HTC debuted HTC Sense, an intuitive and seamless experience that will be introduced across a portfolio of phones beginning with the new HTC Hero. With its design and powerful capabilities fully integrated with HTC Sense, Hero introduces a blend of form and function that takes Android to new heights.

“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.”

Boasting bevelled edges and an angled bottom, the HTC Hero is contoured to fit comfortably in your hand and against your face while you are on a call. The HTC Hero is built to last beginning with an anti-fingerprint screen coating for improved smudge resistance and a longer lasting, clearer display. The white HTC Hero includes a Teflon coating, resulting in an improved, durable white surface that is soft to the touch.

HTC Hero features a Qualcomm MSM7200A, 528 MHz processor, 512 MB ROM memory and 288 MB RAM memory, and IEEE 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi. With its 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution, the HTC Hero is optimized for Web, multimedia and other content while maintaining a small size and weight. It also boasts a broad variety of hardware features including an internal GPS antenna, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a 5 mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable MicroSD memory. HTC Hero also includes a dedicated Search button that goes beyond basic search, providing a more natural, contextual search experience that enables to search through Twitter, locate people in the contact list, find emails in the inbox or search in any other area in Hero.

The audio supported formats are MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media Audio 9, and the video supported formats are MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media Video 9.

Its dimensions (LxWxT) are 112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm (4.41 x 2.21 x 0.57 inches), and it weights 135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery. The talk time is up to 420 minutes for WCDMA, and up to 470 minutes for GSM. The standby time is up to 750 hours for WCDMA, and up to 440 hours for GSM.

Built on a culture of innovation and a passion to enhance peoples lives, HTC shapes the mobile experience around the individual. Debuting on the HTC Hero and available on all new HTC devices moving forward, Sense delivers on three basic principles: Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected.

With Make It Mine, HTC encourages the customers to dictate and organize how they want to access the people and content in their life in a way that fits best for them. For some, this means adding glance view widgets that push content like twitter feeds, weather and other content to the surface while others may want quick access to business-focused information like email, calendar and world-times. HTC is also introducing a new profile feature called scenes that enables to create different customized content profiles around specific functions.

Using Stay Close principle, HTC Sense takes a different approach by integrating various communication channels and applications into one single view enabling the user to stay closer to other people. With HTC Sense, friends Facebook status updates and photos along with their Flickr photos are included along side their text messages, emails and call history in a single view.

Many of the most memorable moments in the life are experienced, not explained. Discovering the Unexpected, HTC Sense is focused on providing a variety of these simple yet innovative experiences on the HTC phone that will sometimes bring you moments of joy and delight. HTC Sense also includes perspectives, a new way for viewing your content such as email, photos, Twitter, music and more in different ways.

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.