14 DAY TRIAL // HTC Hero was the first mobile phone to arrive on the market last year with HTC's Sense solution on board. Running under Google's Android operating system, the device hasn't enjoyed a software upgrade ever since brought to shelves, but things have started to change recently. The Android 2.1 operating system started to be pushed on the HTC Hero handsets out there a few days ago, though it seems that not all units would receive it as expected.
To be more precise, wireless carriers in Europe won't have the Android 2.1 update delivered to their users until a couple of weeks from now. According to a recent article on pocket-lint, at least two mobile phone carriers in the UK confirmed this, including Three UK and Orange UK. Although users are eagerly waiting for the Android 1.5 OS on their Heroes to be bumped up to Android 2.1, they would have to wait a little longer before that would happen.
It seems that 3 UK does not have a specific date for when the Android 2.1 software update for Hero would start rolling-out, but it expects it to become available within a matter of weeks. As for Orange UK, the carrier reportedly announced that it would have the software ready for deployment in the “very near future.” Undoubtedly, these are not the words Hero owners would have liked to hear from operators.
HTC has started pushing out the Android 2.1 solution for Hero last month, when Sprint's version of the device got upgraded. As for European units, the update started a few weeks ago, with minor update being released into the wild, followed by the official Android 2.1 upgrade, which started rolling-out on unlocked Heroes since yesterday, and which should land on all devices over the air. The owners of a carrier-branded HTC Hero would still have to wait a few weeks before the new OS version is available for them too.