HTC Desire

HTC Desire is really Google's much-touted Nexus One under the hood. But, truth be told, despite HTC's considerably lower profile among the general public, the Desire has several features that mark it out as superior not just to Google's smart phone debut, but also to the vast majority of smartphones available on planet earth.

Features:

3.7in OLED screen offers 480 x 800 pixels

119 x 60 x 12mm and 135g weight

micro USB power/sync

3.5mm headphone jack and power/standby button on top. Android 2.1 (Éclair) operating system

There are seven home pages rather than the usual three (or the Nexus' five), each of which can be populated with standard Android widgets plus a few specials from HTC. When you pinch any of the homepages inwards you get all seven in one, which can help if you've forgotten what you've put where. It's easy enough to brush between home pages in any case.

Motorola's Droid

Motorola is introducing its Android 3G Motorola Droid, using Android 2.0 with a capacity of social networking etc and back in the race. Add in a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, 5 megapixel camera, improved browser, Wi-Fi, and A-GPS with sat nav capability, and things are looking very interesting at Motorola.

It's solidly put together though, weighing in at a surprisingly heavy 165g for its 60 x 116 x 14mm dimensions. The weight is partly due to its metal casing, which features a rubberised coating on the back to prevent it sliding around on smooth surfaces.

The large screen sits above a touch-sensitive Android menu bar with back, menu, home and search buttons, while the sides sport a volume rocker, blingy gold-coloured camera shutter button and micro USB power/sync slot, with a power/lock button and 3.5mm headphone jack on top.

The slide-out Qwerty keyboard is nice and thin, but found it just a little bit disappointing. It has four lines of good-sized keys with a large D-pad on the right. Yet, even though the keys are slightly raised, they're not as easy to find under the thumbs as recent models from Nokia or HTC.

Samsung's 1st Android handset

Samsung has finally taken the wraps off its first Google Android-based handset, with an official launch of its I7500 phone.

The device has been unmasked by O2’s German arm, which said it has the I7500 exclusively. It’s unlikely the operator will restrict sales solely to Germany, although we’ve yet to hear anything about a UK launch date.

Aside from all the usual Android OS characteristics, the I7500 supports unspecified HSDPA 3G bandwidth, GSM/GPRS/Edge connectivity, Bluetooth 2.0 and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. GPS is also built in.

A 3.2in, 320 x 480 touch-sensitive display is average these days, as is the I7500’s 5Mp camera and LED flash. However, you’ll also be able to record videos – with a selection of formats supported, including H.264, MPEG 4 and WMV – and listen to several audio formats, such as MP3, AAC and WMA.

The phone itself measures 115 x 56 x 11.9mm and is equipped with 8GB of internal storage. However, if that’s not enough for you, it also accepts Micro SD memory cards of up to 32GB in capacity.

Samsung’s I7500 will be available, in Germany at least, during June. A price hasn’t been announced yet. ®