CrunchGear » htc hero

The HTC Hero is now available from Sprint, just an FYI

Matt Burns — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:59:33 +0000

Sprint isn’t doing itself any favors recently by breaking retail’s first rule: Customers are dumb, so don’t give them choices. But now at Sprint, consumers must decide between the Palm Pre, the BlackBerry Tour, and $179 (after $100 MIR & 2-year agreement) the Android-powered HTC Hero. I mean, they’re making it awful hard on customers these days by offering more than one must-have phone.

It’s so much easier to choose a phone down at the AT&T store because your options are only the iPhone 3G or the iPhone 3GS. And Verizon only has the BlackBerry Tour. But damn, Sprint has three of the hottest phones with the Android-packing Samsung Moment and Palm Pixi coming out real soon too. Come on, Sprint, stop embarrassing AT&T and VZW with all the cool phones you have. No one likes a show-off.

Sprint’s HTC Hero to be $180 out the door at Best Buy – no mail-in rebate

Matt Burns — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:45:15 +0000

Best Buy has our backs. No one likes mail-in rebates and so the retailer is going to sell the Sprint HTC Hero for $180 out the door with a two-year blood oath.

Sprint Stores however will sell it too you for $280 and hand you a $100 MIR. But just like with the Palm Pre, you’re not going to have to deal with those shenanigans at Best Buy Mobile who is also the exclusive retailer to have the HTC Hero. So yeah, why would you buy one at a Sprint Store?

Best Buy®Mobile Will Sell HTC Hero™ Smartphone in Stores Beginning October 11

Best Buy Mobile will apply rebate savings for the new smart phone at the point of purchase to help customers avoid the hassles of mail-in rebates.

MINNEAPOLIS, September 3, 2009 – Best Buy Mobile, now in all 1,044 Best Buy locations as well as 48 standalone stores around the U.S., is the exclusive national retailer for the much anticipated Sprint HTC Hero™ smart phone, which launches October 11. The HTC Hero runs on Google’s innovative Android operating platform.

Customers who purchase the smart phone at Best Buy Mobile can avoid the hassle of mail-in rebates with instant savings applied at the point of purchase. The phone will retail for $179.99, after $150 instant savings, with two-year activation.

“We want to bring the absolute best mobile technology that we can to our customers and the HTC Hero helps us do that” said Best Buy Mobile President Shawn Score. “The addition of the HTC Hero to our already extensive assortment allows our customers the convenience of comparing this new phone with other popular smart phones, such as the iPhone 3Gs, Palm Pre and Blackberry Tour, side-by-side and under one roof.”

Best Buy Mobile has become a leading destination for smart phone purchases, in part because of the promises the store offers its customers: better choice of phones and networks; impartial, informed advice; straightforward pricing; and someone to be there for the life of the phone.

In addition to the instant savings, Best Buy Mobile offers an array of services aimed at improving the mobile phone buying experience, including:

§ Upgrade Checker: A quick and easy in-store service that gives customers the ability to see when they are eligible for their next phone upgrade. When the upgrade time is nearing, customers receive a complimentary reminder call or email.

§ Walk Out Working™: Free in-store smart phone setup by a Best Buy Mobile Phone Specialist who will sync personal email accounts, set up Bluetooth® headsets, transfer contacts and activate other services to allow the customer to leave the store with a fully functional new smart phone.

The new HTC Hero runs on the Sprint network and is the first phone to feature HTC Sense™ – an intuitive, seamless interface experience built on the principles of personalization, connectivity and discovery. HTC Hero lets users view important content at a glance with a selection of customizable widgets that can be placed right on the home screen. Contacts’ information is easily accessible with all text exchanges, email conversations, Facebook status updates, Flickr photo albums and phone logs, neatly organized by contacts’ names. The integrated Flash player optimizes the HTC Hero for Web browsing while a dedicated search button provides for a more natural, contextual search experience that enables searches through Twitter, contacts, emails and in any other area in the smart phone.

About Best Buy Mobile

Best Buy Mobile features one of the largest selections of carriers, handsets and accessories available anywhere, as well as a highly-trained staff to help customers make the most of their mobile phones. Best Buy Mobile locations feature more than 90 different handsets from nine carriers, and over 130 accessories. Employees undergo at least 80 hours of intensive training, as well as continuing education on mobile phone technology and trends. Look for your mobile phone solution at Best Buy Mobile locations in every Best Buy store as well as in standalone stores nationwide.

