Samsung’s i7500 will run on android operating system

Samsung has announced their first Android based mobile phone - Samsung’s i7500 will be launched on O2’s German network in June.

Meanwhile, also on Monday, Vodafone Spain made a surprise announcement that it is launching HTC’s Magic handset, the second Android phone to reach the market after the T-Mobile G1 (also made by HTC).

Samsung’s Android handset combines the Google-led mobile platform with a five-megapixel camera, GPS and a 320×480-pixel, 3.2-inch Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) touchscreen. At 11.9mm thick, it uses a 1500 mAh battery and includes a 3.5mm headphone socket. The HTC Magic has a 320×480 3.2-inch LCD screen, a 3.2 megapixel camera, is 13.6mm thick and has a 1340 mAh battery. It has no 3.5mm headphone socket.

HTC’s Magic - Vodafone G2 phone

Vodafone has presented their brand new model of touchscreen-only Android gphone named: HTC’s Magic. According to the specs G2 will be equipped with a 3.2-inch QVGA screen front and center (that resolution might be a typo, HVGA seems more likely), HDSPA, GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera (no flash), and a G1-style trackball. Details on pricing and availability will be unveiled for local Vodafone markets as they see fit, but pricing in Spain will be from 99 to 199 Euro, depending on contract. Initial markets to nab the phone will be UK (due in April), Spain, Germany, France and Italy, with more countries to follow, and the phone will be a timed exclusive with Vodafone. Crazily enough, the phone has a proprietary headphone jack, proving once and for all that HTC doesn’t like you, but at least this one will ship with a touchscreen keyboard out of the gate — it’s running Cupcake.

Google accepting paid applications on Android Market

Google has opened their Android Market mobile app store for paid applications it seems to be the first step towards changing more integrated bussines model following Apple’s lead. Initially, the Android Market offered only free applications. Now, however, the search giant confirmed plans to next week begin selling applications through Android Market after rumors began circulating earlier this week.

Users of the Android-based T-Mobile G1 smartphone can expect to see the paid apps available starting in the middle of next week, according to a Google post on a blog for Android developers. The search giant said Google Checkout will serve as the payment and billing mechanism for the service.

Google Android on Nokia N810

Good example of the actual power of the Open Source solutions, in depth example of how to port Android 1.0 to the Nokia N810 from someone that actually did it - look no further than this writeup over at LinuxDevices.

As you’re probably well aware, the N810 is not a mobile phone. It’s an Internet Tablet, normally running on Linux. It has a built-in slide-out keyboard and a 4.1-inch touch screen so at least at a base physical level it seemed like a great candidate for Android. What Peter McDermott and his NthCode consulting firm did, was to evaluate the differences between a standard Linux install and the Android distribution and bring the N810 into compliance with Android.

Google Android versus Symbian - It’s not search rocket science

“Google’s dominance of the web will not translate to the mobile phone market” a senior executive at Symbian has said.

John Forsyth, vice president of strategy at Symbian, the platform that powers many of the world’s phones, said Google lacked experience. Google has formed an alliance with 33 firms to develop an open platform for mobile phones, called Android. Meanwhile, the head of Nokia in the UK said the firm was in discussions with Google about using the platform.Simon Ainslie, Nokia UK’s managing director, said: “We are always open to discussion and debate on that. We were not ready to make any commitment to it or discuss it at the time.”