HTC rolled out a smartphone wrapping Google's Android operating system in a custom user interface. It's said that "HTC Sense" will also come to Windows phones -- but the company's rumored, Qualcomm Snapdragon-based "Firestone" (left) appears to have been a no-show at this morning's press conference.
HTC's newly announced Hero, pictured below, is the company's fourth phone employing Google's Linux- and Java-based Android operating system. Like the first three devices -- the HTC G1 introduced last October, the HTC Magic launched by Vodafone this spring, and the MyTouch 3G announced earlier this week -- the Hero uses an ARM-based Qualcomm MSM7200a system-on-chip (SoC).
The touchscreen device also offers the same 3.2-inch, QVGA (480 x 320) display as the earlier models, plus other features such as quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE network support, 802.11/b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, accelerometer, and a digital compass. (For more pictures and details of the HTC Hero's hardware, see the coverage on our sister site LinuxDevices.com, here.)
HTC's Hero (Click to enlarge)
The Hero's most distinctive feature is its user interface, HTC Sense, which the manufacturer says will be "introduced across a portfolio of phones," reportedly including Windows Mobile devices. (HTC's TouchFLO and TouchFLO 3D are already available on a variety of different Windows phones, where they sugar-coat the standard applications with a finger-friendly front end.)
HTC provided relatively few details of the "intuitive and seamless" interface, but Sense is said to offer extensive customization. Much like Palm's Linux-based WebOS, Sense is said to integrate communications from phone calls, emails, texts, photos, and status updates into a single view. For example, a friend's Facebook status updates and photos can appear alongside his or her Flickr photos, text messages, emails, and call history.
Different views of HTC's Sense interface (Click to enlarge)
According to Adobe, meanwhile, the HTC will be the first Android smartphone to offer its Flash media playback technology. While compatible with about 80 percent of websites using Flash, the Hero does not yet sport the "full desktop" Flash 10 version, recently announced for Windows phones and other mobile devices.
Where's the Firestone?
This morning's HTC press conference in London reportedly focused squarely on the Hero, with no discussion of any Windows devices. However, images and specifications for a high-end Windows phone supposedly due from HTC in August are already available on the the Hi-Tech Sanook website, here, from where they have subsequently rippled around the blogosphere.
Said to be a successor to HTC's high-end Touch HD, which never made it to the U.S. officially, the "Firestone" will reportedly feature a 3.6-inch touchscreen with 800 x 480 resolution, 256MB of RAM and 512MB of flash storage, WiFi, GPS, and an eight megapixel camera. Notably, it's claimed, the device will also use Qualcomm's Snapdragon QSD8250 chipset, combining an ARM CPU clocked at 1GHz plus a 600MHz DSP (digital signal processor).
If the rumors are true, that would make the Firestone the most powerful HTC's most powerful mobile phone. To our knowledge, the Snapdragon chipset has so far only featured in two other Windows phones, Toshiba's TG01 and Acer's F1.
Pictured running Windows Mobile 6.5, as shown at the top of our story, the HTC Firestone could also be a good candidate for a Windows port of HTC Sense. Meanwhile, Sense can be seen running on the newly announced HTC Hero in the video below.
A video demo of the HTC Hero Source: Orange (click to play)
Further information
The HTC Hero will be available across Europe in July, and in Asia later in the summer, says HTC. A "distinct" North American version will be available later in 2009, says the company. More information on a version of the phone to be offered by Orange in the U.K. may be found here.
According to a wide variety of blogs, the HTC Firestone is set to be released in August.
