My HTC Hero is starting to overheat without me doing anything....no apps are running but the battery constantly is being drained

Battery life on cells phone, especially the hoard of smart phones coming out, can be very short, especially right out of the box. The following are some tips to extend the time between chargings for the Sprint HTC Hero (and probably the European Hero as well as the Verizon Eris).

• update your system software to version 1.56. To check which version you have, go to Settings > About phone > scroll to see software version. To update, go to Systems updates from the same menu, and select Firmware update.
• turn the brightness down of your screen. The brighter the screen, the more juice you use from the battery. Go to Settings > Sound and Display > Brightness.
• turn off bluetooth, wifi, GPS, and mobile web when not in use. I place these widgets on one of my screens to have easy on/off access. Go to (+) > HTC Widget > Settings. I turn off everything at night, turn on mobile web during the day, and turn on the others as I need them.
• turn off the "Always On Mobile Network" setting. Go to Settings > Wireless Controls > Mobile network settings > Enable always-on.
• limit the amount of push to sync email and other applications.
• turn of the automatic updates for apps like Weather, Facebook, Twitter, email. With the apps constantly checking and pulling data, the battery will drain much quicker.

I can usually go about two days between chargings with moderate use and three days with light use.

Good luck.