About Best Buy Co., Inc.

With operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, China and Mexico, Best Buy is a multinational retailer of technology and entertainment products and services with a commitment to growth and innovation. The Best Buy family of brands and partnerships collectively generates more than $45 billion in annual revenue and includes brands such as Best Buy; Audiovisions; The Carphone Warehouse; Future Shop; Geek Squad, Jiangsu Five
Star; Magnolia Audio Video; Napster; Pacific Sales; The Phone House; and Speakeasy. Approximately 155,000 employees apply their talents to help bring the benefits of these brands to life for customers through retail locations, multiple call centers and Web sites, in-home solutions, product delivery and activities in our communities. Community partnership is central to the way we do business at Best Buy. In fiscal 2009, we donated a combined $33.4 million to improve the vitality of the communities where our employees and customers live and work. For more information about Best Buy, visit www.bestbuy.com.

Update: Sprint comes clean with the HTC Hero launch info

Matt Burns — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:30:45 +0000

That was quick. Forget about the rumor, the redesigned HTC Hero will launch on October 11 at $180 after a $50 mail-in rebate. And yes, that’s $20 under Sprint’s guided missile, the Palm Pre. So let’s recap, Sprint will soon be the only carrier with three of the hottest cellphones: the BlackBerry Tour, the Palm Pre, and the HTC Hero. And the carrier has some of the most reasonably priced plans. Nice.

Sprint’s first device with the Android™ platform available Oct. 11;
Pre-register for HTC Hero today at www.sprint.com/hero

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., and BELLEVUE, Wash. – Sept. 3, 2009 – Sprint (NYSE: S) and HTC Corporation today announced the upcoming arrival of the first wireless device offering the combination of the open and innovative Android platform with the high-speed connectivity of America’s most dependable 3G network1 (EVDO Rev. A), HTC Hero™ with Google™. Offering a rich mobile Internet experience, the much-anticipated HTC Hero offers synchronization for built-in Google mobile services, including Google Search™, Google Maps™, Gmail™, and YouTube™ as well as access to thousands of applications built on the Android platform.

Beginning on Oct. 11, customers will be able to purchase HTC Hero through all Sprint retail channels including Web (www.sprint.com), Telesales (1-800-SPRINT1) and our national retail partner Best Buy for $179.99 (excluding taxes) after a $50 instant savings and a $100 mail-in rebate with a two-year service agreement. Pre-registration begins today at www.sprint.com/hero.

Access to countless applications
As a charter member of the Open Handset Alliance™, Sprint is actively engaged with the Android community. Through Android Market™, HTC Hero users have access to more than 8,000 useful applications, widgets and fun games to download and install on their phone, with many more to come. Thousands of developers are working to introduce new Android applications every day.

Intuitive, user-focused and fun
HTC Hero is the first U.S. device to feature HTC Sense, an intuitive experience that was built with a guiding philosophy to put people at the center and allows the device to be completely customized to the wants and needs of the user. The device’s seven-panel wide home screen can be populated with customizable widgets that bring information to the surface.

HTC Hero users can easily create and switch between Scenes to reflect different moments or roles in their lives, such as work, social, travel and play. For example, a work Scene can be easily set up to include stock updates, work email and calendar, a play Scene could have music, weather, and a Twitter feed or a travel Scene could offer instant access to the local time, weather and maps.

Industry-leading features
HTC Hero features an integrated 5.0 MP camera and camcorder. It also offers easy access to personal and business e-mail, instant messaging and text messaging through POP, IMAP, and Exchange Active Sync accounts.

HTC Hero is a full-featured smartphone with Wi-Fi capability, a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen with pinch-to-zoom capability and a fingerprint resistant coating, integrated GPS navigation, and trackball navigation. Additional features include:
Stereo Bluetooth® 2.0 Wireless technology
accelerometer, light sensor and home screen widgets for improved usability
multimedia capable with microSD slot (32GB capable, 2GB included)
Sprint TV® with live and on-demand programming
NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup MobileSM
easy access to social networking sites, including Facebook®, Flickr® and Twitter
visual voice mail for quick and easy access to specific voice mail messages

HTC Hero requires activation on a pricing plan offering unlimited data. Sprint’s Simply EverythingSM plan provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, e-mail, social networking, Web browsing, GPS navigation, Sprint TV, streaming music, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and much more for only $99.99 per month. That’s a savings of $1,200 over two years vs. a comparable AT&T iPhone® plan2. Sprint Everything Data plans with unlimited messaging and data start at just $69.99 for 450 minutes with unlimited night and weekend calling starting at 7 p.m. (All price plans exclude Sprint surcharges and taxes.)

