HTC Hero preview

Launch price £435 (SIM-free)

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Stuff says

The most impressive Android phone yet with iPhone-topping messaging powers

• WATCH

PREVIEW

With T-Mobile’s chinny G1 and the Vodafone Magic desperate for support in the fight against the iPhone 3G S et al, HTC has sent in its third Android soldier – the Hero.

We were lucky enough to get a sneak peak before its official UK launch at lunchtime today – here are our first impressions.

Android lovechild
At first glance, it comes across as a lighter, slimmer lovechild of the G1 and Magic. Just like the G1, the Hero has an angled mouthpiece, but like the Magic, it dispenses with a QWERTY keyboard in favour of a 3.2in capacitive screen.

Where the G1 felt like a clunky brick and the Magic was no great shakes in the design department, the Hero feels comfortable and light in the hand, and the Teflon coating makes it tough and rugged.

Just like the Magic, the touchscreen is iPhone-rivalling – it's fast, responsive and a joy to use, with the trackball at the bottom giving extra navigation options.

Features boost
Many of the features that were lacking on the Magic have been rectified on the HTC Hero – there's now a 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as A2DP Bluetooth and the camera has been upped to a respectable 5MP with autofocus.

There's the same dedicated search button below the screen, which will perform a contextual search of whichever screen you happen to be in – for example, Twitter, email or the web.

Seeing Sense
But it's the all-new user interface that's got us most excited. Dubbed HTC Sense, it'll be rolling out on all HTC handsets beginning with the Hero and it gives the user a whole host of options to make your handset ultra-customisable.

The concept is that your handset is a blank slate and, like on Nokia’s N97, you decide which live, widget-based apps you want to add to one of your seven – yes, seven – homescreens.Instead of launching an app every time you want to check your Twitter feed, emails, weather or stocks, you simply choose from the HTC or Android widgets and drag and drop them onto one of your screens.

Customise your widgets
The huge time and effort that has gone into widget design – there are 12 different clock styles for instance – means that you'll never have a phone exactly the same as anyone else.

You can rig up a homescreen for all your multimedia apps – for example, one for business use, one for all social networking and one for weather and transport information. It's a synch to flick between them too.

Another neat touch is that your contacts screen contains all information on how that particular mate has been communicating – you'll see their SMS, call history, emails, Facebook updates, Twitter and Flickr feeds all in one place.

It's then up to you how you want to get in touch with them. This is a brilliant touch and dispenses with the need to launch loads of separate apps to see what your mates are up to.

Flashy browser
Web browsing is also a seamless experience, with pages neatly reflowing and full Flash browsing supported (take note, iPhone). From what we’ve seen, the Hero coupled with the Sense interface is the first phone to fully capitalise on Android's massive potential, while live widgets, Flash support and a 3.5mm jack give it an edge over the iPhone. 

If Android can get together a decent app store that doesn't lag behind Apple's, then the Hero could be our new favourite handset. The HTC Hero will be available in July, no word yet on carriers and we're told it'll be available in white and black/brown models on launch with possibly more to follow.