We’re at HTC’s London press event this morning, and as expected the company announced the HTC Hero. The third Android smartphone from HTC, the Hero has the same 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen, HSPA and WiFi b/g connectivity, but throws in HTC Sense, the company’s latest custom UI. HTC Sense includes various widgets and shortcuts to allow access to apps like Twitter, Facebook, contacts, calendar and other functionality direct from the Android homescreen. They’ve also reworked the on-screen keyboard, bringing better word-correction and auto-completion.
Other specs for the Hero include a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, GPS, and a Teflon-covered casing which, according to HTC, means that the phone isn’t “cold and slippery”. The screen has a fingerprint-resistant coating, which we found didn’t so much avoid prints in the first place as it did shed them more readily when you wipe it.
There’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack and Adobe Flash support, which means you can access sites like YouTube in the Android browser. It’s expected to land in Europe come July, Asia later in the summer, and in a US format sometime later on in 2009. We’ll have hands-on video with the HTC Hero as soon as it’s processed.
Update: Hands-on video is here
