Prepare for the Android invasion

The HTC Desire.

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Google Android mobile phones have stolen the spotlight at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and the search giant has revealed that over 60,000 Android devices are being shipped every day.

With Microsoft's Windows Mobile losing traction in the market - and Windows Phone 7 not due out until the end of the year - many manufacturers are diving headfirst into Android and other open platforms.

HTC this morning unveiled three new handsets, two of which were Android-based and one running a highly customised version of Windows Mobile 6.5.

"We're now shipping more than 60,000 Android devices per day and that number has doubled over the last quarter," Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said in his keynote, adding there were now over two dozen Android models on the market globally.

Of Sony Ericsson's three new products, two - the Xperia X10 mini and X10 mini pro - run Android. Both of the tiny devices include a 2.6-inch touchscreen, version 1.6 of Android (with access to apps on the Android Market) and a 5-megapixel camera, but the "pro" model adds a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. 

Sony Ericsson's chief executive, Bert Nordberg, said most of the handsets launched by the company this year would run Android.

Samsung showed off an Android phone with a 3.7-inch touchscreen and a built-in projector for displaying content stored on the phone on any wall.

"Google is actually much more popular [than Windows Mobile] in terms of the internet experience and the search experience and some of their cloud [online] services," said HTC chief executive Peter Chou.

Most advanced Android phone coming to Australia

The HTC Desire, like the Google Nexus One handset that was launched in the US early this year, includes a large 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen, a 1GHz processor and a 5-megapixel camera.

The Desire and the Nexus One both run the latest version of Android - 2.1 - and feature similar dimensions, but the Desire adds an FM radio and includes an optical joystick instead of a trackball.

In a joint press conference with Telstra, the company announced that the Desire would launch in Australia in April this year. VVodafone would neither confirm nor deny plans to bring the device to New Zealand.

Separately, Motorola is also believed to be launching an Android phone, Dext, in Australia by mid-year. The device is tightly integrated with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and bundles texts, emails and social media updates into one inbox.

Vodafone would neither confirm nor deny plans to bring the device to New Zealand.

Motorola has said it plans to have 20 Android phones on the market globally by the end of this year.

MacBook design comes to Android

HTC today also unveiled Legend, which runs Android as well but offers a design that sets it apart from other smartphones. The entire exterior of the device is machined out of a single block of aluminium, inviting comparisons to the unibody Apple MacBook laptops.

Both the Legend and Desire feature an HTC application called Friend Stream, which aggregates Facebook, Twitter and Flickr updates into one organised stream. A similar feature will be available on Windows Phone 7 devices when they hit the market around Christmas.

Vodafone would neither confirm nor deny plans to bring the HTC Legend to New Zealand.

Acer showed off three new devices, all Android, including a high-end model with similar specs to the HTC desire that will join its "Ferrari" line of products.

Asher Moses travelled to Barcelona as a guest of Samsung

- © Fairfax NZ News