CDMA HTC Hero spied without signature chin – Hot or Not?

Matt Burns — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:30:47 +0000

The HTC Hero is undoubtedly the best looking Android device. Don’t even try to argue with that fact. But the CDMA-variant of the Hero might be radically different. So much, that I’m not sure if I dig it. Right now the Internet is aflutter with ohs and ahs about the redesigned phone, but I think it looks like a cheap, Chinese redesign. Who knows, maybe it will grow on me. There doesn’t seem to be solid proof that this version of the phone will be available on Sprint or Verizon though and could be headed to a different market. IDK, maybe I do like it. [080.net via EngMobile]

Does the redesigned HTC Hero do it for you?

HTC updating the Hero, possibly removing some of the slow

John Biggs — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:56:41 +0000

SlashGear has been on the HTC Hero case and is reporting that there will be a software update for the Hero in the “coming weeks” which could also be inferred as “the next 10 days.”

Considering how much we loved the Hero it’s good to know that these boys are planning to fix some of our major issues namely how slow it was and how slow it was.

Review: HTC Hero

John Biggs — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:26:04 +0000

There is a fairly standard montage in the canon of bad 80s movies. It involves the protagonist(s) working hard to build/do/invent something to beat the stuck up and dismissive antagonists. See, for example, Summer Rental, a John Candy vehicle in which Candy and crew convert a seafood restaurant that was originally a boat back into a boat in order to win a big, rich boat race against snobs. I don't quite recall why they needed to win the race, but that's immaterial. In the end [SPOILER ALERT] they thumb their noses, triumphantly, at the crews of the other, more richly appointed boat. It's the tale of the underdog - an important tale to be told in that dark decade - and it is applicable here. This brings us to the HTC Hero, HTC's first Android phone using their new Sense UI. In one sense the Hero is "just another Android phone"; in another sense, it's an entirely new direction for HTC and the platform. The Hero is a great phone. It is on par - and ultimately better - than the Palm Pre and, some would say, the iPhone on many points. It also turns those lumbering Windows Mobile and Symbian into something that you will fondly remember from your youth, a set of dinosaur technologies now extinct. Furthermore, we can easily extend the metaphor above to say that the Hero is John Candy lacquering the deck while Apple and Palm are the rich, stuck-up yacht club members laughing at the upstart. I'm here to tell you that these yacht club members should ignore this upstart at their peril.

Quick Look: HTC Hero

John Biggs — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:36:52 +0000

The HTC Hero just landed at my humble office/abode and I’m pleased to report that it is, in fact, all that and a packet of crisps. The phone is slim and sexy with a great UI – one of the best I’ve seen on a smartphone since the phone that starts with ‘i’ and ends with Phone – and it’s quite snappy, a huge improvement over my experience with the G1.

HTC Hero

I’m going to put this old girl through her paces this weekend and I’ll report back on my findings. Until then, feast your eyes on these photographs taken in my back yard.

Initial findings? I love the widget systems, especially the Bell & Ross-style clocks and the 5-megapixel AF camera is a real treat. The onscreen keyboard takes some getting practice. To type numbers and special characters you’re expected to hold down the letter until a small window pops up. You can then let go to make the number appear. I’ll do a video later to show you.

Otherwise, I’m finally excited about Android. This is running Cupcake with an amazing skin.

The HTC Hero/Sense UI video walk-through

John Biggs — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:11:47 +0000

Here it is in living color: the HTC Hero/Sense UI walk-through. This is a real phone running the actual software and we delve into some of the most important features including social media integration and the browser experience.

The most interesting thing is that all of the contact/Facebook/Twitter interaction is automatic. You import your login info and it just shows up without fuss or muss. There is none of the Palm Pre’s linked-list creation. This is a small improvement but makes a world of difference in most cases. The Facebook info updates once every two hours so when profile pictures or contact info is updated online, the phone updates itself automatically.

The HTC Hero gets a YouTube demo

Matt Burns — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:42:07 +0000

Got HTC Hero overload yet? Well, here’s the official demo video of HTC’s latest. Enjoy.

Video of the HTC Hero sliding and slipping

John Biggs — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:22:01 +0000

HTC Hero/Sense Event Liveblog

John Biggs — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:13:17 +0000

Live from the HTC press event.

