If you're ready, willing, and able to sign up for a new three-year agreement on Rogers, HTC's two inaugural Android sets just got a good deal cheaper for you. Originally priced at $199.99 on contract, both phones are now down to $99.99, which by our very rough calculations is about half off -- a stellar deal, we think, considering you're getting 7.2Mbps HSDPA, capacitive touch, 3.2 megapixel autofocus cameras with video capture, and HTC-customized Android ROMs. Maybe Rogers is discounting so quickly because they figure the phones aren't quite as appealing in light of the recent Hero announcement -- or, more intriguingly, maybe they're prepping for an actual Hero launch of their own now that we know there's an 850 / 1900 3G version in the mix.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Read - Dream (Black)
Read - Dream (White)
Read - Magic

HTC's a bit of a sieve when it comes to leaking new builds of really awesome things, and the trend continues with TouchFLO 3D 2.5 seemingly out in the wild and running on some Touch HDs. Rumor has it this is the build that'll premiere on the company's upcoming Firestone superphone, bringing some of its Sense concepts to the WinMo platform -- most notably including widget support. You've got new assignable shortcuts on the home screen, a revamped messaging experience (presumably to better fit in with HTC's contact-centric mantra), and a new Footprints screen. That's all well and good that Firestone buyers will likely see this, but here's the million-dollar question: what current devices will get official upgrades, if any?

[VIa wmpoweruser.com]

No mention was made of a Hero with 3G that'd work on Rogers or AT&T back at its announcement a few days ago, but HTC has been getting awfully good at making phones that work properly around these parts -- so we can't say we're entirely surprised to see a Hero approved for WCDMA on Bands II and V gracing the FCC today. For the record, Bands II and V are 1900 and 850MHz, respectively, which is exactly the combo AT&T subscribers would need to flip the switch on high-speed data. We're not sure if this negates rumors that the Hero would be coming to Sprint, but if we can just get this version released and in our hands, you know... maybe our minds would be operating with a little more clarity.

Ready for even more rumors about Windows Mobile 7 and Microsoft's mysterious "Pink" smartphone project? Good, cause we've got a few -- and the first is potentially huge. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley says her best understanding of "Pink" is now that it's a Microsoft-branded phone running a custom UI on top of Windows Mobile 7, developed by what's left of the Danger team and targeted at the Sidekick market. Yep, Microsoft-branded -- as in, the exact thing Microsoft has been denying for ages now. What's more, Redmond wouldn't be letting third parties use this new UI -- Pink would be manufactured only by Sharp or Motorola, who've made Sidekicks in the past. It all makes sense, even if it does feel a bit like MS is knifing its partners in the back -- companies like HTC and Samsung have been equally aggressive in layering their own UIs like TouchFLO 3D and TouchWiz on top of WinMo, but it's another thing entirely to compete against Microsoft itself, especially now that AdWeek says Microsoft's selected an agency to develop a Pink ad campaign. Yeah, things are starting to get a little wild -- we haven't even mentioned the open questions of whether the Zune HD is running Tegra because it's based on Windows Mobile 7 Chassis 1, or whether Pink will launch on Verizon, or whether Zune will appear on other phones, or... you get the idea. Hey Microsoft -- you want to clear any of this up by shipping some products?

Read - ZDNet
Read - AdWeek

Step aside, JAC Hero, there's a new firmware in town. Fatal1ty (that Fatal1ty?) and nk02 have not only managed to obtain the HTC Hero's new (and almost final) Sense UI-infused firmware, but have spruced it up for consumption by HTC Magic / Dream users. There's naturally a bit of glitchiness -- apparently WiFi and Bluetooth don't work at the moment, and the camera is all funkified, but the real treat here is the first implementation of Flash 10 on Android, even if it is a bit "laggy" on the RAM-starved G1. The widgets are also on display, and other than Flash the general experience is apparently pretty snappy. Naturally, the xda-dev folks won't be leaving well enough alone, and we should be seeing refined versions of this and future Hero firmwares leading up to and after the release of the actual device.

[Via xda-developers forum; thanks Jeremy W., screenshot by johnnylicious]

Screw the Pre -- government contracts are where the real action is at, and Sprint's got to be thrilled to know that it's the first, the last, and the only carrier to be used by the US Census in its 2010 once-per-decade review of the nation's denizens. We've known for some time that HTC would be supplying custom hardware to data collection folks in the field -- a device cleverly codenamed Census -- and indeed, Sprint's press release makes mention of the fact that about 140,000 workers started using the Harris-branded devices with integrated fingerprint readers and GPS back in April of this year. Sprint's also supplying a bit of infrastructure and about 1,500 wireless data cards, all told making this by far the most wireless Census in history. Makes you wonder what kind of equipment they're going to use in 2020, doesn't it?

