The HTC Hero, which has been announced by HTC recently, is the first Android device which has the potential to be up to par with the newest Windows Mobile devices like the HTC Touch Diamond 2. Because this time HTC actually overhauled the default Android UI and replaced it with what they call “HTC Sense“. And they did a really great job, judging by the first reviews and movies. Up to now i wasn’t convinced with what Google presented us by releasing the G1, and other Android devices like the HTC Magic and the Samsung Galaxy are also not interesting enough since Android just didn’t have the profesional widgets to be up to par with the rich amount of today plugins Windows Mobile provides. What’s the use of a great new OS if there are only a lot of beta like applications out there. Even the hardwaredesign for the G1 had a strong prototype look on it, i’m still wondering how this bad design could get to production like this. But then i heard that some ex-Danger people where responsible for this project, so at least i know the reason for the ugly G1 look (all Danger products are pretty ugly).
But HTC introduced their own UI take now, called HTC Sense. It looks a lot like the TouchFLO3d Plugin for Windows Mobile, but provides much more configurability. And i have to say, i really like the new UI. It looks much more professional and has a lot of interesting widgets. Also the way the contacts informations are brought together by taking informations of different onlineservices like facebook, twitter and flickr is really great.
HTC Sense introduces following features:
- Widgets (Calendar, Twitter, Communication widgets)
- Scenes (scenes are defined presets of hometabs. So each scene can be set up individually)
- 6 Home tabs
- New Contact app (using the all in one approach where facebook, twitter, flickr, email and messaging data of a contact can be accessed within the contact app.)
I like the widgets and the new contacts app especially, since both will provide great features for the day by day productivity.
Combine this new UI with the new HTC Hero, which comes with very good hardware specs:
- 528 Mhz CPU
- 288 MB Ram
- Trackball
- 3,5 mm Plug
- Capacitive touchscreen
- Android 1.5
- G-Sensor
- Digital compass
- 5 MP cam with autofocus
- Wi-Fi
- Bluetooth
- 320*480 resolution
And you have a clear winner.
Furthermore it seems like the Android app market is slowly becoming better too, since badly wanted apps like real GPS Navigation have been released finally. I think the HTC Hero will actually be my first Android device, so i can’t wait to get my hands on it and provide Android app reviews on my blog soon.
For more HTC Hero and HTC Sense details check out the HTC Hero review on mobile-review.
