And I’m going to come straight out and say it: I’m in love with this phone. It pretty much has the same specs as the myTouch3G including 3G, GPS, and Wi-Fi. It also has a 5 megapixel camera, not too shabby for on the go cell phone pics. It also has a solid 3.2 inch, multitouch screen and all the multitouch goodness like pinch to zoom in web pages and pix. Also, the white Hero will have a special “Teflon” coating to provide an extra layer of defense against dirt and other nasty substances (always a plus). All in all, like I said earlier, this phone is pretty amazing. The design is beautiful and if I had to choose between this and the new iPhone 3GS, it’d be the Hero easy.

Carrier Availability

There are many, many rumors floating around that Sprint is currently testing the Hero within it’s network and that they will begin to sell it in late 2009. Just remember, these are rumors, pure speculation, take them with a grain of salt. Also, it wouldn’t be too surprising to to see a version of the Hero show up on either T-Mobile or AT&T. Nothing is even close to being confirmed but seeing as there is a GSM version and T-Mobile has picked up every Android phone manufactured by HTC, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see it land in T-Mobile stores in late 2009. Just keep your eyes peeled here for the latest news.

So what about you, the readers? Would you pick this up over the Palm Pre? The iPhone 3GS? What about the new myTouch 3G? Let us know in the comments!

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