HTC today announced the Hero for India. The smartphone running on Google’s Android operating system is the first device to bring the Android Market – an applicatiion store – to India.

The Hero also features a new user interface, which HTC calls the Sense UI. At a glance, the interface provides a lot of scope for customisation and enables users to create as many as seven screenfulls of widgets and applications. The default Android UI allows only three screens.

Unlike the HTC Magic, that did not have the Google Mobile Suite, the Hero has it and comes with Google Maps, a dedicated Gmail and IM client. We were mighty impressed by the overall build quality and finish of the device. By the way, it also supports multi-touch and the 3.2 inch WVGA display is sharp and responsive. The 5.0 MP camera looks pretty decent, though, we’d have preferred having a flsh with it. Mind you, there is no dedicated camera button and you’d be using the trackball to click pictures.

We like the fact that it comes with a 3.5 mm audio jack and not the micro USB jack HTC uses for most of its WinMo offerings. The Hero is priced at Rs 34,600 in Maharashtra and Rs 31,990 in the rest of India.