HTC Hero Spotted in the Wild

It seems that the next mobile phone coming from the Taiwanese based HTC Corporation with the Google Android operating system will be the HTC Hero, which has just been spotted in a number of photos that show it into the wild. The handset seems to come around with a touchscreen display, coupled with 5 hardware buttons below it.

The phone in said images seems very much like the HTC Hero that has been previously seen in a series of leaked photos that surfaced at the beginning of the ongoing year, though back then it was sporting an all-pink color, and now it can be admired in black. The device seems to have dropped the trackball that is available on G1 and Magic, while also including a reworked keypad compared to the concept shot previously leaked.

Given the fact that the D-pad, as well as any other obvious directional control, can not be seen with the device, all navigation would be done directly via the handset's touchscreen. As for the design of the HTC Hero, it seems to resemble that of Touch Diamond2 a lot, also bearing something from the original G1. In addition, the already popular HTC-Android-chin is present in the package as well, and there is also a 3.5mm headphone jack, which comes as a surprise, though a pleasant one.

It is not known for sure at the moment whether the newly leaked images are legit or not, though it has been reported before that HTC intended to launch more Android-powered handsets in 2009, as the company’s CEO Peter Chou stated. Hopefully, in the end this mobile phone will prove to be the HTC Hero to come with Android this year, yet we will know more as soon as other details or leaked photos will make their way to the Web, so stay tuned to learn the news.