Here come the army of Androids we've been promised for over a year now. Fear not tender reader, these are more the helpful Star Wars androids than the human-hating robots from the Terminator films.
Upside
From a distance there are loads to love about this new HTC Android-powered smartphone. HTC's previous Android, the Magic, was a fantastic phone in its own right, but with a few notable shortcomings: namely multimedia and storage.
The Hero should handle media better than the Magic, with early reports confirming the Hero will be capable of playing back MP4, H.264, H.263 and WMV video files, plus MP3, AAC and WMA audio files. It also includes a built-in 3.5mm headphone jack, which we sorely missed from the Magic.
The new additions go far further than media file codecs though. HTC will pre-install a new, unique user interface layered over the Android platform called Sense UI. People familiar with HTC's Windows Mobile TouchFlo 3D interface will see the similarities immediately, but the focus in Sense UI is on home screen widgets. At its launch event, HTC showcased a wide selection of widgets including weather, clocks and calendars. Widgets are the Android's major advantage over the iPhone, showcasing the lengths of customisation open to users of this platform. For a closer look at Sense UI check out the hands-on photo gallery from our friends at CNET UK.
Downside
Both of HTC's Android phones so far have had a gentle lip at the base of the handset, a subtle chin pointing the mic towards your mouth. Living up to its name the Hero has a superhero-sized chin, a huge Superman-like extension. We don't want to seem shallow, but it might be a little too extreme for many conservative phone users.
While HTC has ironed out most of our media woes from the Magic, the lack of internal storage is going to rub many media-lovers the wrong way. Compared to the iPhone and N97's 32GB of storage, and Samsung's Galaxy's 8GB of memory, HTC had better not forget to slip a microSD card in the box with the handset.
Overall
In the words of a great Australian, "I'm excited!". The Hero looks like an impressive touchscreen, especially with its screen lit and HTC's Sense UI on display. We loved tinkering with the Magic, customising the interface with the widgets available on the Android Market, and seeing HTC take this to the next level is fantastic. Look out for more news around the Hero's release in August.
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Can anyone point to any information as to when this phone will be avaliable?
I have called Telstra getting the usual response 'I dunno.'
I can only think that HTC management have rocks in thier heads for taking so long....each passing week this phone is not avaliable, the iPhone 3G is slipping its fingers into my wallet.