GOOD NEWS! If you have a Sprint Hero and a PC, you can download the update from HTC directly.

If you have a Mac, bad news, you need to use a PC, since the installer is a .exe file.

The download is QUITE large (118 MB) and as everyone is swarming the server, the download speed is slow (as of the this writing, 3.3 MB per sec, which is a 2 hour download.)

Please NOTE: If you try to do a download via the Sprint Network, you will not see that there is new firmware available. You must download this from HTC and use a PC to install this.

A number of rumors websites are posting screen images of Sprint Internal Customer Service websites which purport to an Eclair update in Early May.

We will immediately report when the update is available, but keep a few things in mind:

• These rumors are just… well, rumors! Every month since October 2009, there has been a rumor about the Eclair update coming to the HTC Hero, and none has been right yet.
• The update will be HUGE and Over The Air. So it will take a while.
• Back up your data. The chances are good you may lose all the data (pictures, music, SMS messages, account settings) on your phone.

We suggest you don’t get to worked up about this, and keep June in mind. We would LOVE to be wrong about this, and we would love to have Eclair NOW. Having used the HTC Incredible, the UI is just that.. INCREDIBLE! Pinch to zoom… awesome!

Still, some of us are counting down the release of the EVO.

Many rumor sites have offered a numerous dates on when the HTC Hero would be updated to 2.1.

April 26th was a mentioned date, but that is here, and there is no update.

It seems that June is the projected “preparatory” rollout. What will Eclair offer us HTC Hero owners? Quite a bit actuallly, since we missed the “donut” update:

• An improved Android Market experience.
• An integrated camera, camcorder, and gallery interface.
• Gallery now enables users to select multiple photos for deletion.
• Updated Voice Search, with faster response and deeper integration with native applications, including the ability to dial contacts.
• Updated search experience to allow searching bookmarks, history, contacts, and the web from the home screen.
• Updated Technology support for CDMA/EVDO, 802.1x, VPN, Gestures, and a Text-to-speech engine.
• Speed improvements for searching & the camera.

Eclair will add…

• Optimized hardware speed
• Support for more screen sizes and resolutions
• Revamped UI (this is the hold up, since HTC has the ‘Sense UI’ and needs to make it work with Eclair)
• New browser UI and HTML5 support
• New contact lists
• Better white/black ratio for backgrounds
• Improved Google Maps 3.1.2
• Microsoft Exchange support
• Digital Zoom
• MotionEvent class enhanced to track multi-touch events
• Improved virtual keyboard
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Live Wallpapers

But by the time June is here, we’ll all be drooling over the HTC Evo.

The HTC Hero is coming to Verizon, as soon as possibly November. This is a picture of Verizon CEO Eric Schmidt holding Verizon’s version of the phone. Verizon is modifying the phone, just as Sprint did for it’s US rollout.

The UK’s Daily Mail reports that the HTC Hero was voted Best Gadget of 2009 at the 2009 “Stuff Gadget Awards”, beating the iPhone 3Gs.

Fraser Macdonald, Stuff’s expert judge and Editor, stated

‘With the HTC Hero, we’ve finally got a phone that fully exploits the potential of the Android OS to be as clever and as sexy as the iPhone.’

The annual Stuff Gadget Awards reviews the best of consumer technology, and has a panel of expert judges.

To be fair, tho, the iPhone 3Gs was awarded the ‘Phone of the Year’ award.

Looks like plenty of boxes went out from Sprint with the HTC Hero. Where is my box?

Oct 11th. $180 (after $100) with a two year contract.

Hands-on with the Sprint HTC Hero from IntoMobile on Vimeo.

Android 1.6 (”Donut”) was already released in September, and will be “rolled out” to devices in October.

The early Sprint HTC Hero were boxed with Android 1.5, but will updated after activation. Some of us may get the updated version.

This release brings some very cool features, as illustrated in this video

• Quick search box: Similar to the iPhone’s search/Spotlight, this lets you find most anything quickly.
• Camera Upgrade: Launching the camera will be faster and the lag between shots will be shorter.
• Battery indicator: Let’s you save battery life by seeing which applications are draining the battery.
• Smoother scrolling and better response.
• The gallery, camera and video camera UI is now integrated.
• Pico: Multi-lingual text-to-speech engine that lets any Android app to “speak” a string of text with an accent that matches the language.

Hey, how did he get one when the rest of America doesn’t get one until Oct 11?

Anyway, it is fun to watch….