Orange offering Hero customers early Desire upgrade

Orange has offered a customer a £50 upgrade to the HTC Desire despite his 18-month Hero contract not being due for an upgrade.

The customer logged into his Orange account online, clicked through to the upgrade options and the HTC Desire was displayed as an option, even though his next upgrade date is listed as January 9 2011.

Both the HTC Desire in brown and in black were displayed as options, although the black version is listed as 'coming soon'.

The HTC Desire presents a significant upgrade to the HTC Hero, with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Android 2.1 and a much better screen.

The news comes after the Android 2.1 update for the HTC Hero has yet again been delayed.

Orange customer service has denied that it is offering early upgrades to HTC Hero customers.

UPDATE: Despite Orange offering the HTC Desire as an upgrade option, the website will not let customers complete the transaction online, claiming they are 'not eligible for an upgrade'. Confusing times.