Sprint Announces HTC Hero, Available October 11 for $179.99

Those dastardly Europeans have been playing with the HTC Hero for the better part of the summer, but, as the signs have indicated, Sprint (NYSE: S) has announced that they’ll be bringing it to North American shores, available on October 11th. As you can see, those pictures from earlier this week of the chinless Hero from China are exactly what we’ll be getting over here, and I think we can all be happy about the considerably smoother design. The Hero is the hottest Android smartphone out there right now, thanks in large part to its 5 megapixel camera, Sense user interface, and smudge-resistant Teflon coating, but Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE)’s X3 Rachael will be stepping it up a notch in the near future. Regardless, let’s take a look at what the Hero is bringing to the table.

• 3.2″, 320 x 480 touchscreen
• 113 mm x 56 mm x 13 mm, 127 g
• 5 megapixel camera
• 528 MHz Qualcommprocessor
• MSM7200A processor
• 512 MB ROM, 288 MB RAM
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• HSPA 900/2100 MHz bands, quadband GSM/EDGE, WiFi, GPS, compass
• microSD slot supporting up to 32 GB memory cards

The information sheet also reminds us of a cool little thing called Scenes, which lets you set different home screens for different parts of your life (a work scree with e-mail and to-do shortcuts, a personal one with music and pictures, etc.).  If you’ve seen Sense in action and are sold on picking up a Hero, you can preorder one now for $179.99 on contract and after rebates.

[via Sprint]