Hasta La Gadget!

False starts aside, that promised late June Android 2.1 upgrade for the GSM version of the HTC Hero is finally here — for unlocked models, anyhow. It seems that users are being greeted with an update clocking in at nearly 80MB, and despite HTC’s own warning to the contrary, apps aren’t being wiped, so you should be able to undertake the endeavor pretty safely. Orange and T-Mobile versions of the phone apparently haven’t yet begun to see the rollout, but the wait shouldn’t be terribly long now — meanwhile, let us know how your upgrade experience goes in comments, folks.

Unlocked HTC Hero gets Android 2.1 update — no, for real this time originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In its day, the HTC Hero with its brand new Sense UI and browser with Flash Lite was a breakthrough, multitouch Android handset. As such, it quickly became a big seller for HTC and the carriers that sold it. Now one year later, owners of the GSM variant are still waiting for their chance at the latest Android 2.1 update. As a harbinger of things to come (we hope), the Hero 2.1 update just landed in HTC’s home country of Taiwan. Unfortunately, this will likely be the last update Hero owners receive… via official channels, anyway.

[Thanks, Lee]

HTC Hero (GSM) Android 2.1 update finally arrives… in Taiwan originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Jun 2010 04:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve known for some time that Cox — a name traditionally associated with cable television — is on the cusp of turning over its trial CDMA networks in a handful of markets to the public as it marches towards LTE on a swath of 700MHz bandwidth, but what we don’t know is the kind of hardware selection we can expect once these guys go live. Take it for what you will, but it seems that an unbranded CDMA HTC Hero that looks suspiciously like Sprint’s version of the handset has just changed hands on Craigslist, and — you guessed it — it’s got a Cox splash screen when you power it on. Cox’s strategy boss said just last week in an interview with Light Reading Cable that there’d be Android devices in the mix for the launch, but he played coy when pressed on details; the Hero could certainly be on the short list, but doesn’t it seem a little long in the tooth to kick off a brand new network launch? Of course, this could be a hoax or a cobbled-together prototype to help test the trial network, so we’ll just have to hang tight and see how this cookie crumbles; in the meantime, follow the break for the damning video evidence of the Cox Hero in the wild.

Continue reading HTC Hero spied with Cox firmware?

HTC Hero spied with Cox firmware? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 21:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d been hearing rumors lately that HTC’s Droid Eris — a phone that has never quite made it out from under the Droid’s shadow — is in the midst of being discontinued by Verizon, but the imminent launch of an Android 2.1 update might just buy it a new lease on life. In fact, the update makes this phone just about the first Hero variant anywhere in the world to be graced with an upgrade to Google’s latest and greatest stuff, beating Sprint’s version thanks to a string of delays that have pushed it out to some unidentified period in the second quarter. We’ve yet to see any reports of folks actually receiving the update notification on their devices, but Verizon’s official support Twitter account is tweeting about the upgrade — which should fix numerous bugs on top of the hotly-anticipated Eclair boost — so we’d expect it to start hitting the wild shortly. Keep us on top of your experiences in comments, won’t you?

[Thanks, Richard]

Update: Verizon has now posted the PDF changelog for your perusal while you wait. Thanks, Michael V.!

Verizon’s HTC Droid Eris getting Android 2.1 any time now originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 May 2010 15:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is turning into a serious boy-who-cried-wolf kind of situation, but evidence is growing today that HTC and Sprint are finally — yes, finally — ready to drop a hot batch of Sense-laden Android 2.1 on eager Hero owners. A screen shot of a Best Buy employee news page reads that the update was “delayed until this week” and will be “in all stores” by this Friday, May 7; what that means isn’t exactly clear, but it could suggest that all Heros being sold in Best Buy Mobile locations will have the update applied by then. As for current customers, Best Buy is sending out instructions on how staff can help owners upgrade if they happen to wander into the store, but otherwise, it should be available from HTC’s site (yeah, no over-the-air action here). Stay tuned, folks.

[Thanks, John]

Sprint’s HTC Hero update to Android 2.1 finally coming on May 7? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 May 2010 21:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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