mobile phone

By louisvolant

By Fotos EnBytes

By louisvolant

It’s still pretty sketchy as to if and when the HTC Hero Android phone will hit the North American market, but with this latest bit of news, the situation is now a bit clearer this time around.

Having gotten FCC approval, the possibility of the HTC Hero being distributed in the US and Canada is close to being certain if not guaranteed already. In addition to that, since it comes with 850/1900MHz 3G bands, it’ll most likely debut on AT&T (US) and Rogers/Fido (Canada).

Of course, this isn’t official by any means, but based on the available info, this is what we can surmise about the HTC Hero and its eventual release in the North American region.

Sprint is also being rumored to be testing the HTC Hero, but if they do release one, this probably won’t be it. There’s still no date as to when it will actually hit the North America market, but it should be available this month in Europe with Asia to follow thereafter.

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.

EAM COLUMBIA-HTC PLANS TO CONTINUE SUCCESS AT 2009 TOUR DE FRANCE
· Team enters the race with 49 wins in 2009
· Announces ‘toughest decision’ of final nine riders to compete
· New Co-Sponsor- HTC- introduced at Tour De France

High Road Sports, Inc, which introduced a powerful new International Co-Sponsor earlier today, announces its intention to continue its winning success of the 2009 season in the Tour De France, which begins in Monaco on July 4. The team enters the race with the most wins of the 2009 season with 49 to date, including 6 National Championship Titles.

Team manager Rolf Aldag and owner Bob Stapleton revealed the final nine riders who will line up at the 2009 Tour de France under the newly named Team Columbia-HTC.
Aldag called it the “toughest decision of the year, as we had 15 guys who deserved to be on our Tour De France team. It was difficult to personally disappoint these fine athletes,” Aldag added, “ultimately we succeed as a team, and we chose the combination of those athletes that give us the greatest combined opportunity for success for this course and the expected competition”.

The roster for the 2009 Tour de France includes quadruple stage winner of the 2008 Tour de France Mark Cavendish (UK); 2008 yellow and green jersey holder Kim Kirchen (LUX). Road Captain George Hincapie (USA) will be lining up for his 14th consecutive year in France as well as Australian Michael Rogers who placed 8th in the recent Giro D’Italia and is a three time former World Time Trial Champion.

Young Tony Martin (GER) will make his Tour de France debut after a very successful Tour de Suisse where he won a stage and the mountains classification. Support will come from Bernhard Eisel (AUT) who also won at stage at Tour de Suisse, promising general classification rider Maxime Monfort (BEL) , lead-out specialist Mark Renshaw (AUS) and current World Time Trial Champion Bert Grabsch (GER).

“We’re looking forward to the Grand Depart in Monaco where we will start our first race as Columbia-HTC and our new co-title sponsor HTC will be on location to witness the great spectacle of the Tour de France,” added Team Owner Bob Stapleton. “We hope we can achieve the same kind of success at the Tour that we have enjoyed thus far in 2009.”

The HTC Hero opens up a whole world of multimedia content with support for Flash 9, intensifying the spotlight on Apple’s lack of cooperation with Adobe in bringing Flash to the iPhone.

Things are getting exciting in the mobile phone arena. First we get the beefed-up iPhone 3GS, and now we have a new Android phone. Up until now Android had no killer app to challenge the iPhone with. The newest HTC phone has Flash 9 capability with Flash 10 coming later this year, giving it a competitive edge.

People can now experience Web content and applications that couldn’t run on previous mobile phones. There are a whole slew of Flash games and other media that are suddenly available (Hulu anyone?). Close to 80 percent of all videos online use Adobe Flash. While this content is now available on the Hero, the iPhone can play YouTube videos but no other Flash media.

We don’t have Flash on the iPhone right now due to limitations of Apple’s iPhone SDK (Software Developers’ Kit) and its associated license. In other words, Apple has intentionally suppressed Flash. The reason for this is obvious: Apple wants control of which applications are permitted to run on the iPhone, and more importantly, a cut of the pie. Applications written in Flash would bypass the iPhone App Store.

Now Apple has reason to remove the restrictions that limit Adobe’s ability to develop Flash for the iPhone. I’m betting that once the Hero gains some momentum, Apple will make a move. While we’re at it, how about Silverlight for both platforms so I can use Netflix streaming (a boy can dream).

Those who were hoping to upgrade their G1’s will be out of luck for the time being. This release of Flash is integrated into the HTC Hero’s ROM and isn’t yet available for other Android devices.

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 listening and observing how people live and communicate.

“HTC Hero introduces a more natural way for reaching out to the people and accessing your important information, not by following the status quo of todays 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 HTCs 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 youre 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 a GPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a 5 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 peoples 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 along side 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.

At a press event in London on Wednesday, HTC unveiled its latest Google Android device, the HTC Hero, featuring a new user interface called HTC Sense.

The HTC Hero will be available in Europe starting in July and in Asia later this summer, while a “distinct” North American version will ship later in 2009. However, pricing was not announced at this time.
Like the T-Mobile G1 and Google Ion/HTC Magic, the HTC Hero has the signature curve at the bottom, but it’s a bit more svelte at 4.4 inches tall by 2.2 inches wide and 0.5 inch thick. In addition, it features a 3.2-inch HVGA touch screen with an antifingerprint screen coating.

However, the real beauty of the smartphone lies beneath the surface. The new Sense UI allows users to customize the device to their needs and give them more access to the information they want at a glance through widgets, customized profiles, and consolidated views of all communication with a contact, whether it be e-mail, text or multimedia message, Facebook status updates, or photos. In addition, HTC said that all of its future devices will use Sense UI.

Other highlights of the HTC Hero include GPS, a digital compass, gravity sensor, a 5-megapixel camera, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a microSD expansion slot. A dedicated search button on the phone provides a more contextual search, looking through not only your contact list and e-mail but also Twitter and other areas of the device.

Finally, similar to the Asia-specific HTC Magic, the Hero is not a “Google experience” phone, so HTC has been able to add Microsoft Exchange support to the handset, which will be huge for corporate customers.

CNET’s David Carnoy was at HTC’s New York event and got video of the HTC Hero in action, which you can check out to the above. CNET UK’s Flora Graham was at the London press conference and posted a hands-on photo gallery with first impressions. For more information of the Hero’s specs, check out HTC’s Web site and let us know what you think of the device below.

CNET