The HTC Hero has recently arrived at the V3.co.uk labs, HTC's latest phone to run Google's open source Android mobile operating system.

We'll have a full review of the device up next week, but here are some of our first impressions.

In terms of design, HTC has stuck with the same principles it employed for its first two Android devices, so we have a large touch screen above a handful of buttons and a trackball which sit on a 'chin' that juts out. On the HTC Magic, the lines and this lip were all very gentle and understated, while on the Hero the lines are a lot harder and the lip is quite pronounced. This makes the Hero look a lot more professional than its predecessors.

Also, thanks to the change from a resistive touch screen to a capacitive one, the interface is a lot more responsive and it now supports multi-touch as well.

The screen is also the best looking by far, and this comes down to not just the components used but also the addition of Sense. Much like it did with the inclusion of TouchFlo over Windows Mobile, HTC's Sense adds a layer over the Android interface to help make it more intuitive. Sense also brings in a lot of integration and a few new applications and widgets to help enhance the experience. It also gives you access to seven screens instead of Android's usual three.

Some of these include the ability to tie your contacts to your communications and social networks, so now you can see an individual's details as well as any emails, calls and messages with that person and recent Twitter, Facebook or Flickr updates.

There is also the inclusion of what HTC calls 'Scenes' which are essentially profiles, so you can set up which layouts, shortcuts and widgets you want to use in a particular situation and then change between them as you desire. Unfortunately Scenes is only skin deep, so you can't make different account or settings changes for each profile.

As with all Android devices the Hero's ease of use and functionality is closely tied to Google's services, and while there may be privacy concerns about how much information Google has on each and every one of us, the upside is that contacts, email, calendar and instant messenger are all automatically synchronised with your Google account.

The physical keyboard in the G1 was one of the best I've ever used, but it did make the device very bulky. Having scrapped that on the Magic, I turned to the virtual keyboard, which was usable but was often very annoying. I'm happy to say that the soft keyboard on the Hero is a pleasure to use, thanks to the combination of the capacitive touch screen and a much improved dictionary that can actually learn.

HTC has also bumped up the camera on the Hero to 5MP - but there is still no flash - and the company has finally included a proper 3.5mm headset jack so you can hook up your favourite pair of headphones rather than having to use the rather uncomfortable mini-USB headphones that were bundled into the G1 and the Magic.

As a whole the device generally runs pretty smoothly, but it can be be a bit slow and occasionally lags, which can be particularly frustrating when you're not sure if it's overloaded or if it hasn't acknowledged your input.

It can be easy to forget that Android is still a very young operating system and so can still be a little rough around the edges, particularly if you're looking for enterprise level features. Sense goes a long way to helping fill some of the gaps that still exist in Android and make the whole experience that much better.

There are still some bugs, missing features and annoyances - but that could also be said for every other mobile operating system and device around. It's impressive to see how quickly developers have rallied around the operating system and developed applications for it; with the possible exception of the Apple iPhone's App Store, the Android Marketplace is almost certainly the best mobile app store around.

I'm not done putting the Hero through its paces, but so far I'm very impressed, not just by the device itself but also by how quickly Android has, and is still, evolving.

Update: The full video review of the HTC Hero can be found here

30 Jul 2009