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There are just a few reasons why anyone needs to upgrade their smartphones. First is the OS. But unless the promise of the new version is precisely what you need or has the coolest feature you want, it won’t pitch to your wallet. The next is cutting edge technology. If the new model has the features you need or the coolest raved by techno geeks in the community, then it has some right to your wallet’s content. That’s what the HTC Legend has over the HTC Hero it is meant to succeed.

Unveiled at the recent Mobile World Congress, the Legend simply confirms the online rumors that it is one hell of an Android smartphone that every HTC Hero users should upgrade to. It’s not as whimsical as Acer’s Liquid e which has nothing more than a mere 2.1 Éclair upgrade over its earlier Liquid model. The Legend is exactly what you should expect the least from an upgrade.

Upgrading the Hero

HTC Hero owners can forget about getting an upgrade patch to their 1.5 Cupcake OS. With the new Legend, it’s not worth waiting any further after nearly 4 months into the release of the new 2.1 Éclair and losing out on the wonderful features on the Legend. It only butters up the suspicion that Android users with OS customized by their makers like having the Sense UI, TouchWiz UI or Rachel UI are stuck with the OS versions they have.

They can’t upgrade that easily as they need their makers reworking the UI on the new version before any upgrade can happen. But makers obviously put a higher priority on coming out with newer models.

For starters, the Legend is carved out from a single piece of aluminum and weighs 9 grams lighter and is 3 mm thinner than the Hero. Not only does its brushed metal finish and simpler lines give it a classier and more elegant look and feel, but its solid construction imbues a stronger and sturdier body that became evident when HTC CEO Peter Chou hurled the Legend right smack against a wall and survived unscathed at a press con at the MWC.

You also get the newer optical trackpad instead of the Hero’s more conventional trackball. At a glance, its 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen with multitouch looks deceivingly the same but it gets better with an AMOLED display technology and a 16 million colors depth up from 65k color depth in the Hero.

Its engine gets an entirely new and more powerful 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor that updates the Hero’s 526 MHz Qualcomm MSM 7200. Internal storage gets a 384 MB RAM, slightly higher than the 288 MB RAM in the Hero but you also get the same 512 MB ROM and microSD expandability up to 16 GB.

Other than these, the Legend has the same dual band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA radio on the 3G network, quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE on 2G, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, miniUSB 2.0, A-GPS and digital compass, stereo FM with RDS, 3.5mm audio jack and the same 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and geo tagging.

Available in April

HTC made it clear back at the MWC that it is making the new Android smartphones available to European makers starting this April. That includes the HTC Legend, along with the Desire. It will come out in a couple of brushed aluminum body colors – gray and black. As usual, it’s too early to get some pricing information from the maker but if the unofficial Amazon UK and Expansys price list of 430 SIM-free is right for the more feature-endowed HTC Desire, we can expect the Legend to come well below that amount.

To get more info on the HTC Legend and other new releases then click here. They compare the best deals for the Legend and lots of other phones.

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