7:13 AM: johnbiggs OK. So we have the Sense and the Hero today.
7:13 AM: johnbiggs The CEO just showed up to talk about Sense. Not much info.
7:14 AM: johnbiggs CMO John Wang
7:14 AM: johnbiggs Now on stage.
7:14 AM: johnbiggs “Phones have too many features made by techies.”
7:14 AM: johnbiggs HTC Sense
7:15 AM: johnbiggs “HTC Sense is a holistic experience that put people at the center by simply making things work as they should”
7:15 AM: johnbiggs You are the center.
7:16 AM: johnbiggs Bring all of your things to the surface. It is so much like Palm Pre interface it’s scary. Uses cards.
7:16 AM: johnbiggs Lots of widgets.
7:16 AM: johnbiggs Set your scene for the weekend – change the way it looks on the weekend.
7:19 AM: johnbiggs You can slide between icons to see different info on a person. One contact card has your contact’s smses, IMs, pictures on Flickr, etc.
7:20 AM: johnbiggs Land at a new place: clock, weather, appointments change
7:21 AM: johnbiggs search: in internet, search google, in twitter search twitter, in calendar, search only calendar
7:21 AM: johnbiggs Multi-touch – pinch in email to change text size
7:21 AM: johnbiggs
7:22 AM: johnbiggs
7:23 AM: johnbiggs
7:23 AM: johnbiggs
7:23 AM: johnbiggs Now releasing HTC Hero – first product to use Sense.
7:24 AM: johnbiggs
7:24 AM: johnbiggs Teflon coated
7:24 AM: johnbiggs so it doesn’t get messy
7:24 AM: johnbiggs wacky, right?
7:25 AM: johnbiggs
7:26 AM: johnbiggs
7:26 AM: johnbiggs Lots of “man on the street” interviews – “Very nice! Can I go with this?”
7:26 AM: johnbiggs
7:27 AM: johnbiggs The phone looks very similar to the G1. Angle bottom. Probably will end up as the T-Mobile G3.
7:27 AM: johnbiggs Finish is “soft to the touch” not cold and slippery… like the iPhone?
7:27 AM: johnbiggs Resists dirt and stains
7:27 AM: johnbiggs
7:28 AM: johnbiggs anti-fingerprint finish on hero
7:28 AM: johnbiggs “You shouldn’t be polishing your phone.”
7:28 AM: johnbiggs Sorry images aren’t popping up.
7:29 AM: johnbiggs Ah. I guess they are.
7:29 AM: johnbiggs GPS, digital compass, and tilt sensor.
7:30 AM: johnbiggs You can mute an incoming call just by turning the phone over.
7:30 AM: johnbiggs 5-megapixel camera
7:30 AM: johnbiggs Announcing Adobe Flash support
7:31 AM: johnbiggs Error correction and spellcheck for typing
7:31 AM: johnbiggs
7:31 AM: johnbiggs Coming this Summer
7:32 AM: johnbiggs So what we have here is Android with an amazing overlay. This is the Palm Pre++
7:33 AM: johnbiggs T-Mo and Orange are the local partners in Europe. Available in Europe in July. Asia in the end of summer.
7:34 AM: johnbiggs Heading over to the demo pit. Thanks for watching.

Flash comes to Android

John Biggs — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:54:24 +0000

Adobe and HTC are bringing Flash to Android on its new Hero smartphone. The implementation will support video and audio codecs familiar to users of Flash on the desktop.

The HTC Hero delivers powerful, compatible video playback performance using Flash technology, and interactive content enabled by ActionScript® 2.0. Users can enjoy and navigate through Web videos using intuitive video controls. With progressive streaming of large MP3 audio files from a Web server and the local file storage, the HTC Hero provides a seamless audio experience. Support for Sorenson and On2 VP6 codecs enables higher quality video and playback of existing Web content. A demo of the user experience enabled by the Flash Platform on the HTC Hero and the Android operating system can be viewed at www.adobe.com/go/htchero.

Not official word on availability right now but it should arrive with the new Hero handset this summer and in the US later this year on, it is assumed, T-Mobile’s version of the Hero device. There is no information on whether this implementation will be available on other handsets – the G1, for example – at this time.

