The Connected Circuit

When Google first announced that they were creating a mobile platform, I was decidedly very excited. But almost year later, there is still only one Android device out, the G1 by HTC. The extremely open solid platform that Google created, free for everyone to use was out and about and no one was taking advantage of it save one, HTC. Many companies have promised to have Android devices out by the end of this year, but HTC is the first one up to show off a real device running Android. Today marks a pretty big day for Android with the official announcement of the HTC Hero and the highly customized Sense UI and a first for mobile devices with built-in Flash support.

Hardware-wise, the specs of the device are not mind blowing, but they are not unspectacular either. It has a teflon coated back, a 3.5mm jack, 3.2″ HVGA (480x320) capacitive touchscreen, a Qualcomm® MSM7200A 528 MHz CPU processor, 288 MB of RAM, 5 megapixal autofocus cam, GPS, quad band GSM phone (900/2100 MHz for HSPA), and a digital compass, but lacks a physical keyboard.

Reminiscint of Touch FLO3D for Windows Mobile devices, Sense UI is the new skin created by HTC. Both very slick and stylish, the new UI has the ability to add widgets, HTC’s own or a third party, moves relatively seamless and has highly customizable home screens. HTC also went through the trouble of creating their own virtual keyboard that seems to rival that of the iPhone’s and has haptic feedback. The biggest news is that HTC with the help of Adobe has built a Flash player into the browser and is capable of playing videos straigt from Youtube, though it isn’t 100% yet. Seemless is hard to the describe how Sense UI actually works, so check out the embedded videos below.

Read more here, here, here, here, and here.

--written by Peter To--