The HTC Hero has made its first appearance on a UK carrier's website, but finds itself burdened with a teasing "coming soon" badge. Having talked to Orange, we can confirm
previous reports that the device will be available for free on some, as yet undetermined but surely eye-gouging, price plans. The company said they are still testing the device and should have pricing information by tomorrow. Expect T-Mobile to quickly follow suit and unveil their
Hero by another name (G1 Touch?), also fully subsidized. Both carriers will be offering the graphite edition of the phone, so if you have your heart set on the white
Teflon-coated goodness, you may have to go the
SIM-free route.
posted Jun 30th 2009 6:08AM
I'm due for an upgrade and spend a lot of money on orange so hopefully we can work something out but there is no way I'm signing a 24 month contract, it's just too long.
The HTC Hero will be available in Belgium starting from next week!
€ 459 (without contract)
Check out this site: http://www.loveno.be/nieuws/1110
Well, that's a lot cheaper than a 32GB iPhone 3GS - they're EUR 675 at the moment, although you can obviously get cheaper models.
Nice - now we just need an even somewhat competent cell-provider
(i.e. not Mobistar and nothing affiliated with Belgafuckup)
/G
This video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ixkhFd4BHE says the phone will be free on £39.50. £39.50!! The HTC Magic is free on £25 per month and I can't see the extra features being worth £360 over the 24 month contract. The HTC Rosie UI will be hacked onto the magic in no time which seems to be the phones biggest selling point.
@NC
Hmm, that's kinda limiting given that only Mobistar and Belgacom have 3G networks in Belgium at the moment. BASE is supposedly OK (according to my colleagues) but they only seem to have an EDGE/GPRS data network at present.
My HTC Magic runs smoothly on Proximus' network.
I agree, I'm in the middle of an 18 month contract and miss the days when a 12 month'er was all that was ever required!
contracts are getting crazy long recently. phones4u in the uk are doing 36 month contracts on some handsets to keep the monthly price down...
i got my magic free on a 12 month contract £40 per month, six months half price, unlimited data + texts + 300mins = £360 for the year.
hopefully the handset will still be worth £150-£200 second hand when my contract finishes...
Let your voices be heard and their pockets emptied. Boycott 24 month contracts, go sim-free if you have to.
Any idea of the cost for a sim-free? I would love to get one of these but Australia will not have it until my children have children. Probably.
And I do agree, 24 month contracts be damned. You know your phone will be obsolete by the time it's up. Well, not obsolete, but bloody unattractive and featureless compared to others out there. Noone wants that.
In the pre-smartphone times ussually the mobiles people walked around with werent the high-end models which were even then expensive. Nowadays we expect high-end models together with a flatfee internet and unlimited SMS for a lowprice. Well as you noticed this is financiallly not possible so eitherway you learn to appriciate a mid/low-end smartphone like an 5800 or accept the high fee.
That said I wonder how many people actually do use the smart part of the mobile. I remember a study regarding the iphone being used pretty heavy yet its only 50% the rest uses it as a mobile. Ie a lot are willing to pony up a lot of money just for the looks and cool-aid it adds. It´s apparantly something the producers also understand as most smartphones are aiming at the high-end market.
@Shapey
I love your user icon! That art is from my home town of Santa Cruz, CA! :)
-Taylor
Orange firmware will probably render this good looking handset next to useless!
There's always debranding!
Is this a fall release on either Sprint or Tmobile? Has there been pix posted of the virtual keyboard on this phone?
Why would T-Mo rename the handset? It's not an operator exclusive like the G1 was.
Nice phone, shame about the carrier.
Orange=fail
The only handsets I ever had to application unlock were on Orange (C600 & M5000), seriously sending and Exchange certificate to them for signing is a huge fail, I ended up flashing the ROM's
I hope they do not ruin this handset in this way.
carrier choice is the reason I decided to down 400 quid on the hero sim free ...
Same here, £399 from expansys with £30 vouchers. Shame though, I wanted the dark one!
It's so sexy...
You've gotta be really ugly to think that phone's even remotely sexy.
You've got to be really narrow-minded to think your opinion is universally applicable.
eh classic. the first good phone that orange does in ages and they dont do the white one... Why orange Why!?
Anyone know what the trackball is for yet? I've asked this question a few times now without any responses and it's starting to bug me. I can't see it being used in any of the demonstrations on HTC's website and it just seems like a really odd thing to add to a touchscreen device.
It helps in a lot of things. On web browsing, it helps to get some of the harder to reach links. In gaming, it makes a better directional pad. (Think PacMan). And it's good for one-handed navigation.
Personally, I like the fact that it includes a trackball. It brings a nice feature of a Blackberry to a touchscreen device. Best of both worlds.
So you think there is a cursor that the trackball controls?
To be honest, if this is not a standard feature on Android handsets then I wonder how many applications will make use of it. It's one of the reasons why I was surprised to see it.
Just spoke to a guy at Orange, "unofficial release date is July 7th" according to him, and he advised going to a retail store sometime in the next 5-7 days as they will get them first.
colour me excited
Well, if by 'smart part' of the iPhone, you mean what most people define a smartphone as, using email, web browser, pretty much anything internet-connected, then that would be most people right? The Hero looks like it can do all of what the iPhone does and more, which is why I personally want to get one.
Well, that's pants. I thought comments were supposed to be attached to ones they are replying to?
finally an android phone that actually looks nice.
Wow...the Euro's own this thread...
BTW, While I do not love 24month contracts, I don't despise them either. It isn't like I am not going to be using a cell phone for two years. Plus I can change my plan any time. Lastly, if the telco is giving me a price break on the phone for doing it, then OK.
sure, but you'll be kicking yourself when, for example, a nice new tegra powered android handset drops in six months and you've still got a year and a half on your current contract...
OK...but if it is with the same carrier, you still come out ahead. You would rather by 2 full price phones in 2 years than 1 subsidized and 1 at full price?
6 months is a pretty short life span for a phone.
Any idea what will come with the phone?
The internal memory is pretty low so will need an SD card. Will Orange supply one with the phone?
Also just noticed play.com has updated the release date from 5th July to 23rd July.
I would have bought this but the curve at the bottom would p!ss me off in my jeans pocket all the time.
T-Mobile announced the G1 Touch a week ago on their twitter. It's the HTC Hero.
http://twitter.com/TMobileOfficial
Come on Engadget.
why wont nice phones come to Sprint?
I see T-mobile are updateing their site, expect the Hero to appear anytime soon
I'd actually ordered a Diamond, but was told it had been discontinued. Doubt that it's coincidence.