I just got my hands on an HTC Hero demo unit for 10 minutes

Jonathan Mulholland here!

I just got to have a 10 minute play with an HTC Hero, and I’m impressed.

First impressions – it feels great in the hand. It’s a very angular shape but is very comfortable to hold.

The material is a soft plastic. It seems to resist finger prints and feels much nicer to hold than my iPhone – it doesn’t get slipery or greasy like the back of the plastic iPhone’s can. It also feels quite small to hold – it’s not as big as the pictures I’ve seen suggest.

The UI is ‘whizzy’. Feels more consistent than the vanilla version of Android. Didn’t get much time to play with it but it does look good and felt reasonabley fast.

The grey colour that Orange will be selling this in looks very smart, really makes it look like a desirable handset.

I had planned to be getting a Samsung i7500 (if it ever shows up) at some point over the summer but now I’m not so sure!

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