posted by: Hiral Bhatt Jun 24 2009 @ 11:32 am

A ‘little’ late, but we finally have it - India’s first Android-powered smartphone, HTC Magic.

After months of speculation, Airtel brings to India the an Android-based phone, the HTC Magic. The phone is among the 3 Android-based phones to be launched this year. HTC Magic was first showcased at the Mobile World Congress in February this year.

About Android Platform

Android is the Open Handset Alliance’s mobile software platform. The Android platform opens up the opportunity for customers to customize their device with multiple mobile applications.

HTC Magic

The HTC Magic offers a 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with a 3.2 mega-pixel camera, Trackball with Enter button. It comes with a Smart Dialler and a an on-screen keyboard.

The phone weighs 116 grams and measures 4.45 x 2.19 x 0.54 inches.

What’s Airtel Offering with HTC Magic:
- Utility based applications such as Portfolio Manager, Hello Tune Manager, Weather Channel, Mobshare, In-mobile search and City Search

- Airtel customers to get free data download of 100 MB per month for 6 months

Price and Availability

The HTC Magic will be available at a market price of Rs. 29,900 at Airtel Relationship Centres and authorised HTC resellers across 17 cities.

The cities include Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Cochin, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Patna.

Timeline

- September, 2008 - the first Android-based phone, the G1, was launched.

- Kogan Agora, another one based on the same platform was launched by a company called Kogan Technologies.

- Google revealed Android Dev Phone 1, the SIM-unlocked and hardware-unlocked variant of the G1 phone especially for the developers in many countries, including India.

- Nokia said no to Android - plans a gradual shift towards the Linux platform.

- In February this year, Chinese telecom major Huawei has also announced its first Android-based phone.

- Samsung too will be launching its Android-based phones this year.

- LG is reportedly planning to come out with its first Android based handset later this year as well.

Sourced from: www.techtree.com