Wow, just one year old? And it's already lined up for sunset. I guess it's par for the course with a relatively new O/S. Given all the work that has been done to optimize the usage of it, and the development of custom ROM's, I'd have to say that we should see the Hero still talked about for quite a while longer. It's a great phone in so many ways. Yeah, it's not the fastest/sharpest tool in the shed now, but it's great for the price. I really would have liked to see the Nexus One come out on Sprint... essentially the Hero on steroids. But it would be way too close to what the Evo is. Thus, Sprint stepped back and continued on with the 4G offering of Evo.
Unless you're downloading a ton of stuff on a regular basis, you'd think most people would be satisfied with a 3G phone sporting a reasonably fast processor. The 4G is definitely faster, where available, but I see it as a luxury. Also, the Hero form factor is better for me... yeah, the screen could be a little bigger, but for most use it serves just fine. The curved edges make it very comfortable to hold and to insert/extract the phone from a pocket. The Evo feels quite larger to me.
