HTC Hero is Next Big Android Smartphone

HTC beefs up Android with new Sense UI and Adobe Flash.

HTC yesterday pulled the wraps off of its next smartphone that’ll run Google’s Android mobile operating system – the HTC Hero.

Unlike the previous HTC Android handsets, the Hero isn’t centered around the “Google Experience,” but rather it uses an HTC-customized user interface called Sense.

“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.”

For a better sense of Sense, check out the video below.

In terms of hardware, the HTC Hero features a 3.2-inch HVGA display, GPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a 5 mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable MicroSD memory.

Setting it apart from other phones is a Teflon coating, which HTC claims to result in “an improved, durable white surface that is soft to the touch.” We presume that’d also mean that it’ll attract fewer fingerprints and fried eggs. Like the iPhone 3GS, the Hero’s screen also has an anti-fingerprint screen coating.

Perhaps the most groundbreaking feature of all is that this smartphone supports Adobe flash. While early looks at this phone report that viewing YouTube video works right from inside the phone’s browser.

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.