The forgotten smartphone: HTC Hero

December 19, 2021 Luisa Rey

In this edition of ‘The forgotten smartphone’, our beautiful column, we get to work with the HTC Hero. It was the first smartphone with HTC Sense and it stood out because of its trackball. We look back at the second forgotten smartphone; the HTC Hero.

HTC Hero

In February 2017 we started our ‘The forgotten smartphone’ section. We started our first installment with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. The second installment was this one, the HTC Hero. Nice device to pick up again.

When I forget smartphones, I immediately think of my second smartphone, the HTC Hero. The design could safely be called unique. The HTC Hero had a “chin” under the screen. In other words, the bottom side of the phone was sticking out. Below the screen were also various hardware buttons, calling, the home button, the menu button and a button to hang up.

Below that were the return buttons and a search button and the trackball. The HTC Hero was also unique in terms of software. This was the first Android smartphone with the well-known HTC Sense shell.

trackball

Like HTC’s first two Android smartphones, the HTC G1 and the HTC Magic, the Hero also had a trackball below the screen, which doubled as a notification light. With the trackball you could easily navigate around your screen. By clicking on the trackball, for example, you opened an app or a link.

HTC Hero trackball

At the time, we had to make do with a smaller screen than we are used to today. The HTC Hero had a 3.2 inch screen with a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels. The Hero was powered by a 528 MHz single-core processor from Qualcomm and 288 MB of RAM.

You had to make do with 512 MB of storage, which could be expanded with a microSD. On the back of the device was a 5 megapixel camera. This was the only camera. The Hero simply did not have a front camera. The battery had a size of 1350mAh. Unlike the HTC G1 and the Magic, the Hero did have a 3.5mm headphone jack.

HTC Hero

HTC Sense

The HTC Hero was the first Android smartphone to run on HTC Sense. Both its predecessors ran on the standard version of Android. HTC Sense looked particularly sleek and beautiful. For example, the clock/weather widget was very popular. Not only did it look nice, HTC had also added extra functions to HTC Sense.

HTC Hero

The Hero was the first smartphone to support a full version of Flash software. Also popular was the game “Teeter”. Tilting your phone made a ball roll. The goal was to roll the ball into the designated hole. Not only very popular, also addictive.

The HTC Hero appeared in July 2009. The suggested retail price of this smartphone was then 479 euros. In the Netherlands, the device was released in white and brown.