htc hero sprint

Sprint’s new Hero

So the Instinct HD isn’t your type, but you still want an all touchscreen phone from Sprint? Then listen up: today Sprint announced that they will be soon launching one of the hottest phones of the year– the HTC Hero with a Google Android operating system . We guessed when the Hero was first announced that Sprint would wind up as one of it’s destinations, and we guessed right. All the info is right after the more link.

Ok, so first off you’ll notice the difference in design between Sprint’s Hero and HTC’s GSM one that they announced a few months back. This is great because this Hero looks so much better in my opinion than the first Hero mainly because THE CHIN IS GONE! HTC has had a pattern for putting little “chins” on all there Android phones to date (see the G1, myTouch 3G and first Hero as proof), and well, this phone just in looks alone, looks to be up there with the Palm Pre, BlackBerry Storm, and Apple iPhone.

Now on to specs, and like with looks, this really seems to be on the same level as the iPhone, Pre and Storm. This is pretty much identical to the first GSM Hero, which we find to be great (thank goodness it wasn’t watered down like what happens when some other phones come to the US).

A recap:

  • Sprint 3G
  • WiFi
  • GPS with HTC Footprints– snap a picture of a selected GPS location, a favorite restaurant or whatever, and then you can add notes and an audio clip
  • 3.2 inch touchscreen with multi-touch (pinch to zoom on pix and web sites) with a special fingerprint resistant coating (great to help keep the screen smudge free)
  • an awesome 5 megapixel camera with video
  • 2 GB microSD memory card in the box (upgradable to 32 GB)
  • Visual Voicemail
  • Android Market– Google’s app store for Android, with some special Sprint-only apps like Sprint TV, NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile

Now here is some of the best parts: 1. This will come with HTC’s AWESOME Sense UI for Android (instead of the basic Android look found on the G1 and myTouch 3G), as you can see in the pic above. 2. This will come in for a very good price of $179.99 with a 2 year contract and $50 instant rebate and $100 mail in rebate when it comes to Best Buy and Sprint stores on October 11th.

Excited? Yeah, I thought so. You can pre-register for info on the device here. But wow, with the Instinct HD, Pre and now the Hero– the decision for a new Sprint phone just got a lot tougher (don’t worry, if you got any questions, just post them in the comments and we’d be happy to try and make the decision easier for you).

Full Press Release from Sprint here.