The HTC Hero has made its first appearance on a UK carrier's website, but finds itself burdened with a teasing "coming soon" badge. Having talked to Orange, we can confirm previous reports that the device will be available for free on some, as yet undetermined but surely eye-gouging, price plans. The company said they are still testing the device and should have pricing information by tomorrow. Expect T-Mobile to quickly follow suit and unveil their Hero by another name (G1 Touch?), also fully subsidized. Both carriers will be offering the graphite edition of the phone, so if you have your heart set on the white Teflon-coated goodness, you may have to go the SIM-free route.

We doubt the July 15 delivery date is set in stone, but UK residents itching to get a little Hero in their lives are now able to pre-order HTC's latest for £429 ($708). That's pretty much what we'd expect for an unlocked set, but Orange is planning to offer the Hero free on contract, so we'd be inclined to hang on just a teensy bit longer. Video after the break.

[Via Phandroid]

While we twiddle our thumbs and wait for the Dash 3G and the Touch Pro2 to make their fanfare-laden debuts on good ol' Number Four (that's our pet name for T-Mobile USA, of course), literature is starting to show up that should make the wait marginally more bearable by giving us a few pretty pictures to look at and words to read. There's nothing Earth-shattering in here, but we see that the Dash 3G has 256MB of ROM and an impressive rated 8.3 days of standby time -- we'll believe that when we get that kind of performance ourselves -- while the Touch Pro2 moves up to 512MB, keeps the 8.3 days of standby, and touts its unusual full-duplex speakerphone that dominates the rear of the device. If you do a lot of conference calling, you must be beside yourself right about now, eh?

We personally prefer having phones in our own hands -- call us crazy -- but a close second would have to be full, revealing pictorials that do a great job of breaking down every little detail. That's where MobileBurn swoops in with its 11-strong gallery of shots of T-Mobile's branded Dash 3G from a New York event this week, showing a distinct lack of Inner Circle support -- and no, T-Mobile, we hate to inform you that the inclusion of myFaves support is not an even trade. That said, we've no doubt this'll still be a decent seller for folks looking to replaces their aging gen-1 Dashes with something a little speedier when it hits retail next month.

We've got some good and bad news... mostly bad, though. First, the good news: HTC is looking into finding a way to bring its new Sense UI -- the one featured prominently in the new Hero -- to its non-Google branded Android devices, such as Canadian carrier Roger Wireless' Magic. Unfortunately, and this is the bad news, even that's not a sure thing, and as you can probably guess from the wording, any phone that's got the "with Google" branding, like T-Mobile USA's G1 and myTouch 3G, won't be getting a chance at all due to the same licensing terms that prevented Microsoft Exchange clients on those same phones. Them's the breaks, folks, but we're sure some hacker with enough know-how will bypass the silly restrictions and do it anyway.

Is it cooler than Sprint's Snap? That's for you to judge, but whatever the case, Verizon has now announced its own version of HTC's latest WinMo Standard handset. The so-called Ozone features WiFi, global roaming capability, VZ Navigator and visual voicemail support, a QWERTY keyboard (which feels great if it's anything like its cousin's), and a beefy 1500mAh battery that we're betting will keep this thing going all day and then some. The best part, though, might be the price: it'll be just $49.99 on contract after rebate when it launches online on June 29 and in stores on July 13.

We're going to need some real time with the device to make a final opinion, but we're cautiously optimistic that HTC has a winner with its new Hero. Here's what we've got from our first looks at the phone in London and NY:

• The beveled edges along the back makes the handset sit comfortably in the hand, and while the teflon coat doesn't necessarily feel revolutionary, it's going to make a world of difference after a couple of months riding in our grubby pockets. It's certainly solid, but much more so than other "brick" phones.
• The Sense UI (or as HTC terms it, "user experience") riding a capacitive touchscreen offers a people-centric approach to managing your information that is absolutely dreamy at first blush -- though it shares a lot of TouchFLO heritage. In fact, HTC promises to have a very similar Sense-branded experience for Windows Mobile.
  