Adobe and HTC Bring Flash Platform to Android
New HTC Hero Delivers More Complete Web Browsing Experience with Adobe Flash Technology
SAN JOSE, Calif. and LONDON — June 24, 2009 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and HTC, a global designer of mobile phones, today announced that the new HTC Hero is the first Android phone to ship with support for Adobe® Flash® Platform technology. The new phone delivers a more complete Web browsing experience and provides access to a broad variety of Flash technology based content available on the Web today.
“As the first Android device with Flash, the new HTC Hero represents a key milestone for Android and the Flash Platform. With close to 80 percent of all videos online delivered with Adobe Flash technology, consumers want to access rich Web content on-the-go.” said David Wadhwani, vice president and general manager, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “The collaboration with HTC offers people a more complete Flash based Web browsing experience today and presents an important step towards full Web browsing with Flash Player 10 on mobile phones in the future.”
The new HTC Hero is a key element of the HTC experience and a new generation of HTC mobile phones and devices. Users can browse and discover a broad set of Web content and applications not supported by mobile phones in the past. People can also view YouTube videos using Flash technology, and enable full screen viewing mode by simply double tapping the screen.
“Adobe Flash is an important core technology for people interacting and experiencing the Web, it is only natural to be offering it on the new HTC Hero first,” said John Wang, chief marketing officer, HTC Corporation. “We look forward to continuing our close collaboration with Adobe and to bringing Flash Player 10 support to our phones in the future.”
The HTC Hero delivers powerful, compatible video playback performance using Flash technology, and interactive content enabled by ActionScript® 2.0. Users can enjoy and navigate through Web videos using intuitive video controls. With progressive streaming of large MP3 audio files from a Web server and the local file storage, the HTC Hero provides a seamless audio experience. Support for Sorenson and On2 VP6 codecs enables higher quality video and playback of existing Web content. A demo of the user experience enabled by the Flash Platform on the HTC Hero and the Android operating system can be viewed at www.adobe.com/go/htchero.
HTC Participates in Open Screen Project
HTC also announced its participation in the Open Screen Project, a broad industry effort to deliver a consistent runtime across screens and to provide access to all Flash technology based Web content in the future. As a contributor to the initiative, HTC is collaborating with Adobe and more than 25 other industry leaders to bring Flash Player 10 and full Web browsing to the next generation of Android based smartphones and other mobile computing platforms and devices. For more details on the Open Screen Project, visit www.openscreenproject.org.
About Adobe Flash Platform
The Adobe Flash Platform is a complete system of integrated tools, frameworks, clients and servers for the development of Web applications, content and video that runs consistently across operating systems and devices. Adobe Flash Player content reaches over 98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops, and Adobe Flash technology is the No.1 platform for video on the Web. In addition, the mobile runtime has shipped and delivered Flash technology based content on close to 40 percent of all new mobile phones and devices in 2008. For more information about the Adobe Flash Platform visit www.adobe.com/flashplatform. For details on the goals set for the Adobe Flash Platform as part of the Open Screen Project, visit www.openscreenproject.org
About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.
About HTC
HTC Corporation (HTC) is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry and continues to pioneer industry-leading mobile experiences through design, usability and innovation that is sparked by how the mobile phone can improve how people live and communicate. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.

HTC introduces Sense, the first customized Android installation on its new Hero – UPDATE

John Biggs — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:49:57 +0000

The era of Android customization has begun with HTC’s Sense UI, a customized overlay for Android that adds HTC’s stunning graphical interface to the sturdy Android OS. The UI will run on the new Hero, a 3.2-inch touchscreen phone running at 528MHz with MicroSD slot.

More specs on the phone:

With its 3.2-inch HVGA display, the HTC Hero is optimized for Web, multimedia and other content, while maintaining a small size and weight that fits comfortably in your hand. It also boasts a broad variety of hardware features including AGPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a five mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable MicroSD memory. HTC Hero also includes a dedicated Search button that goes beyond basic search, providing you with a more natural, contextual search experience that enables you to search through Twitter, locate people in your contact list, find emails in your inbox or search in any other area in Hero.

The new Android UI will have something called “Perspectives,” a new method for connecting email, contacts, and social media automatically. This version will also be the first to support Flash natively.

So here’s my assessment:

Sorry, Palm: this is the new hotness. The HTC Hero with Sense does everything WebOS can do but it uses Android, a platform that is already popular with the geekerati and has a great install base. There wasn’t much to see in these versions – a short hands-on appears below – but you’re looking at what promises to make Android the real killed feature-phone OS: customizability with an eye on processor intensive “data linking.”

