Whilst not due for release until the end of the month, they have recently come into possession of the brand spanking new HTC Hero, and are doing the decent thing and poring over every facet for our amusement.

The form factor comes under thorough scrutiny, as does the new Sense User Interface, HTC Footprints and the profile-based customisable homescreens.

Sit back and watch the future of Android! Well, the soon-to-be present for the UK and Europe (and past for savvy Rosie firmware/T-Mobile G1 hackers), but you get what I mean!

When talking to Pocket Lint about the slick new HTC Sense interface on the Hero, CEO Peter Chou made mention of it becoming available on handsets already on the market!

“HTC Sense will be available on some other existing devices”, he confirmed at the HTC Hero launch. He was more reticent to mention which handsets will be blessed with the update, but was adamant that they are in shops now.

Since we can count the number of HTC Android handsets currently available on two fingers, it is highly likely that the ‘own brand’ keyboardless HTC Magic will see it, as opposed to the ‘T-Mobile G1 With Google’.

I’m sure there’s a very real reason that the ‘with Google’ tag stayed there for a reason, and a new firmware might just break the very specific G1 agreement.

Still, we know that there are other ways to make it happen…

UPDATE: Confirmed. As we thought, got a ‘with Google’ phone? This ain’t for you.