• The on-screen keyboard also seems quite useable with a nice simulated haptic forced-feedback bounce when you strike each key in either landscape or portrait mode (which can naturally be deactivated). HTC has built its own touch keyboard from the ground up, and in our brief couple of tests we'd say it's probably the best touchscreen typing experience we've ever felt. It never lags behind, and has great colorful visual cues for its auto-corrected words -- green means it's suggesting a correctly spelled word, red means we've gone off the beaten path, and the T9-style multiple suggestions are heavenly.
• This intuitive one-hander isn't shy with the specs either as we've already seen in the official press release. Our only concern is possible sluggishness from the Qualcomm processor that cause the graphic transitions to stutter a bit and results in screen rotations that feel dangerously uncomfortable.
• We were told that the device we saw was running pre-production firmware so there's still time to tweak -- though not much with a July European launch.
• The Hero is not a "Google Experience" device. As such, you won't find the Google logo anywhere (no big deal) but you also won't be downloading any firmware updates over the air -- sideloading only kids. Not a deal breaker but an annoying and seemingly arbitrary limitation nonetheless. There's still a small lack of clarity of how updates will work with HTC's "mods" living on top of basic Android -- even if they're able to port in new Android versions seamlessly, we imagine there will be some breakage.
• For a device without a physical keyboard, the Hero seems a little thick up against its HTC Magic, Nokia N97, and iPhone 3G counterparts, but not overly so.
• HTC has confirmed that whichever (unspecified) carrier gets the phone in the US will have a modified version, both in software (carrier-specific services) and in hardware chassis tweaks. Just don't take our teflon away, ok HTC?
• Battery is the same larger slab that's in the myTouch, and HTC also claims to have done some vague, unspecified things OS-side to improve battery life as well. "Heavy users will be able to get through a day."
• The camera is responsive and seems to do a fine job at autofocus, but wasn't astonishingly great at first glance.
• The phone will be available for free on T-Mobile UK -- if only we could be so subsidy lucky in the US.
  

There are four videos for you after the break. The first shows Flash running at full screen on the HTC Hero courtesy of YouTube. The second, however, shows it failing when running a trailer from Yahoo Movies, just like Adobe did -- in fact, it crashed all four times that we tried it on what we were told was a Hero running the final build of the OS. Third one is a quickie showing the on-screen keyboard rotating from portrait to landscape and back. Lastly, we demonstrate the hardware a little bit and show off our lightning speed at typing. For the real completists, there's also a new gallery of hands-on shots from the NY launch event right below.

Been hankering to see what Flash -- via the Open Screen Project -- actually looks like on an Android (or any modern mobile) device? Well hanker no more, ya'll. Adobe has helpfully dropped a video on us which has Flash team member Adrian Ludwig demo'ing the newly minted HTC Hero (multitouch gestures included). Once the content loads up, it seems to run at a pretty snappy rate, though waiting on Flash content to appear doesn't look encouraging if you're in the midst of casual browsing (or on a weak connection). We'll be interested to see what this is like in the real world -- and for platforms beyond Android -- but for now at least we've got something to go on.

Read - HTC Hero: The first Android device with Flash
Read - New HTC Hero Delivers More Complete Web Browsing Experience with Adobe Flash Technology

As we prepare for HTC's official launch event today, we're starting to see some details appear on HTC's own website of the much rumored Hero. Through some URL trickery, we've managed to unearth several details that confirm the previous rumors. Hero includes the new HTC Sense widget-based interface that puts at-a-glance info right up front on the home screen where it belongs. A new Scenes profile feature lets you transform your phones focus from business to weekend mode. Viewing your contacts shows the usual data in addition to the interactions you've had through social networking status updates and photos from the likes of Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter. A dedicated search button searches the phone as well as services like Twitter. In fact, like Palm's Pre, the HTC Hero seems ready to fully integrate your local data with all your subscribed social media sites. The big unveiling is just about an hour away, until then, have a poke around HTC's Hero site yourself by hitting the read link below.

Update: First images are out! More after the break. Inside you'll find Qualcomm's MSM7200A proc running Android at 528MHz, 512MB/288MB ROM/RAM, 3.2-inch TFT-LCD with 320 x 480 pixel rez, 900/2100MHz HSPA and Quad-band GSM, trackball, GPS, 802.11b/g WiFi, 3.5mm audio jack, G-sensor, compass, and 5 megapixel auto-focus cam with microSD expansion. It's all there baby.

Update 2: A bit more detail just rolled in. The White version has an industry-first Teflon coating (right, just like your pans) to keep things clean and grime free. Multi-touch and anti-fingerprint coating too. Hero arrives in Europe in July on T-Mobile and Orange, Asia later in the summer, and North America even later in 2009.