I've been hearing for awhile now that HTC's Hero will hit Sprint in time for the US holiday shopping season. We've all also heard rumblings about a Samsung Android phone coming to the Now Network sometime this year. Well, Ross over at Engadget found a post on xda-developers that points to October the 11th as, um, "A-Day" for Sprint customers just waiting to get their mitts on some CDMA-style Android fun. Hey, that's just in time for a Fall CTIA launch!

According to said post - from which the above image comes - Sprint's readying both the Hero and the Samsung Q for launch on 10/11. While I'm not quite sure what the Q is, it does harken back to this Engadget Mobile post detailing the WiFi certification of the Samsung "Instinct Q," SPH-M900. "SPH" usually means "Sprint" in Samsung Model # lingo, so that would all make sense. Right?

Meanwhile, I've got it on pretty good rumorlicious authority that Sprint will pull their usual HTC smartphone routine by giving Hero a look all its own before it launches stateside. Judging from what they did with the Touch Pro, I'm guessing Sprint's changes to Hero will only be skin deep, but who really knows? Whatever the case, here's hoping that HTC and Sprint get Hero running a bit faster than my GSM review loaner runs before October: Hero's got a ton of potential but it's a wee bit laggy in its current form.

And, oh yeah, there's mention of the BlackBerry Aries (8520 for the CDMA set) and LG LX610 (Lotus 2) in that photo, too.  Happy Holidays, Sprinters! Meantime, check out some of our Hero videos, why don'tcha?