The parts we saw of the OS promise contact linking, which will allow you to add social media aspects to contacts. Instead of a name and address you can add Flickr streams, Twitter info, and other goodies. The changeable UI based on activities – the weekend vs. weekday screens – promises fewer distractions during key points in your life (i.e. when going out with the kids you can hide your email). Most importantly, however, this is Android. It has a full app store.

Oh, and it has Flash.

As I’ve said, Android is the next WinMo. It’s the more powerful smartphone OS for business and casual users and because it is open it can be customized to your liking in seconds. OEMs will lap it up because it’s free. More in a bit.

HTC Sense™ DEBUTS on new HTC hero™

HTC Hero is the world’s first Android-based phone with a
customized user interface

HTC Sense to be integrated across a portfolio of
phones beginning with HTC Hero

LONDON – June 24, 2009 – HTC Corporation, a global designer of mobile phones, today debuted HTC Sense™, an intuitive and seamless experience that will be introduced across a portfolio of phones beginning with the new HTC Hero™. With its distinct design and powerful capabilities fully integrated with HTC Sense, Hero introduces a unique blend of form and function that takes Android to new heights.
HTC Sense is focused on putting people at the centre, by making your phone work in a more simple and natural way. This experience revolves around three fundamental principles that were designed by quietly observing and listening to how people live and communicate.
‘HTC Hero introduces a more natural way for reaching out to people and accessing your important information, not by following the status quo of today’s phones, but by following how you communicate and live your life,’ said Peter Chou, Chief Executive Officer, HTC Corporation. ”HTC Sense is a distinct experience created to make HTC phones more simple for people to use, leaving them saying, “it just makes sense.”’
HTC Hero
HTC Hero continues HTC’s leadership in cutting-edge design that focuses on introducing a variety of distinct devices to represent your own individuality. Boasting bevelled edges and an angled bottom, the HTC Hero is contoured to fit comfortably in your hand and against your face while you’re on a call. The HTC Hero is built to last, beginning with an anti-fingerprint screen coating for improved smudge-resistance and a longer-lasting, clearer display. The white HTC Hero includes an industry-first, Teflon coating, resulting in an improved, durable white surface that is soft to the touch.
With its 3.2-inch HVGA display, the HTC Hero is optimized for Web, multimedia and other content, while maintaining a small size and weight that fits comfortably in your hand. It also boasts a broad variety of hardware features including AGPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a five mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable MicroSD memory. HTC Hero also includes a dedicated Search button that goes beyond basic search, providing you with a more natural, contextual search experience that enables you to search through Twitter, locate people in your contact list, find emails in your inbox or search in any other area in Hero.

HTC Sense
Built on a culture of innovation and a passion to enhance people’s lives, HTC shapes the mobile experience around the individual. Debuting on the HTC Hero and available on all new HTC devices moving forward, Sense delivers on three basic principles: Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected.

Make It Mine
Make It Mine is about feeling your HTC phone was created for and by you. To do this, HTC encourages you to dictate and organize how you want to access the people and content in your life in a way that fits best for you. For some, this means adding glance-view widgets that push content like twitter feeds, weather and other content to the surface while others may want quick access to business-focused information like email, calendar and world-times. HTC is also introducing a new profile feature called ‘Scenes’ that enables you to create different customized content profiles around specific functions or times in your life.

Stay Close
Today, staying in touch with the people in your life means managing a variety of communication channels and applications ranging from phone calls, emails, texts, photos, status updates and more. HTC Sense takes a different approach by integrating these communication channels and applications into one single view, enabling you to stay closer to your important people. With HTC Sense, friends’ Facebook status updates and photos, along with their Flickr photos are included alongside their text messages, emails and call history in a single view.

Discover the Unexpected
Many of the most memorable moments in your life are experienced, not explained. HTC Sense is focused on providing a variety of these simple yet innovative experiences on your HTC phone that will sometimes bring you moments of joy and delight. It can be something as basic as turning the phone over to silence a ring or as simple as improving the smart dialler for making calls quicker. HTC Sense also includes ‘Perspectives’, a new way for viewing your content such as email, photos, Twitter, music and more in different ways.

Availability
The HTC Hero will be available to people across Europe in July and in Asia later in the summer. A distinct North American version will be available later in 2009.

About HTC
HTC Corporation (HTC) is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry and continues to pioneer industry-leading mobile experiences through design, usability and innovation that is sparked by how the mobile phone can improve how people live and communicate. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.

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